Evan McGovern reports on the Cork Small Boats Festival…
Cork small boats festival was fished over the space of a week, from the 15th till the 22nd with 4 day’s fishing. The weather wasn’t on our side but we still managed to get out each day being blessed with the shelter that Cork harbour provides.
The first day was a nice one so some high scores came in, with Fair Game winning the day on 17 species. This doesn’t include baitfish such as mackerel, sand eel, and launce. Over the space of the week, there were 32 scoring species captured in total. The winning boat “Skua” finished the week with 24 species, narrowly beating “Nauti Lass” by weight. There were a few more boats up in the 20s.
There were a few odd species captured that don’t make a show in Cork too often including smooth hound, triggerfish and red mullet.
The presentation night was in Trabolgan and there was a fine prize table with every boat getting a few picks, and cash prizes for the top 5 boats, with the winner taking away €1000 cash as well as table prizes and more.
There were many more cash prizes for nominated species, heaviest flat, heaviest round, longest bass (catch photo and release) and many many more.
We’ve already started work on organising next years competition which will be fished out of Lower Aghada in Cork from the 13th till the 20th of September.
