Barry Murphy reports from Dunmore East on a successful Small Boats Festival…

After an unsuccessful year in 2025 the Dunmore East Small Boats Festival was back and with help from sponsors there was a large prize pool to fish for. As with all boating activities the small boats have been a victim of the weather on more than one occasion in recent years. We would like to thanks all the anglers for bearing with us at times, fortunately, this year the forecasters were on our side and from a week out the weather looked good on the weekend. We were just lucky to get the weather window for the weekend.

Friday was rougher than forecasted, thanks have to go to the Kilmore boats Shamrock Tackle and Fin Chaser who made the journey up in not ideal conditions.
An early start Saturday morning for the committee to assess the weather and get registration set up, it was clear the weather was not going to be as good as predicted earlier in the week. Due to safety concerns a restriction was enforced for day 1. The restrictions were Hook Head the most southern point on the Wexford side of the estuary and the Shannon Head at Dunmore East on the Waterford side of the estuary and everything north of them two points.
Boats left the harbour at 8 am and had until 6 pm to try adding as many species as possible.

Personally, on Team Rinnashark we found the fishing tough, we added a few species, but
numbers of fish were low ending the day with 11 species. Leading the way on day one was Shamrock Tackle with an impressive 14 species, shows what the estuary has to offer. 2nd on 11 was team Rinnashark and 3rd with 10 was Finn chaser.

Day two and the forecast was better; the actual winds were higher than forecasted so the initial review by the committee was to restrict from the fall skirts rock to hook and review after two hours. Thankfully the winds dropped and the sea flattened and at 1030am the call to go outside was given. Great to see some mackerel were caught let’s hope the numbers increase over the coming weeks. Boats were scrambling and moving from mark to mark to add to there tally from day 1. Reef and rock marks south of the hook as well as the clean ground marks around Tramore Bay.

Some fine fish were caught to name a few a nice Bass for Dave Godwin on Shamrock Tackle, a nice 90cm Hound for John Dunphy on Nicole N Will, a good pollock of 59cm for AVA and a nice 106cm Bull Huss for Alex Murphy on Nicole N Will.

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Over the weekend 32 different species were landed between all the boats to show what’s on offer in the area. Fin Chaser and Here Fishy Fishy did well adding another 11 on day 2 but another steady performance adding 8 on day 2 to come to a total of 22 from Shamrock Tackle saw them get their hands on the trophy again, well done lads super performance! Second place with 21 was Fin Chaser and 3rd was Here Fishy Fishy. The biggest combined Huss\ hound fell to Nicole N Will, biggest Bass and flat to Shamrock Tackle, biggest Pollock was caught by team Ava and the biggest ling was by Fin Chaser.

The weekend ended with prizegiving in the Haven Hotel where food and pints made the fish grow as the night went on; a great night was had by all. The committee hope everyone had a great weekend and thanks all the anglers and lastly the most important the sponsors without them this would not be possible.

Remember when out buying your tackle support those that support us:
Akios\ Inova, Shamrock tackle, Waterford Outdoor and Angling Centre, Suir Electric, O Neill and Cunningham, Navionics, Haven Hotel

Tight lines.
Place       Boat                   Species
1st          Shamrock Tackle      22
2nd         Fin Chaser               21
3rd          Here Fishy Fishy      20
4th          Time Warp              18
5th          Team Rinnashark     17
6th          Nicole N Will            12
7th          Setanta Beag           11
8th          AVA                          7
9th          LEAGH LILY               7

Species        Boat                   Length
Bass             Shamrock Tackle        62
Flat               Shamrock Tackle       36
Pollack          AVA                          59
Ling              Fin Chaser                34
Combined Animal (Huss/ Hound)
Huss\ hound Nicole N Will              196