Evan McGovern was in touch with a report on the recent Cork Small Boats Festival held in September. Thanks Evan!
Cork small boats festival was back up and running this year after a break of two years due to covid. We were happy to see our regular boats returning after the break and a few new boats added to the mix. The festival dates were the 9th till the 16th of September and we fished from Monday to Thursday with a mixed bag of weather. We had 3 unrestricted days fishing and one day restricted to the harbour due to wind.
Kingfisher Crowned
There were some decent scores on day one with “Nailed it” leading the pack on 14 species. Day two saw some decent scores coming in again with “Quattro” adding 11 species to take top spot with 20 species. Day 3 was a bit slower but a few more boats came up the ranks and made it a close battle to the finish on day 4. In the end “Kingfisher” added 2 species on day 4 to leave them with a total of 27 which was enough to give them their long-awaited win.
There were some great catches throughout the week as always with anglers photographing and releasing a huge range of species with bass, smoothhound, conger, wrasse, Pollack, gurnard, plaice and ray to name but a few.
The craic and banter between the boats is always second to none both on the water and in Rosies bar in the evening after the days fishing.
It was all back to Trabolgan Holiday Village later that evening for the presentation. 2022 was the first year that the festival was fished on a 100% catch-and-release basis and it went off without a hitch. I’d like to thank all the competitors for their efforts. We had the support of so many great sponsors again this year and we’re very grateful to each of ye that we mentioned on the Facebook group page and at the presentation night. There was a great prize table this year thanks to our sponsors with rods and reels from Daiwa, a range of gear from Shamrock Tackle, electronics from Lowrance and much more. No boat came away empty handed with everyone winning both cash prizes and table prizes.
2023
Planning has already begun for the 2023 festival which will be fished from the 15th to the 22nd of September 2023. We have a lot of interest already so be sure to get the bookings in early. You can find us on Facebook at “Cork Small Boats Festival”.
