Things are hotting up on the coarse angling festival scene with matches being held at numerous venues over the past week and plenty more planned for the coming weeks. These festivals will welcome a number of visiting anglers who will travel from abroad to partake in some quality coarse fishing and the craic and banter on the shore and in the pub. For anyone interested in joining in, there’s still room available at some of the festivals, and details can be found on the NCFFI Facebook page.

Anglers taking part in the Strokestown Angling Club festival in Roscommon had a hard time catching up with Andrew Lightbrown, as his whopping bag of 65lb on day one of the match helped him on his way to winning the festival with a total of just over 83lb.

Andy Burnett with a bag from the Strokestown festival

Anglers fishing the Coolcower House Festival on Inniscarra Lake reported good bags with 67kg winning the match for Pawel Swistun and the average bag was a very respectable 14kg. Also on Inniscarra, Cathal Hughes won the three day Coachford Centra Festival with a total of over 66kg.

Cathal Hughes comes out on top again

The final of the all Ireland Method Feeder Championships was held at Oaklands Lakes last week and for the third time in four years, Stevie Whyte came out on top with a bag of over 86kg.

Stevie Whyte with his winning bag

Up in the Ballinamore area, 30 anglers, mostly from Belgium and the Netherlands have been fishing the King’s Classic competition on Lough Garadice and other surrounding lakes. The competition is still ongoing but the fishing has been good and bags of up to 20kg have been recorded by individual anglers.

The Kings Classic is hosting a number of Dutch and Belgian anglers