Ronan Cusack reports on a big week on Lough Mask, where the Spring International Competition was held on Friday.
Massive congratulations to captain Mike Keady and his team for their outstanding performance in the ITFFA Spring International on Friday last. The lads beat Wales into second place by a huge margin of 20 trout. The Irish team recorded a total of 45 trout measuring a total of 1552.3cm. In second place were team Wales with 25 fish measuring 905.8cm. Third position went to team England with 23 trout measuring 805.3cm and in fourth place were team Scotland with 20 trout measuring 681.2cm.
The top rod and winner of the much sought after brown bowl was the well-known Co. Clare angler David Egan. David had the company of top international and former world champion Mr Iain Barr of team England in his boat for the day. The day got off to a shaky start with David falling behind with 2 trout to Iain’s 6 by 13:00. In David’s own words “when the sun came out after lunch I knew I had him” and he surely did. David finished off the day with 8 trout to Iain’s 6. Unfortunately Iian had to settle for second place this time. David is no stranger to silverware, as he won the interprovincial on Mask in 2017 and a national title on Corrib in 2004. The event was a huge success on all fronts and congratulations to Ballinrobe and District Anglers for hosting the competition.
The lake is fishing well at the moment with plenty of olives and buzzer to keep trout interested. Mick Dunne from Tourmakeady had 8 trout pulling wets among the islands on Sunday last (best fish 1.75lbs). Toby Gibbons and Sean Moogan from Westport had a red-letter day on Saturday with 13 trout exceeding the 13” limit (best fish 3lbs, all released). Regular visitors to our shores Mr John Webb and Mike Donaghy from Scotland fished with Ronan Cusack on Tuesday and they had 6 trout on a combination of wet and dry olives (best fish 2.25lbs, all released). UK anglers Howard Smith and his fishing partner Mike fished buzzers on Sunday in very bright conditions and they finished with 4 (best fish 2.75lbs, all released).
There have been reports of the odd Mayfly this week, so hopefully by the weekend the party will kick off.
