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St. John's National School, Ballisodare, Co. Sligo

Visit to Ballisodare River

27th Jun 2025
Last Monday we were kindly invited by Gerry Merrick, Chairman of the Ballisodare Fishing Club, to hopefully spot the salmon making their way up river as spawning season approaches. 
Gerry spoke to all the children about how the Cooper Family from Markree Castle built the salmon pass on the river and introduced salmon from the Moy to the river.
He told the children how the salmon leave the river after birth and travel north towards Greenland before returning back to the river to spawn.
He made the children aware of all the work the Fishing Club are doing to maintain and increase the salmon population on the river, while in nearly all other locations the population is declining, Ballisodare is maintaining their numbers.
The children learned that the Fishing Club expect that around 8000 salmon will travel upstream this season. Gerry showed us the counting machine they have installed to monitor numbers. 
Unfortunately we didn't see the salmon jumping but we did see them resting before they made their journey & we couldn't believe how big they were.
If you get a chance in the next couple of weeks check it out.