The 29th National Pike Championships Final was held on 22nd April on a 10 mile stretch of river in County Roscommon.
As usual one of the first things to be done was Pat Sheenan checking all the scales to make sure that all were weighing correctly. We then proceeded to the main hall where stewards cards and anglers weigh cards were distributed along with maps of the long stretch of river that were were to fish. Anglers could fish anywhere on this stretch but had to make sure that there was somebody from another club nearby to weigh and record their catch. Fishing was from 10-30 to 5.
Fishing was pretty patchy with some usual “hotspots” not producing much. That said, some anglers caught steadily throughout the day. No monster pike were caught the best being Frank Leonard`s 15-09.
Back at Gleesons anglers weigh cards and stewards cards were handed in. Pat O`Grady, Ibar Condron, Jody Kiernan and John Chambers then began the hard task of totting up catches and verifying catches against stewards cards. With the 55 anglers catching some 380 pike this took some time.
The winner will captain the top 10 anglers who will be the Irish team who will fish against their British opposite numbers in England over a 2 day match next October.
After enjoying our excellent presentation dinner Federation of Irish Pike Angling Clubs Chairman John Chambers made a short speech thanking all involved in the organisation of the event and announced that GO HIRE Limited will be sponsoring the event for the next couple of years. Presentations were then made. Lovely glass trophies were presented to each of the 8 heat winners – Tucker McCabe, David Murphy, Sean Dimbylow, Sean Markey, Kevin McPartland, Fergal Bell, Anthony McCabe and Paul McCarthy. Then €100 was presented to Kevin McPartland for catching the biggest pike in the qualifying heats 14-05. Frank Leonard then got €100 for the best pike in the Final 15-09. Outgoing Champion Kevin Foley was presented with a replica. We then got down to the main business of announcing the top 10 who will make up the team to fish against Great Britain.
- 1st Tommy Coffee 15 pike 62-14 (incl pike of 14-08 and 10-06)
- 2nd Jody Kiernan 27 pike 54-14
- 3rd Paul Reynolds 21 pike 50-03
- 4th Rodney Gaynor 15 pike 45-04
- 5th Willie Heasley 12 pike 44-12
- 6th Mark Kiernan 18 pike 44-03
- 7th Pat Gorman 11 pike 42-09
- 8th Tucker McCabe 12 pike 41-05
- 9th Sean Dimbylow 14 pike 37-01
- 10th Ronan Murray 10 pike 33-02
- Reserve Fran Crosbie 9 pike 31-10.
You will note from the above that the vast majority of pike caught were pretty small. Special mention must be made of veteran angler Willie Heasley who finished 5th. Willie has been on the Irish team many times before and at the ripe age of 79 can still show they younger anglers how its done (going to be in trouble now for revealing his age ).
Once again we would like Eamon, Cait , Pauline and all at Gleesons
IFPAC
The Irish Federation of Pike Angling Clubs (IFPAC) is a body representing pike anglers in Ireland, North and South.The IFPAC was founded on 17th January 1988 at a meeting held at the Ardboyne Hotel, Navan. The membership for that year stood at fifteen clubs representing six hundred anglers, today membership of IFPAC is approaching 100 affiliated clubs representing in excess of seven thousand anglers from all walks of life.
