After delay, Corner Brook salmon anglers line up early to purchase licences

Anglers on Newfoundland's west coast lined up bright and early this morning to get their Atlantic salmon licences.

Dozens waited outside Barnes Sporting Goods store in Corner Brook before 9 a.m. to be the first to purchase this year's ticket to fish.

"I'm buying some salmon licences because it's the first day they are available and I fish every year with my girlfriend and my kids and I fished all my life with my dad and grandfather, so I have to be here," said Steve Noel.

I have the whole summer to fish and so does everybody else.- Steve Noel

Noel fishes on the Humber River each year and said he doesn't mind that licences weren't available on the first day of the season.

"I would have been here June 1. I'm willing to wait a couple of days. It's a privilege to be able to to this. I have the whole summer to fish and so does everybody else," Noel said.

Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries Minister Gerry Byrne said in May that licences would not be available for sale on June 1 due to delays in reprinting.

He said there was a miscommunication with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans about this season's retention limited and other requirements.

The licences had to be reprinted four times. 

Late Monday afternoon, the provincial government confirmed it had amended regulations under the Wild Life Act — specifically, capping catch-and-release salmon angling activity to a maximum of 10 salmon per licence until July 20.

"This amendment will ensure the practice is regulated and conducted in a safe, sustainable manner. Enforcement officers will be monitoring to ensure anglers are adhering to the regulations," reads a media release from the Department of Fisheries and Land Resources.

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Byrne hand-delivered boxes of licences to the tackle shop early Monday morning and said his staff worked tirelessly through the weekend to prepare for the large delivery.

"I'm very pleased," he said. "They will go from Port aux Basques to St. Anthony and right to Bishop's Falls in this first shipment."

Gary Pardy, who has been a salmon angler all his life, thinks the licence reprint could have been handled better by the provincial government. 

"I think it should have been much better organized but we will live with it. We love to fish [and] we are going to fish anyway," he said.

Byrne said salmon are showing up in rivers around Newfoundland's west coast and that's where the licences are being delivered first. 

Some anglers even came all the way from the Northern Peninsula and the Codroy Valley, taking leave from work to be among the first to snag their licences. 

He said he expects the salmon licences to be in most stores on the west coast by end of day Monday.

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