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First timer sees off old hands to land specimen pike at Newbridge Anglers Competition

By
IFI Staff
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We sometimes like to think that years of angling experience will pay off when it comes to the numbers/size of fish we might catch. But I suppose one of the beauties of angling is that anyone can have their moment, or, as an angling friend of mine likes to put it, ‘every dog has his day…’ Such was the way of the world last Sunday, as 31 members of Newbridge District Pike Anglers took to the water for their McCabe cup competition. Many of those anglers were experienced guys, used to slogging it out over long hard days at the waters edge. One angler was a complete newbie, trying out pike fishing for the first time. You can guess how this one is going to end…

So Glenn Keegan, on his first ever day pike angling, landed a 20lb 7oz pike from a river venue (making it a specimen-sized pike) to romp home with the prize, leaving all other competitors stranded in his wake. Such is the camaraderie at these events, his fellow club members were delighted to see a newcomer take the top prize and quick to congratulate him, and I’m sure Glen will be a feature on their competition scene for years to come. Well done Glenn!

Glenn gets a hand to show off his fish from fellow club members

Full results as follows:

Winner of Mc Cabe Cup 2022 is
1st Glenn Keegan 20.07hf 31.12 bag
2nd Ray Collopy 7 8hf 32.8 bag
3rd Dave Murphy 4.9 hf 30.02bag
2nd heaviest fish Stephen whitely 9.8lb
3rd heaviest fish Paul foxy Sheridan 9.7lb

Please fish in a sustainable manner

Ever wanted to be a Ghillie on a famous fishery?

By
IFI Staff
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Ballynahinch Castle

Incredible opportunity as Ballynahinch Castle looks for Fly fishing Ghillie – Contractor

Renowned as one of the finest fisheries in Ireland, the Ballynahinch Catchment drains an area of 68 square miles offering some of the very best of fly fishing in Ireland. The fishing season in Ireland operates from February 1st until September 30th with the biggest run-in salmon coming in July, August and September. The hotel also operates a robust sustainability program and currently operates a catch and release policy to ensure we can continue fishing the waters for generations to come.

Ballynahinch

At Ballynahinch Castle we are all about the people, the people that make this hotel and destination so special. As a Fly Fishing Ghillie, you will be responsible for the overall fishing experience our anglers receive when they make a booking.

From initial contact in the morning, through to the close management of the activity, you will be able to represent the brand of our hotel and an exceptional and memorable day’s fishing.

Many of our anglers are part of our fishing club whilst others are novices seeking their first ever lesson in fly fishing.

Ballynahinch Castle Fishing Guides 2022
Ballynahinch Castle Fishing Guides 2022

Requirements & Package

  • Experience in a similar role is preferred but the ability to lead, manage, teach, and provide an enjoyable experience for our anglers is paramount. All our ghillies provide a friendly, knowledgeable, personable, and professional experience to our guests.
  • A strong command of both written and verbal English is essential.
  • The ability to identify, use and manage fishing equipment such as rods, flies, nets etc.
  • A rate of up to €110 per full day of fishing is payable.
  • Onsite lunch is available for all ghillies.
  • Each ghillies must provide their own equipment. Rods are supplied by the hotel for guests.
  • Accommodation, breakfast & dinner can be provided at a cost of €54 per week.

For more information contact: [email protected]

BALLYNANHINCH CASTLE HOTEL & ESTATE
CONNEMARA, GALWAY, IRELAND

Champions! Tomasz Kurman and Jacek Gorny are Ireland’s top lure anglers.

By
IFI Staff
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pike

This report courtesy of the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland

The first All Ireland lure Angling Championships took place this weekend on Lough Ree. The top teams displayed some exceptional fishing over the two days of this pairs competition fishing by boat with artificial lures. Anglers from County Armagh to County Cork attended in search of perch and pike practising catch, photo, release as they accumulated points based on the length of the fish caught. The competition is strictly Catch & Release only with anglers presenting videos of all fish safely returned to the water alive.

The winning duo picked up the first prize of a Humminbird Helix 9 MSI and €600 cash scoring a magnificent 275455 points over the two days. They also win a pair of reels from DRAGON Fishing Equipment for the biggest fish of the competition at 106cm.

Jacek and Tomi

In second place were Galway anglers Lukasz Znamiec and Krzysztof Michonski who take home a Minn Kota Enduramax Electric Motor 55 and €450 for their 155840 points.

Just behind them with 146494 for third were brothers Marek and Jarek Sekula from Mallow who win a pair of Spinlock deck vests and €250.

In fourth position were Aidan O’Connor and Krzysztof Sibiga with 89128 points who received €100 in vouchers from Duo Hook and in fifth with 84038 points, Daniel Nesbitt and Danny Colleran who take home €100 in vouchers from Vivado Hunting & Fishing Tackle

Marcin Kantor and Grzegorz Malaszuk received €200 from Baracuda fishing tackle shop for the biggest perch of the competition, an incredible 37cm.

The top three pairs

Well done to all the competitors who were met with tough conditions on day one, gusting winds and heavy rain finishing in the autumn sunshine on the second day.

The NCFFI wishes to thank our International Predator Manager for the superb organisation of the event which also saw 8 boats in attendance for round 2 of the USA 2023 qualifiers (results at https://bit.ly/3Drzfi8). To all the competitors who took part from clubs including Midland Pike Anglers, Romanian C&R Angling Association, Connacht Predator Anglers, NCFFI Predator CLUB plus more. Also, for the use of Waterways Ireland Ballyleague Marina, Clarkes Bar in Lanesborough and finally to our sponsors for the fantastic prizes.

The event which will rotate around different venues annually will be back in October next year.

The Dutch dominate at Feederfest!

By
IFI Staff
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winners

A continental field of anglers arrived for the 2022 edition of Feederfest Ireland that saw contestants from The Netherlands, Sweden and England compete alongside expert feeder anglers from across the island. It was a tough competition this year that saw a Dutch triple as Willem VD Helm takes the title, ahead of his fellow countrymen in second and third place with two members of Ireland’s feeder team placing in the top 8.

inniscarra

The anglers arrived at the Lee Valley area last weekend to start the week with two warm up matches. Saturday saw Lurgan angler Philip Jackson win from Rooves Bay with 217 fish, mostly roach for 19.860kg. A larger match on Sunday sponsored by Fountain House B&B Macroom was won by England’s Gareth Lambert who had 20.770kg of skimmers and hybrids on his debut visit to Inniscarra.

inniscarra

The main FEEDERFEST event was split over five sections of the Coachford Greenway fished in rotation by the 74 competing anglers. With the impending wet conditions, the water levels of the reservoir were carefully managed with thanks to the ESB to keep the venue accessible throughout. The expected rainfall made the fishing harder with water levels risen 4ft by the end of the week. But the anglers enjoyed mixed bags of bream, skimmers, hybrids and roach on most pegs, with single species dominating others.

Congratulations to Willem who took first place on day three with 24kg from section E and held his lead to win the festival. Runner up was Henk Roskam the 2019 Feederfest winner who placed just 50g ahead of Aart Multem.

  • 1 Willem vd Helm, Netherlands 59.230kg
  • 2 Henk Roskam, Netherlands 52.500kg
  • 3 Aart Multem, Netherlands 52.450kg
  • 4 Rod Scott, England 51.500kg
  • 5 Willem Multem, Netherlands 47.300kg
  • 6 Tony Hopkins, Ireland 46.700kg
  • 7 Paul Boothby, England 46.680kg
  • 8 Rimantas Kondrackas, Ireland 46.430kg

Organised by Inniscarra Lake Tourism Ltd the event featured fantastic sponsorship from Heineken, O’Riordans Bar,Coachford and O’Callaghans Bar & Guest House contributing to the prize fund supplemented by boxes of groundbait from Sensas Ireland rewarding the top eight winners, on top of daily and section wins.

The village of Coachford in County Cork is at the heart of the angling in the Lee Valley, less then 5 minutes from Inniscarra Lake and less than half an hour from Cork City. With its good accessible fishing and range of festivals throughout the year it provides for both the match and leisure angler.

Go Fishing…

Inniscarra Lake TDL

Inniscarra Lake TDL are affiliated to the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland, NCFFI the National Governing body for coarse and predator fishing and casting. www.ncffi.ie

Inniscarra Festivals 2023

inniscarra 2023

For details of the all the events, venues and more, a downloadable copy of the events calendar, festival results and a directory of angler friendly accommodation in the local area please visit www.ncffi.ie/inniscarra-angling.

Report courtesy of Inniscarra Lake TDL

Season’s reflections on fishing Cork Harbour from Richie Ryan

By
Shane O'Reilly
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Bass angling guide Richie Ryan of Eirebass still hopes to get in couple more sessions before the end of the year, but here offers his reflections on some of the fishing in Cork Harbour over the summer, and on a couple of more recent trips:

Pollack on the fly did not disappoint this summer. Not a single blank day on the boat for the whole summer, which says a lot about my go-to quarry when Bass are not playing ball. Some very happy clients were put ashore after excellent fly fishing with promises to return again. The gill nets outside the harbour have been hammered by seals of late, and it’s not worth the effort for the hard-pressed half-decker owners to set them. Fortunately, this is a great bonus for us fluff chuckers! 

For some, the Bass fishing on Cork harbour has been excellent this year; Declan Collins and Warren Devlin take a bow!  And so it was that returning fly anglers John Meehan and Aidan Walsh were peeved about the end of the salmon/trout season, so booked a guided Bass fly fishing session in October. Aidan had driven from Tipperary that morning, so I did feel under a lot of pressure to produce results. Thankfully 3 fine Bass were brought to the net and released quickly in a very sporting fashion.

Aiden with one of his bass

A buddy was duly wound up about the successful outing, and Ray Burns booked me two days later. I was gutted that this excellent angler had a blank on the same marks, albeit in slightly inferior conditions. Ray, I promise we’ll put that right the next time!  And finally, I managed a few nice shore outings in October myself. The estuaries in Cork harbour were fishing well, with Bass being landed on 3 out of four of my sessions in one week. Happy days! 

Richie with one of his 2022 bass

Make a booking

If you want to book Richie then go to  www.corkbass.com

Eire Bass – Richie Ryan

Saltwater fly fishing Guide.

Web: www.corkbass.com E-mail: [email protected]
Tel: +353 (0)86 1940744

A new personal best for Mikey on Lough Ramor

By
David Byrne
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Mikeys ne personal best pike

Following on from a successful day’s coarse fishing on Lough Ramor last week, Mikey Mooney decided to try his hand at a bit of pike fishing later in the afternoon and evening time. Mikey was visiting with Bluebell Angling Club stalwarts Paul Byrne and Phil O’Neill.

Ramor has been producing a few nice pike recently for anglers fishing from the shore. The majority of fish are being taken on legered dead bait. The recent heavy rains had led to a rise in water levels, but this did not deter Mikey.

October Sunset on Lough Ramor, Co. Cavan
Beautiful sunset on Lough Ramor in Co. Cavan.

As evening drew in Mikey got a run and struck into a decent pike. The fish was netted after a good fight with the weighing scales showing that Mikey had just broken his personal best (PB) pike record. The fish weighed in at 12.9lbs. A huge well done to Mikey on his success. We look forward to hearing about the lads future fishing exploits and outings.

Pike Fishing, Virginia, Co Cavan, Ireland
Mikey Mooney with his new personal best pike of 12.9.lb

Please fish in a sustainable manner

Nice day and some nice coarse fishing on Lough Ramor in Co. Cavan

By
David Byrne
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Lough Ramor, Co., Cavan
Mikey bring another decent fish to the net on Lough Ramor yesterday

Members of the Bluebell Angling Club visited Lough Ramor yesterday. It was a beautiful day following the previous days thunderstorms and torrential rain.

Lough Ramor, Co., Cavan
Mikey brings another decent fish to the net on Lough Ramor yesterday

Water levels and temperatures were well up and there were some very nice catches of roach and perch to feeder and float.

Coarse fsing on Lough Ramor, Co Cavan, Ireland
Mikey (pictured,) Paul Byrne and Phil O’Neill from Bluebell Anglers fished L. Ramor Yesterday

Please fish in a sustainable manner

Irish Angling Update 🎣 21 October 2022

By
IFI
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This past week saw torrential rain, gales and even some thunderstorms sweeping across the country. The extensive rain resulted in widespread flooding with water levels reaching levels not seen for quite some time making for mostly poor angling conditions. As a consequence, we didn’t receive many angling reports this week. However, some anglers braved the elements or made use of the few calmer and sunnier intervals to enjoy some good fishing.

While the last of the remaining trout fisheries finally closed last week, we received a late report from angling guide Jackie Mahon. In his report Jackie looks back on his last trip of the season on Lough Arrow which was quite a memorable one and a great way to finish the 2022 trout season.

Ewan McGregor, setting a drift up in Laundry bay Lough Arrow
Lough Arrow providing some excellent end of season fishing

Autumn is prime time for pike and as pike are still actively feeding it is no surprise that predator anglers from all over the country will gather this weekend at the first NCFFI All Ireland Lure Angling Championships taking place on Lough Ree.

Earlier this week, some nice pike were reported from the Virgina and Bailieboro area despite high water levels and difficult conditions. The Leinster Pike Anglers hit a river venue for the second leg of their winter league last weekend, and with bad weather forecast, it looked like it was going to be a tough day on the banks. However, the rain held off for most of the day which made for a more enjoyable day’s fishing.

Staying with pike fishing, we received two reports from the Boyle area, where  Brendan Sharkey of Predator Fishing Ireland has been guiding a number of groups lately, producing some super fish around the magical 1 meter mark.

Pike Fishing in Boyle, Co. Roscommon, Ireland
A beautiful pike form the Boyle area

Over to coarse fishing, where club competitions were tough going in Co. Cavan due to exceptionally high water levels, while the last of the local festivals in the Cavan/Leitrim area was fished in Carrigallen from 3rd – 7th October. Overall winner was the ever consistent Lee Symonds, with a total of 51.750 kg. Further west on the River Suck, Shane Dunne won the Connaught 2 day October Festival with an overall weight of 7.150 kg.

Given last week’s blustery and stormy conditions, it’s hardly surprising that sea angling reports were also quite scarce this week. Saying that, anglers fishing with Wicklow Boat Charters had a bit of a late-season bonanza landing several fine tope up to specimen size as October is proving to be a good month for tope.

Quality tope from the east coast

October also seems to be a prime time for bluefin tuna in Donegal Bay! Several tuna boats reported epic fishing with up to 8 fish to the boat and many more hook ups. This is clearly world class big game fishing and therefore wins our Catch of the Week.

World class tuna fishing to be enjoyed in Donegal Bay

Staying in Donegal Bay,  the beaches around Killybegs also fished well during the week with Killybegs Mariners member, Cara Boyle, catching a fine flounder measuring just one 1cm short of the 45cm specimen mark.

Elsewhere, the Irish Federation of Sea Anglers held the 2022 Inter-Provincial Shore Angling Championships in the Killala area over the weekend of 8-9 October. Conditions weren’t easy and in the end after three competitions just one point separated the top two men’s teams, with Leinster just coming out on top ahead of Munster.

JP Molloy (Munster) with two nice counting flounder at the Inter-Provincial Shore Angling Championships

Finally, we received a great report from Newport SAC, who fished their final boat competition of the season on Sunday, October 9th in Clew Bay.

In other news…

The Galway Fishery recently featured on the Nationwide programme on RTE One television. The focus of the piece was on the research carried out on salmon stocks at the fishery, including a look at salmon smolts being tagged. In case you missed it check it out in YouTube here.

Paddy Gargan on Nationwide

And now the weather

Showers or longer spells of rain will continue in the north and northwest over the weekend. It will turn drier further south with clear spells developing. Lowest temperatures generally of 7 to 11 degrees, milder in parts of the west in moderate or fresh southerly winds. Low pressure will be dominating in the early part of next week bringing more heavy showers on most days with some localised flooding possible. The outlook is for more unsettled weather with wet and breezy conditions.

Safe fishing to all and tight lines, especially here in Ireland. If you’re heading to the coast, don’t forget to check the tides.

IFI Staff
Catch, Photo, Release

If you have an angling story to share with the Irish Angling Update please send it to [email protected].

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Leinster Pip Munster to Inter Provincial Shore Title

By
IFI Staff
-

The Irish Federation of Sea Anglers held the 2022 Inter-Provincial Shore Angling Championships in the Killala area over the weekend of 8-9 October. Following still northwesterlies, fishing was tough, particularly on Enniscrone, where weed made certain areas very difficult to fish at times. Check out the video below from John Cunningham!

Enniscrone, Lacken and Dunmoran beaches were the venues used over the weekend. At stake were not just the inter-provincial titles, but also qualifying spots for the Irish teams for the 2023 Home Nations. Competition was therefore fierce. but friendly!

Tight At The Top

After 3 competitions (2 on Saturday, one on Sunday) just one point separated the top two men’s teams, with Leinster just coming out on top ahead of Munster. The Leinster team of Alby Allan, Niall Carabini, Thomas Keogh, Des Farrelly and Stephen Glynn finished on 38 points, just ahead of Munster on 37. Ulster were third on 30.5 points, with Connacht on 24.5.

The qualifiers for the Irish team to fish in Wales next year were Stephen Glynn, Des Farrelly, JP Molloy, Darren Ryan and Alan O’Dowling.

JP Molloy (Munster) with two nice counting flounder

Munster were the only province to field a full ladies team, with Liz McMahon taking the top individual spot on 7 points. The Munster ladies will now represent Ireland next year.

In the Youths competition, the u-16Leinster team of Aaron Willet, Ava Marshall, Daniel Gricius, Evan Mason and Nathan de Kleer finished on 43 points, well ahead of Munster on 35. The under-16 team for Wales next year will be Ava Marshall, Billy Gilvarry, Aaron Willet, Liam David, Nathan de Kleer and Chris Sanbak.

The under-16 team that will represent Ireland in 2023

The u-21 competition was won by the Munster team of Adam O’Neil, Bradley Kirwan, Finn Healy, Noah Tahran and Tom Keal with 43.5 points. Leinster were just behind them on 42 points. The u-21 team for next year will be Cian Corcoran, Adam O’Neil, Bradley Kirwan, Adam Watchorn, Tom Keal and Kai Butler.

Congrats to all the victorious provincial teams, and to the anglers who made Irish teams for 2023. We will be following you in Wales!

Big flounder for Cara in Donegal

By
IFI
-

Beaches around Killybegs fished well during the week. Killybegs Mariners member, Cara Boyle, caught a fine flounder measuring 44cm just shy of the 45cm specimen mark but setting a new club record. This is a great time of year now on the beaches as the big fish fatten before winter.

44cm flounder for Cara Boyle

Please fish in a sustainable manner

The 4th leg of the Mariners winter league will go ahead this Friday 21st October from 19.30pm – 23.30pm on Rossnowlagh Beach.

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