CM Lakelands Feeder Club, the organisers of the popular Ireland’s FeederKing series, have announced the dates and venues for the qualifiers and final for 2025. Following eight qualifier rounds, a total of 24 anglers will qualify for the showdown on Lough Sillan in September and competition will be fierce with a prize fund of €12,000 for the grand finale.
Tickets for qualifiers 1-4 will go on sale at 7pm Wednesday, January 29th. The remaining tickets will go on sale at 7pm on Wednesday, February 12th.
This notice is from the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland:
Team Ireland Youth Manager Adrian Browne is inviting novice anglers and previous participants to a series of angling development days in 2025.
The success of these angling sessions of the last two years has led us back to the world stage in 2025 when ten brilliant young anglers will travel to the World Championships in Spain this August. Others have had the opportunity to compete in the Celtic Cup, a stepping stone to international representation. You too can join us on the pathway to international competition enhancing your skills and developing new techniques in float fishing as we create a pool of anglers for the future!
All live bait requirements will be sponsored by Irish Bait and Tackle Limited so just bring along your kit and get involved!
What’s more you can use the sessions to build your skills for the All-Ireland Youth Championship on Oaklands lake, Saturday 12th of July and the Team Ireland qualifiers, on Saturday 23rd August at Gaulmoylestown Lake. Watch out for news of a youth canal championship. Keep an eye on https://www.ncffi.ie/go-fishing/ for all events for young anglers as we build the calendar for the year!
The Cobh SAC Annual Fundraiser was held at the end of December. This time 38 anglers in 5 boats fished for the win with the proceeds going to the Irish Youths Boat Team that will be competing at the 2025 World Championship to be held in Montenegro later this year.
Weather conditions were calm with little or no wind. This provided excellent fishing for the anglers.
Fishing was confined to the Cork Harbour Area and a fine selection of species were recorded which included Whiting, Dab, Place, Dogfish, Thornback Ray, Bullhuss, Conger, Ballan Wrasse, Coalfish, Turbot, Pollack, Haddock, Dragonet, Weaver and Sand goby.
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Some great species fishing for Cobh SAC members
A special thanks to all the competing anglers, boat skippers, competition organisers and the Commodore Hotel who provided the room for the prize giving ceremony and those who provided spot prizes. This all helped to make it a very successful run event.
Go fishing…
Cobh SAC is a very active club with a great series of competitions across the year.
The club is very welcoming to new members.
If you are interested in joining the club or fishing any of their competitions contact them via Facebook.
Offshore 105. 380 HP Iveco Skipper: Alan Kennedy Licence: 713 Base: Crosshaven/Cobh Operational Area:
40 Miles out of Cork Harbour, Ballycotton, Kinsale.
Notes: Lagosta II has a complete inventory of electronic and safety equipment. Fishing in the rich offshore waters of south-west Ireland, Alan specialises in wreck, reef and shark angling. Even in the worst of weather, anglers can fish for rays, flatfish and conger in the extensive and sheltered waters of Cobh harbour.
Pro Fisherman 33 Skipper: Pat Condon Licence: 1350 Base: Crosshaven and Cobh Operational area: 30 miles from Crosshaven, Kinsale, Cobh, Monkstown and Ballycotton.
Notes: With more than 30 years Sea angling experience in hand and having won several national & international sea angling competitions, Pat Condon offers his clients the wealth of his angling skills as part of their experience.
Anglers can fish many reefs near the Cork harbour for ling, cod, conger eel, pollack and coalfish. Shark fishing off Cork Harbour is from mid june to september.
Even if the weather is poor you can fish within Cork harbour for species such as bass, blonde ray and thornback ray, plaice and dabs.
35′ Offshore 105. 400 HP Iveco Skipper: Jim Linehan Licence: 147 Base: Cobh Operational area: 30 nautical
miles of Ballycotton – Cork Harbour – Kinsale.
Notes: Deora Dé is a fast modern charter boat,
built to the skipper’s own specifications and exceeding the current
safety standards. Species of fish caught include: Blue Shark, Mackerel, Pollack, Cod, Whiting, Conger Eel, Ling, Wrasse, Gurnard, Garfish, Dogfish, Coalfish and many more!Full rod & tackle hire available with free tuition given. Free tea & coffee onboard.
Skipper: Anthony Lane. Licence No.: 1401 P5 30miles. Base: Crosshaven Operational area: Ballycotton to Kinsale
Notes: Cork Harbour offers a wide variety of fish including ling, cod, pollock, whiting, wrasse, ray, conger eel, bullhuss and many more. The harbour can be fished in most weather conditions offering a wide variety of sheltered locations for both the experienced and novice angler. The boat comes fully equipped with all modern navigational aids. Full safety equipment as per licence. Rod and tackle hire are available on board and all assistance will be given to the novice angler. Full galley and toilet facilities on board
Lorcan with one of his four pike. That's how to put your new rod through it's paces!
Young angler Lorcan Fennelly from Corkey in County Antrim couldn’t wait to get out on the water to try out his Christmas present of a pike rod and lure setup. So, under the guidance of his fishing mentor, Kenny Skinner, he hit the waters of Lough Erne over the Christmas break and managed to put a good bend in the rod, landing four decent pike. Let’s hope we hear a lot more from Lorcan over the coming months and years 👏 👏 👏 👏
Lorcan with one of his four pike. That’s how to put your new rod through its paces!
mighty atlantic salmon travelling to spawning grounds during the summer in the Scottish highland. The salmon in this picture is leaping up the a very large waterfall called the Falls of Shin in the Scottish Highland. The waterfall is on the river Shin a few miles away from Bonar Bridge
Conservation and sustainability vital to addressing environmental, climate and biodiversity challenges
The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, has approved legislation that will govern the wild salmon and sea trout fisheries in 2024. This will come into effect from Monday, 1 January 2025.
Minister Ryan said: “78 rivers will be available for salmon and sea trout fishing in 2025. This facilitates careful management of this important natural resource, for which conservation and sustainability are paramount. 40 of the rivers will be open, with a further 38 open to ‘catch and release’ angling. The improvements in stocks from 2024 have slightly reversed for 2025. However, collective effort and persistence are required by all the stakeholders to ensure that the state of all individual river stocks improve over time. It is important that we all understand that the stocks themselves are completely dependent on everybody increasing their individual efforts in facing up to environmental, climate and biodiversity impacts from human interventions.”
To support the legislation for 2025, Minister Ryan received management advice from Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) in relation to over 140 genetically-individual wild salmon stocks in Ireland, which was based on individual scientific assessments. The assessments are carried out every year by the Technical Expert Group on Salmon (TEGOS) – an all-island independent scientific group comprising experts from a range of bodies.
IFI, supported by TEGOS, determined: which of the individual stocks were sufficiently above their specific conservation limit to be open to fishing; which rivers did not meet a sufficient level above the limit but met a sufficient percentage of the limit to be classified for ‘catch and release’ angling; and which rivers were so far below the limit as to close them to any exploitation. The conservation limit is the number of adult spawning fish required to maintain a healthy and sustainable stock in each individual river.
The key issue to support increased stocks is improvement in water quality. Many of our rivers are not at a sufficiently high water quality level to support sustainable stocks, often caused by agricultural activities, and to a lesser extent, insufficient treatment of wastewater. This year’s advice was also made available as part of a statutory public consultation process during which written submissions from stakeholders (including the recreational and commercial fishing and the environmental sectors) were sought on the draft regulations.
Management advice, based on the TEGOS assessment of rivers/estuaries/harbours, is that:
40 rivers are to be open as a sustainable surplus has been identified in these rivers.
38 rivers are to be classified as open for ‘catch and release’ angling.
69 rivers are to be closed as they have no sustainable surplus available.
Minister Ryan added: “Ireland has long been internationally recognised for embedding the conservation imperative as a vital component of our management of the precious salmon resource. While the policy has served us well in the past, my Department has been evaluating the effectiveness of current management policy and its implementation. It is intended, as part of the much wider inland fisheries policy review, to set out options for improvement – with an even greater focus on conservation, in our management regime and for modernising licensing requirements – to ensure access to the resource where its conservation and biodiversity needs are met.”
The Minister at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications has made the following Regulations and Bye-laws:
These regulations provide for the quotas of fish that can be harvested by commercial fishing engines and rod and line from those rivers identified in Schedule 2 of the Regulations. The Regulations also provide for the use of brown tags in specified rivers which are identified in Schedule 4.
This Bye-law provides for an annual bag limit of 10 fish being either salmon or sea trout (over 40cm) per angler and provides for a season bag limit of 3 fish in the period 1 January to 11 May, a daily bag limit of 3 fish from 12 May to 31 August and a daily bag limit of 1 fish from 1 September to the end of the season. The Bye-law also provides for the use of single or double barbless hooks and prohibits the use of worms as bait once the specified numbers of fish have been caught in the specified periods.
This Bye-law provides for ‘catch and release’ in respect of salmon and sea trout (over 40cm) in rivers as mentioned in the Bye-law. The Bye-law also provides for the use of single or double barbless hooks and prohibits the use of worms as bait in angling for salmon and sea trout over 40cm.
This Bye-law provides for ‘catch and release’ in angling for salmon (any size) and sea trout (over 40cm) in the River Suir (including the waters of the Rivers Clodiagh, Lingaun and Blackwater) and also prohibits the use of worms, prawn, shrimp or any other crustacean, or artificial forms thereof, as bait and any fish hooks other than single or double barbless hooks during the period 17 March to 30 September.
This Bye-law provides for a daily bag limit of 3 sea trout (less than 40cm in length) and provides for the use of single or double barbless hooks and prohibits the use of worms as bait once the specified number of sea trout has been caught.
This Bye-law prohibits the use of any fishhooks, other than single or double barbless hooks, and also prohibits the use of worms as bait in angling for all species of fish in the waters specified in the Bye-law.
This Bye-law prohibits the taking or attempting to take by rod and line salmon and sea trout (over 40cm) in the rivers specified in the Bye-law.
Footnote:
Section 57 (7) of the Inland Fisheries Act 2010 provides that any person aggrieved by these bye-laws may, within 28 days after publication in the Iris Oifigiúil, appeal against same to the High Court.
As the final days of 2024 are upon us and we look ahead to a new year and new fishing seasons, the Irish Angling Update team would like to say a big ‘Thank You’ to everyone who has contributed to the e-zine in 2024.
As well as publishing the newsletter on the fishinginireland.info website, we also email it out to nearly 19,000 email subscribers each week to share the latest news in Irish angling – and we could not do it without the help of all of the guides, ghillies, clubs, federations, fisher folk and Inland Fisheries Ireland staff who send us wonderful photographs and angling reports to our dedicated [email protected] email address – so thank you all! 👏👏👏👏
Looking back, 2024 was an impressive year for Irish angling teams on the international stage. In coarse fishing, Team Ireland smashed their way to the podium becoming World Champions in Spain, ten years on from the team’s silver medal finish on Inniscarra Lake, Co. Cork. In a double victory for Ireland, Michael Buchwalder achieved individual gold. In Hungary, the U25 team secured the silver medal at the World Feeder Fishing Championships.
At the World Boat Fishing Championships for Seniors in Cork, Ireland finished with the team silver medal and the top scoring individual – Liam O’Callaghan. From the shore, the Irish team took bronze and Chris O’Sullivan took the individual silver at the World Championship in Shore Angling for Seniors in Spain. In the Home Nations Shore Angling Championships, there were gold medals for both the ladies and men’s senior teams, with the Under-16 team taking silver, and the under-21 team winning bronze.
In France, Mark Driver won the Silver Medal and Ireland took Team Gold in the 5 Nations Fly Fishing Championship. There was Team and Individual Gold for ITFFA Ireland team at the International Fly-Fishing Association Rivers competition on the River Tees in England. A super achievement by Mark Sloan taking overall top individual rod there. Not to be outdone by the ‘more experienced’ anglers, the Irish Youth Fly Fishing team took an unprecedented fourth gold in a row at the Youth International Fly Fishing Championships held in July 2024 on Grafham water in England.
In predator fishing, Team Ireland took the bronze medal at the 2024 Lure Fishing World Championships on Lough Erne.
Irish international teams in 2024
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Team Ireland claim silver
Predator Team Ireland
World Champions NCFFI Team Ireland
The successful U25 feeder team
The victorious Ladies Senior Team
And the Men's Senior Team with their trophy
The Under-16 team
Under-21 Team Ireland
These are just some of the highlights of a great year for Irish teams on the competitive angling scene and hopefully they have laid the groundwork for more success in 2025 and beyond. We’ll keep sending out the e-zine in 2025 to keep you up to date with our Irish anglers at home and abroad, as long as our contributors keep fishing and sending us in the reports, so please keep them coming to [email protected].
A peaceful new year to all in our angling community, from the Irish Angling Update team.
If you have an angling story to share with the Irish Angling Update please send it to [email protected] and don’t forget that all of our fishing reports are available on our dedicated Angling Ireland Facebook page.
So this is Christmas… as the song goes. Not long now until the big day, and Santa Claus will hopefully be bringing plenty of fishing rods and tackle to lucky anglers, young and old next week. We hope you’ve all been good boys and girls this year! Tomorrow is also the shortest day of the year, and we can look forward to more daylight and shorter nights from now on…
Between the weather and the time of year, angling reports are a bit thin on the ground this week, but we do have some angling stories to report. And then we’ll take a look back at some of our favourite Catch of the Week reports from during 2024, which showcase the quality and variety of fishing we have on our shores. We also have some of the best young rods’ catches of 2024, as well as a gallery of some of the best photos sent in to us this year.
We start with sea fishing, and the Killybegs Mariners have been enjoying some really decent winter beach fishing of late, with their club competition producing plenty of flounder and turbot, and other recent outings giving up more flatties, bass and sea trout.
Nice flounder for Cormac
At the other end of the country, Cormac Walsh was fishing with Keith Barry, and the bass were hypnotised right out of the water on a great lure fishing session. Finding the feeding birds in range of shore was the key, and once they found the fish they had non-stop action for a 40-minute spell. Magic!
Magic fishing for Keith Barry
There are a couple of upcoming fundraising angling competitions over the holidays, including the South Shore SAC charity match, in aid of the Heart Children Ireland charity, while Cobh SAC are holding a boat competition in Cork Harbour to raise funds for the Irish under-21 world boat team. Both events take place on December 28th.
We have a fantastic pike report from Irish Fishing Tours on Lough Derg, where a client landed a cracking 115cm pike, smashing his PB this week.
115cm pike!
To coarse angling now, and ideal conditions weren’t reflected in the fishing at Enniskillen, but that didn’t matter to Nick Howell, who had the only bag over 5kgs to win the 6th leg of the Erne Anglers winter league with 7.15kg.
There was decent fishing at Portumna, where Munster CAC held the 5th round of their winter league, won by Liam with 9lbs 9oz. Elsewhere, Kieran Reevees took the honours at Oaklands in the winter league match there. There were some nice bream and winter tench knocking about the Grand Canal at Enfield, where Leinster Coarse Fishing Federation held an end-of-year competition, won by Dean Murry with a good bag of 15lbs 7oz.
Dean with his winning bag
Dan O’Neill is back with the last River Whispers blog of the year, and he explores a variety of fishing-related topics, including fly rods for targetng bigger species, tying pike flies, and an interview with two young entrepreneurs with a fledgling bait business. Peter Driver has a round up of some stocked trout competitions, and finally Sean Woods shared a superb video with many of the highlights from his 2024 salmon season.
Best Young Catches
The angling update this year featured many young anglers with their catches, and we wanted to feature some of them. Some of these also made Catch of the Week, but we’ll feature them here. Starting with young Adam, whose uncle Ger Power brought him pike fishing back in February, and he landed a fine 20lbs pike.
Young Jay O’Halloran was another junior Catch of the Week winner with his specimen bull huss while fishing with Cobh SAC.
Specimen bullhuss for Jay O’Halloran
Young trout angler Jack Reidy also featured, winning the World Youth Lough Open competition on Lough Melvin, with this fantastic fish taking him over the line.
Fish of a lifetime for Jack
Catches of the Week
A look back at some of the fish that made Catch of the Week during the year.
Lough Corrib produced some fine ferox trout in the early part of the season, on of which was this cracking fish for a guest of Tomi Kurman.
Fine Corrib Ferox
In April retired pro baseball player Rick Porcello landed this fantastic 91cm salmon from Delphi, his first ever salmon too! What a fish, and very sportingly released again.
Rick and his fantastic springer
A most unusual Catch of the Week was made by Gintaras Vosylius, who targeted and landed a number of bream up to 8lbs – on a fly rod! Gintaras was nymphing with light gear, which makes this catch so unique.
Gintaras with a fly caught 8lb bream
Skipper John Fleming had a record-breaking day in July, a day when your correspondent was privileged to be aboard and witness myself. 14 porbeagle sharks to the boat was the headline on an incredible day of fishing, with screaming runs and big sharks cutting through the water all around the boat at times.
Alex with new husband Adam and her super 110cm honeymoon pike
Best Photos
Some of our favourite photos submitted by you over the year gone past. Without your contributions we wouldn’t be able to share these fantastic shots.
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Lunchtime on Lough Arrow
Time to dance, A male mayfly waits in a hawthorn tree for the mating dance to begin.
Sheelin Gold. Waiting for the spent on Lough Sheelin
Northern Lights Display
And lastly, amateur astronomers, and everyone else who was awake, were spoiled this year with two fantastic displays of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, in May and October. This photo from Gavin O’Brien, taken from Inchagoill Island on Lough Corrib, was our absolute fabourite capture from that special night in May.
Stocking Fillers
Finally, on the run into Christmas, a number of guides, tackle shops, etc, will be offering vouchers and gift cards that may prove to make a useful stocking filler for the angler in your life. The Irish Specimen Fish Committee Fish Atlas proved a popular present last year, and there are still copies available to purchase, although .
Skipper Kit Dunne from Wicklow Boat Charters is offering vouchers that can be tailored to your needs. And tackle shops up and down the country have vouchers available that will make a great present for the angler in your life. Shop local – support small businesses in your area and make a difference!
Happy Christmas
From all the team here at the Irish Angling Update, we would like to give our sincere thanks to all anglers, guides, skippers, mams and dads who sent us in reports and photos throughout the year. Without your content, these reports would be much poorer and we appreciate your efforts, particularly those bringing young anglers out and introducing them to our great sport.
We would like to wish all of our readers a very merry Christmas. Stay safe over the holidays, and if the weather permits, we hope you get a chance to wet a line!
And Now The Weather
Scattered showers becoming isolated this evening, with top temperatures of 8-11C.
Saturday will turn windy, as overnight ran clears to to the southeast to give sunny spells and showers, with winds reaching gale force on western and northern coasts and temps of 6-11C. Sunday will start off windy, with blustery showers, some wintry and winds only slowly easing. Top tems of 5-8C.
Christmas week looks to be very mild for the time of year, with some rain on Monday followed by mainly cloudy but dry conditions for the following few days, and top temperatures of 10-13C. No white Christmas here so!
If you have an angling story to share with the Irish Angling Update please send it to [email protected] and don’t forget that all of our fishing reports are available on our dedicated Angling Ireland Facebook page.
Killybegs Mariners report from their closed club competition at the weekend…
Mariners closed competition took place last Saturday on Narin with great conditions surf wise, weed free and with a slight rise in temperatures for the 19 members taking part.
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First casts produced some lovely flatties along the beach with double shots of turbot and some mid 30s flounders coming early along the stretch with the best being a 36cm flounder for Cormac Burke.
Nice flounder for Cormac
Lots of turbot were coming in from then on but must were just short of our minimum 20cm size limit although the longest was a fine 29cm turbot for Jordan Frame.
Nice turbot for John Cunningham (left) and Robert Mallin jr
Most anglers got fish on an enjoyable day out on the beach but the 3 end pegs took the top 3 places with a good fishing for 2nd place overall well done to Jordan Frame with 3 turbot and a flounder for 146pts winning a €50 voucher for Mooney boats.
Longest flattie prize was won with a great 36cm flounder for Cormac Burke winning a €50 voucher for Mooney boats.
And in 1st place with 5 turbot and 2 flounders for 219pts was Cara Boyle winning a Penn slammer reel sponsored by Mooney Boats Ltd
Also at the presentations we gave out the annual club record fish badges
Total of 40 awards (12 boat / 28 shore) to 12 anglers. 10 Irish specimen fish – 20 new club records – 9 joint club records.
Away from Narin, some club members stayed active and got out for a cast, with some good fish in the last few outings with decent turbot going over 30cm for Cormac and crew, bass and trout doubles for Proinnsias, flounders to 40cm for John C, Ryan and Dessie and a few members enjoying the old Bushmills club open on Benone at the weekend.
Fourty one anglers turned out for the 6th round of the Erne Anglers Winter League last weekend. Much like the previous match, the river looked in excellent condition, but unfortunately the fishing was nowhere near as good, and there were generally low weights all round. Last time it took a 5kg bag to win a section, but this week there was only one bag above that weight: Nick Howell’s 7.15kg, which won him the money on the day.
Cormac Walsh of the Lure Fishing Podcast had been putting in a lot of time chasing bass with Keith Barry, and they had experienced a frustrating run of blank sessions. They were out again recently and spent a day flogging the water with no response. They could see birds feeding just off shore, beyond casting distance, so they knew fish were in the area, but they just wouldn’t come in close. Then, just as the light was fading, they saw the activity move closer to the shore a little bit down the beach from them. A quick dash down the beach and a cast into the hot spot saw them hit action straight away. And the action continued for a good 40 minutes. It’s those memorable sessions where it eventually comes right that keep you going through all the blanks! See the full report on Cormac’s Facebook page.
Osprey
Sea Otter is a safe and fast 30′ Evolution boat with a 420hp engine that can fish 8 anglers or can take 11 people out for scenic trips.
Camden Mist
