My first Christmas present arrived mid-November.

It was from Eamon Ryan, the Republic’s Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications.

Don’t know the man. Never met him. Doubt I ever will.

And even without a strategically placed fig leaf and fruit of knowledge in hand, I think it is fairly safe to say Eamon wouldn’t know me from Adam.

You are probably sighing: “Ah, the season of goodwill meets the generosity of strangers.”

To which Ebenezer Scrooge would surely scoff: “Bah humbug!”

Old Eb wasn’t one for the Spirit of Christmas – past, present or yet to come.

I should point out that Eamon’s present was not a personal gift to me. It didn’t have my initials painstakingly etched in the top lefthand corner or neatly embroidered down one side.

Santa’s little helpers had not carefully parcelled it up and addressed it to me with strict instructions: “Not to be opened until Christmas Day”.

I have no doubt Eamon gives personal gifts, to friends and family, but in this instance his generosity extended, not just to this particular time waster but to all those who chose to fritter away their lives trying to catch salmon.

Trying? This year it was exceptionally trying. You would have had as much chance of spotting a unicorn as a salmon.

And don’t start me on about the weather. It was as dry as the Gobi for the early part of the season; then a tsunami of interminable rain washed across the country and sank all hope of fish for dinner.

So when Eamon’s present arrived on the Angling Ireland website, I simply had to open it, ignoring those strict instructions from those pesky little elves not to do so before Christmas Day.

Even my wife’s warning that if I wasn’t a good boy Santa wouldn’t bring me any presents could not deter me.

After all it has been a long time since I was a boy and even longer since I was good. I may share my name with the patron saint of travellers but the halo went with the umbilical cord.

With my wife’s warning still echoing between my ears I confess to feeling more than a little nervous as I clicked on the photograph of angler Sarah Healy cradling a fine salmon in her arms beneath the heading: “Consultation: Salmon and Sea Trout Regulations and Conservation Measures for the 2024 Season”.

My fear was that after the disaster that was the 2023 season Eamon would pull the plug on salmon angling on many rivers and I’d be sucked down the drain.

How big a disaster?

Shane Gallagher, owner of the salmon fishery on the River Drowes, which drains Lough Melvin and enters the sea south of Bundoran, put it in perspective.

“It was a very poor year, probably one of the worst we have seen,” he said.

He pointed out that it was the same story all over Ireland and in Scotland.

As I scrolled down the list of Ireland’s salmon rivers, county by county, district by district, my heart began to sink.

I had started in Dublin, travelling down the east coast and along the south coast almost as far as Cork without finding a single river where an angler could fish for salmon and, if lucky enough to catch one, take it home for dinner.

There were a few offering catch-and-release, where you must put any fish you land back into the river, but the majority were ominously marked “Closed”.

The first ray of hope came when I arrived at the Munster Blackwater. It is to open for business as usual with a maximum permitted catch for the 2024 season of 2,616 salmon.

I have no idea how they arrive at that figure but it is supposed to be the number of fish in excess of the number required to sustain a viable population of salmon in the river.

A number of rivers in Cork and Kerry will also open but travelling up the west coast the vast majority of rivers in Limerick and Galway will be closed.

The mighty Moy rolled up from the bottom of my computer screen. If it was marked for closure it was lights out; so a huge sigh of relief to see that it is scheduled to open with a maximum permitted catch of 5,421 salmon for the 2024 season.

Closer to home the Erne is to remain closed, as it has been for a number of years.

It was once one of the most productive salmon fishing rivers in Europe, with tens of thousands of salmon running into it from the sea each year.

However, the building of the hydro-electric dams at Belleek and Ballyshannon created insurmountable obstacles for a species that relies on being able to freely migrate between sea and fresh water to complete its life cycle.

As a result, only a trickle of juvenile fish make the journey from the rivers of Fermanagh to their feeding grounds in the ocean and back as adults to spawn.

The nearest salmon fishing river for Fermanagh’s anglers is now the Drowes. It is to remain open with a maximum permitted catch of 2,243 fish, including 384 spring salmon that have spent two or more winters at sea.

That is probably Eamon’s biggest Christmas present to local anglers who can once again look forward to trying their luck on the Drowes when it opens in just a few weeks’ time on New Year’s Day.

There is no mention in the consultation document of bag limits but these are expected to remain unchanged with an angler being issued with up to 10 tags, allowing him or her to keep up to 10 salmon for the 2024 season.

The cost of an Inland Fisheries Ireland licence is also expected to remain unchanged.

A day permit to fish the Drowes stays at €25 and a season ticket is still €300.

Tight lines.