New Year’s Day marked the start of the salmon fishing season, although apparently no-one told the fish.

Or maybe somebody did, and the salmon – being wily, clever creatures – decided to keep their head down and mouths zipped closed, for fear of ending up on the dinner plate of some hungry hallion.

In addition, that nice Angie Phillips, who does the weather on the BBC, forgot to turn off the taps.

She should have had a word in the ear of the rain gods, pointing out that this is the holiday season and telling them to take a break.

The result was that opening day on the River Drowes, which drains Lough Melvin into the sea just south of Bundoran, was a wash-out, and the only fish caught were last year’s spawned-out kelts.

Around several dozen anglers made the New Year’s Day pilgrimage to the Drowes, but sadly that is what it has become: an act of faith.

The last time the Leitrim river produced a salmon on opening day was back in 2010, although prior to that, it was almost taken for granted that a salmon would be caught on the Drowes on January 1.

Sometimes two or three were landed.

However, the salmon is in trouble – and not just here in Ireland.

Last month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species moved Great Britain’s salmon population into the “endangered” category, as a result of a 30 to 50 per cent decline in numbers since 2006, and a projected decline of 50 to 80 per cent between 2010 and 2025.

Internationally, the ICUN identified a number of key pressures faced by salmon, including climate change, poor water quality, dams and barriers, salmon farming, exploitation at sea, and invasive non-native species.

As a result: “Atlantic salmon are now restricted to a small proportion of the rivers they inhabited a century ago across northern Europe and North America, due to multiple threats over the course of their long-distance migrations between freshwater and marine habitats.

“Climate change affects all stages of the Atlantic salmon’s life cycle, influencing the development of young salmon, reducing prey availability, and allowing invasive alien species to expand their range.

“Dams and other barriers block access to spawning and feeding grounds, while water pollution and sedimentation, primarily from logging and agriculture, lead to higher mortality of young salmon,” stated the IUCN.

“Breeding with escaped farmed salmon threatens many wild populations, and may weaken their ability to adapt to climate change. Mortality due to salmon lice from salmon farms is also of great concern.

“A significant rising threat is the invasive Pacific pink salmon, which is spreading rapidly across northern Europe,” the IUCN added.

Several such Pacific pink salmon have been caught on the Drowes.

However, it is pollution which is seen as the biggest threat to salmon in Ireland.

According to the republic’s Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications: “The key issue to support increased stocks is improvement in water quality.

“Many of our rivers are not at a sufficiently high water quality level to support sustainable stocks.”

It said the pollution is “often caused by agricultural activities, and to a lesser extent, insufficient treatment of waste water”.

While anglers feel that salmon numbers have been decreasing year on year, the Republic’s Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, paints a more optimistic picture.

Announcing that 81 rivers will be open to salmon anglers this year, he said: “The general improvements in stocks from 2023 have been maintained for 2024.

“However, collective effort and persistence are required to see the state of all individual river stocks improve over time.

“The stocks themselves are completely dependent on everybody increasing our efforts in facing up to environmental, climate and biodiversity impacts from human interventions.”

Minister Ryan is advised by Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), based on scientific assessments of 140 genetically distinct salmon runs in rivers across Ireland.

The assessments are carried out every year by the Technical Expert Group on Salmon (TEGOS) – an all-Ireland independent scientific group comprising experts from a range of bodies.

It determines the “conservation limit” of each river – the limit being the number of adult spawning fish required to maintain a healthy and sustainable stock.

Anything above that limit is regarded as surplus and can be harvested.

It is on that basis that the IFI, supported by TEGOS, decided which rivers were sufficiently above their specific conservation limit to be open to fishing; which rivers met a sufficient percentage of the limit to be classified for catch-and-release angling, where any salmon caught must be put back into the water; and which rivers were so far below the limit as to close them to any exploitation.

As a result, 42 rivers are to be open for fishing, as a sustainable surplus has been identified in these rivers; 39 rivers are to be classified as open for catch-and-release angling; and 66 rivers are to be closed as they have no sustainable surplus available.

The Drowes is forecast to have a surplus of 2,243 fish, of which 384 can be spring salmon, having spent two or more winters at sea, and 1,859 can be grilse, having spent one winter at sea.

Fishery owner Shane Gallagher has reported that in 2023, anglers caught 307 spring salmon and 520 grilse on the Drowes.

In conclusion, Minister Ryan said: “Ireland has long been internationally recognised for embedding the conservation imperative as a vital component of our management of the precious salmon resource.

“While the policy has served us well for more than a decade, I intend, as part of a broader inland fisheries policy review, to set out options for improvement, with an even greater focus on conservation in our management regime, and for modernising licensing requirements, to ensure access to the resource where its conservation and biodiversity needs are met.”