Ronan Cusack reports that last weekend saw the hosting of the 60th annual World Cup wetfly championships on Lough Mask, with 473 anglers participating over the 5 day event. Weather conditions were changeable over the weekend, ranging from gentle southerly breezes and broken cloud on Thursday to strong south-westerly winds with plenty of rain on Friday. Saturday brought another perfect fishing day, but unfortunately the winds died and bright sunshine appeared on Sunday making it a real challenge for anglers. Monday’s final brought another perfect fishing day, with the wind swinging around to the west and plenty of cloud-cover. Angling over the weekend was challenging even for those lucky enough to have picked the better fishing days. This year saw roughly 60% of the catch coming from shallow water among the islands and along rocky shore-lines, which is a huge contrast from other years where the majority of fish caught were Daphnia feeders from the deeps off the Tourmakeady shore.
This year’s winner was Eugene McCarthy from Galway, with a final day catch of 2 trout for 7.20lbs. Eugene’s heaviest fish was a cracking trout of 5.27lbs. Unfortunately for Eugene, he could not claim the heaviest fish prize as he was the overall winner and the competition rules state that persons in the top 3 prizewinners do not qualify for the heaviest fish prize. This year’s heaviest fish winner was P.D. Gilsenan from Co Cavan, with a trout of 3.31lbs.
Second place overall went to John Moroney from Ennis, with 4 fish for 4.84lbs. Third place went to Brian McInerney, also from Ennis, with 3 trout for 3.99lbs. Best under-21 angler was David O’Connor Jr. from Ballinrobe with 3 fish for 3.75lbs. The top lady angler over the competition was Madeleine Kelly (Ulster) with 3 trout for 3.21lbs. The winning boatman on the final day was Brian Joyce from Derry Park Lodge, Finny.
Thursday’s heat winner was Simon Tarpey (Connacht) with 3 fish for 4.09lbs. Friday’s heat winner was Nicholas Hanley (Connacht) with 5 trout for 10.60lbs. Saturday’s heat winner was Ulster angler Dermot Brewster with 4 fish for 5.42lbs, and Sunday was John O’Malley (Connacht) with 2 fish for 5.64lbs. The best boatman over the competition was well known boatman/angler Patrick Molloy from Oughterard, who brought in 11 trout for 22.14lbs.
