The guys from Piscari-Fly sent out the following report on the TAFI Leinster Bank Qualifiers in their latest newsletter:
Over the weekend TAFI Leinster held their Bank Qualifiers in Laois Angling Center. 16 anglers took part in the competition, with some new faces present this year which was great to see. The competition was fished over 2 x 4 pegged sessions. Fishing 4 pegs first at 40mins over peg with minutes in between. A 10 minute break was then had before fishing the last 4 peg session. Fishing was tough for all. It started off as it does in all these competitions with everyone meeting fish that are up high and feeding before they get used to the array of anglers casting onto the water and become spooked and wise to the flies passing them.
Some anglers had 4 to 5 fish during the morning session but others only had 1 or 2 for their efforts. For the afternoon session, our own Mark started off well with a switch to go deep and pulling a new cat lure, landing three fish and dropping two others. Other anglers started to pick off some fish then. But a lot of pegs became patchy, with many of the anglers not meeting fish while others were doing well on pegs.
All anglers caught fish, with a total of 73 fish caught, including some good-sized fish in the 50cm bracket. With Pat Noonan, our Competition Secretary, getting the longest fish of 56cm. Congratulations to all the winners on their positions:
1st Brian Conway with 8 fish and 4 place points,
2nd Sean Kirwan with 6 fish and 10 place points
3rd Sean Dempsey with 7 fish and 11 place points.
The top 6 anglers go through on behalf of Leinster TAFI to the All Ireland Bank Qualifiers in Adaire Springs in 2025. Best of luck to the remainder of the team Peter Begley, Nicolas Madden, Mark Driver and Denis Goulding (1st Sub). Many thanks to Johno and Enda for the facilities and fishing at Laois Angling Center.
