The Edenderry Coarse Angling Club held its yearly festival on the Grand Canal last week. The festival is split into two parts, with a two-day competition and a three-day competition running on alternate days. The event attracts some of the best canal anglers in Ireland and the UK and is a long-standing event on the Irish coarse angling calendar.
As can be the case on the Grand Canal, the bright sunshine at this time of year, can make for tricky fishing conditions. Such was the situation presented to anglers for the opening match, when the roach and bream were difficult to tempt and anglers relied on tench to make up the numbers, with Dave Walmsley bagging 13lb 9oz to take the win.

Day 2 of the festival saw some cloud cover, which gave anglers a bit of hope that bites would be forthcoming, but that wasn’t really the case, and anglers struggled to make double figures, which made Tony Richardson’s winning bag of 16lb 6oz all the more impressive.

On Day 3, anglers found that the colour had dropped out of the canal, making conditions even trickier and again, double-figure bags were a rarity. James Foley took the top bag on the day with 15lb 2oz.

Day 4 saw the conclusion of the 2-day part of the festival, and Gal Charnock followed up his win in the event last year with a combined bag of 27lb 2oz. Top six in the 20day event were:

Day 5 saw the last session of the 3-day event and the final day of the festival. The fishing during the week had been pretty tight, leaving anglers tightly packed in the rankings, so it was all to play for on the last session. Jeff Stirrat put in a strong effort, bagging him the top weight on the day with 15lb 12oz. But Gal Charnock came in second on the day with 9lb 5oz, and that was enough to nudge him to the top of the leaderboard for the 3-day event with a combined total of 31lb 11oz. Top 5 placings in the 3-day event were:
2. Tony Richardson 29-01
3. Jeff Stirrat 28-08
4. John Easton 26-12
5. Tommy Fairhurst 22-10

