The Western Shore League got underway last weekend in glorious conditions at Renvyle, Co. Galway on Saturday evening, with a competition hosted by Galway Bay Sea Angling Club. 28 anglers were pegged along the stony beach at the back of Renvyle House Hotel, with fishing from 6pm til 10pm on a beautiful calm and clear evening.
Fishing was good from the start, with dogfish and coalfish making an appearance to start cards filling up. More species started to come in along the beach, and it proved a very productive and varied evening, with thornback ray, bull huss, conger, whiting, rockling among others to be caught. As the tide eased fishing slowed up for a while, and I took the opportunity to lie down and look up at the millions of stars that urban dwellers simply don’t see in these days of light pollution. Enough dawdling, and it was back to fishing for the last hour and a half, although to be hnest I spent more time marking the card of John Cunningham on the peg next to me than anything else. John had a very good night, winning our zone with about 16 fish if I recall correctly. Janios Liseckis was second in the zone.
Over in Zone B, Timmy O’Sullivan took the zone win, with Sean Murray in second. It was Mayo man Shane Gilvarry, however, who took the overall prize with a fine catch of 16 fish, mainly high-scoring dogfish.
The junior prize was won by Oliver O’Sullivan, with Billy Gilvarry in second place. As for me, well I enjoyed looking at the stars, although I did catch a few fish too. But it was just a beautiful night to be out fishing, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who caught more stars than fish!
