A continental field of anglers arrived for the 2022 edition of Feederfest Ireland that saw contestants from The Netherlands, Sweden and England compete alongside expert feeder anglers from across the island. It was a tough competition this year that saw a Dutch triple as Willem VD Helm takes the title, ahead of his fellow countrymen in second and third place with two members of Ireland’s feeder team placing in the top 8.
The anglers arrived at the Lee Valley area last weekend to start the week with two warm up matches. Saturday saw Lurgan angler Philip Jackson win from Rooves Bay with 217 fish, mostly roach for 19.860kg. A larger match on Sunday sponsored by Fountain House B&B Macroom was won by England’s Gareth Lambert who had 20.770kg of skimmers and hybrids on his debut visit to Inniscarra.
The main FEEDERFEST event was split over five sections of the Coachford Greenway fished in rotation by the 74 competing anglers. With the impending wet conditions, the water levels of the reservoir were carefully managed with thanks to the ESB to keep the venue accessible throughout. The expected rainfall made the fishing harder with water levels risen 4ft by the end of the week. But the anglers enjoyed mixed bags of bream, skimmers, hybrids and roach on most pegs, with single species dominating others.
Congratulations to Willem who took first place on day three with 24kg from section E and held his lead to win the festival. Runner up was Henk Roskam the 2019 Feederfest winner who placed just 50g ahead of Aart Multem.
- 1 Willem vd Helm, Netherlands 59.230kg
- 2 Henk Roskam, Netherlands 52.500kg
- 3 Aart Multem, Netherlands 52.450kg
- 4 Rod Scott, England 51.500kg
- 5 Willem Multem, Netherlands 47.300kg
- 6 Tony Hopkins, Ireland 46.700kg
- 7 Paul Boothby, England 46.680kg
- 8 Rimantas Kondrackas, Ireland 46.430kg
Organised by Inniscarra Lake Tourism Ltd the event featured fantastic sponsorship from Heineken, O’Riordans Bar,Coachford and O’Callaghans Bar & Guest House contributing to the prize fund supplemented by boxes of groundbait from Sensas Ireland rewarding the top eight winners, on top of daily and section wins.
The village of Coachford in County Cork is at the heart of the angling in the Lee Valley, less then 5 minutes from Inniscarra Lake and less than half an hour from Cork City. With its good accessible fishing and range of festivals throughout the year it provides for both the match and leisure angler.
Go Fishing…
Inniscarra Lake TDL
Inniscarra Lake TDL are affiliated to the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland, NCFFI the National Governing body for coarse and predator fishing and casting sport as recognised by Sport Ireland and Sport NI. www.ncffi.ie
Inniscarra Festivals 2023
For details of the all the events, venues and more, a downloadable copy of the events calendar, festival results and a directory of angler friendly accommodation in the local area please visit www.ncffi.ie/inniscarra-angling.
Report courtesy of Inniscarra Lake TDL
