According to Save Our Sea Trout (SOS) the salmon farm in Bertraghboy Bay (the estuary of the Ballynahinch system) switched from salmon to cod farming in February 2005. Cod are not susceptible to the devastating sea lice that proliferate on salmon farms and, as a result, the catches of sea trout at Ballynahinch Castle and Lough Inagh Lodge have increased sharply over the past two summers, SOS claims.
According to SOS, in 2004, when salmon farming was still active in the bay, the rod catch was just 77 small sea trout. With the farmed salmon gone by the time of the crucial spring migration period in 2005, the catch that summer increased nearly 15-fold to 1,115 young sea trout. And now, in 2006, the rod catch has jumped again to 1,292 sea trout, with some much bigger fish being taken by anglers. SOS says there was also an excellent run of over 1,500 salmon in 2006.
Source: Fish Update