The first outing of the Irish Light Line series was held last weekend in Cork Harbour where thirty two battle hardened anglers hammered it out for the early bragging rights. This highly anticipated event attracts anglers from all over the country and beyond, and with over 10 countries being represented it makes for a really competitive series.
The anglers are greeted in the morning with free tea and coffee from Leonardo’s Bistro, the bistro opens up early just to accommodate the anglers and this always goes down well. The boats leave at 9am, with a half-hour’s steam out to the selected fishing grounds. The competition is fished over two sessions with each session lasting 2 hours 45 minutes, there is generally a 15 minute break in between where angling positions on the boat are changed.
The beauty with fishing Cork Harbour is that anglers are spoiled for choice with both the types of fish they can catch and with being able to head out and fish in all weather conditions.
This competition is used as a training ground for the international boat angling team, so it can be taken very seriously t times – but don’t be fooled! This competition is run by anglers for anglers, so first and foremost it’s about the craic, it’s about getting out amongst friends and getting bragging rights, which are not easily won. The main species of fish are dogfish, ray, whiting, dab, gurnard, poor cod, plaice and flounder, with the occasional bass thrown into the mix.
The competition is run as a catch and release competition where all of the fish are returned alive. There are six matches in total, an angler can drop one of the matches to keep his best 5 scores – so when it comes to the final table the top 8 will battle it out for the title. The results for each boat after round 1 are below – the next light lines match is on December the 10th and we’ll keep you posted on how that goes.
