The race to catch Ireland’s first salmon of the year on the River Drowes used to be a sprint. An imaginary starting pistol would be fired as dawn was breaking at 8.30am on New Year’s Day and within half an hour there would be a fish on the bank.

However, more recently that race has become more of a marathon and a test of an angler’s endurance. Think Mo Farah rather than Usain Bolt.

This year January had been and gone before Jackie McErlean caught the first salmon, crossing the finishing line on February 4. In the interests of conservation he released the fish back into the river and was rewarded with a silver ingot worth 750 euro, presented to him by fishery owner Shane Gallagher.

For 2020 Shane is again putting up a one kilo bar of silver for the first angler to catch-and-release a “bar of silver,” as anglers refer to a salmon fresh in from the ocean.

Will it be a sprint or a marathon?

An old angler used to maintain that if no-one caught a salmon within half an hour of the season opening on January 1, then nothing would be caught that day. He argued that if a fish saw the first bait hit the water it would regard it as prey and bite. However, as more and more baits rained down from above the salmon would realise it was the prey, and run for cover.

“There were some years when there was a fish on the bank shortly after nine(9am),” Shane recalls.

And the race didn’t always end there. Back in the mists of time the first salmon was whisked away to Sligo and put on a train for Dublin where it was auctioned off to the highest bidder. As the city’s exclusive hotels and restaurants competed to put it on their menu, the King of Fish often fetched a king’s ransom.

However, in recent years catching that elusive first salmon has taken much longer. The last Fermanagh angler to do so was Enniskillen’s Brian McClintock, and that was on January 27, 2015. That trend has continued over the intervening years with the first fish of 2019 not appearing until the beginning of February.

“That seems to be the trend all right,” says Shane. “Definitely.”

He reckons that the salmon are running into the Drowes from the ocean a month later than they did in the past, with the number of spring fish rising from St. Patrick’s Day to peak in April, while the peak of the summer grilse run comes in June, weather and water levels permitting.

That is not to say there will be no salmon in the Drowes on New Year’s Day. Shane spotted a fresh fish leaping in the Mill Pool during the first week in December.

“It just came out of the river as I was driving past,” he explains.

That fish has probably run on up into Lough Melvin by now but others will follow, helped into the Drowes by the big tides between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

In any case, many of the anglers on the Drowes on January 1, are not particularly worried about catching a salmon. They are there to take part in a tradition, and what better way for a fisherman to welcome in the New Year than to cast a line on the Drowes?

The tackle shop at Lareen Park will open daily from December 30, between 9am and 2pm, and from 6am on January 1, for the sale of licences and permits.

Prices for 2020 remain unchanged. A day’s fishing costs 25 euro and a season ticket is 300 euro.

A regional licence covering the Drowes is 56 euro and a licence covering all regions is 100 euro.

Along with their licence an angler will initially get three carcass tags, allowing him or her to catch and keep three salmon between January 1, and May 12. They can then obtain up to seven more tags for the remainder of the season.