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Introduction
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The
Arctic Char, Salvelinus alpinus, in Ireland Size
Recent reports of large char from Scottish lakes coincide with the appearance of aquaculture cages on these lakes. It appears some char develop a taste for the fish pellets and grow quite well on them. Char which have supplemented their diet with pellets have been caught to 3kg.
 Copyright
2003. ICCG ©2003 |
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Arctic
char can attain weights in excess of 12.5kg and 800mm. The rod
caught record stands at 13.46kg from the Canadian North West Territories.
The majority of sea-run fish are in the range of 0.5 to 5kg. As
mentioned earlier most landlocked populations of char do not attain
these sizes. A combination of genetics and environmental factors
restrain the growth of the char and in some lakes adults reach
maturity at 100mm and 0.1kg. Landlocked arctic char can attain
quite prodigious sizes as evinced by the staggering chars of 10kg
caught in Lake Geneva. Similar sized fish are also caught in some
large Scandinavian lakes where ferox individuals exist.
Most
char in Ireland are between 190 and 360mm when mature. There is
an old and unsubstantiated report that char from Lough Owel were
as big as 1.4kg, but as this population is now extinct the fact
of the matter may never be known. What is known is that the largest
wild char known today are those from Lough Mask. These fish
are known to reach lengths of 360mm and a weight just in excess
of 500g. Large char were recorded in Bunaveela lake by the Salmon
Research Agency, however it is not clear weather these were escaped
farmed fish or 'well fed' char feeding around the fish cages. The
majority of fish from Lough Eske are less than 320mm and average
only 24mm. They are thought to quite representative of the average
char population in Ireland. 
