In this episode, Steve falls victim to the heavy rainfall that we’d had in the buildup to his pike session, as his chosen Monaghan venue was inaccessible due to flooding. So, after a tour of Monaghan and Cavan, he finally found a familiar venue that wasn’t flooded or occupied by other anglers!
Steve ended up back in Cavan, on the lake where he started his pike fishing season this year. It was a bad day of weather, with heavy rain and strong winds, but it turned out to be a good day for catching pike!
The Killybegs Mariners’ penultimate league outing (11 of 12) took place last night at the relocated venue of Fintra, following storm surge conditions at Rossnowlagh.
Despite fine but fishable surf, it proved a strong night for round fish. Impressive numbers of coley were landed, mostly between 30–36cm, with the five-coley limit reached by the top scorers. Bonus species included flounder, whiting, and a five-bearded rockling.
Results as follows:
1st: John Cunningham – 5 coley, 2 flounder, 5-bearded rockling (280 pts) – €60
2nd: Shane Cunningham – 5 coley, 3 flounder to 32cm (261 pts) – €30
Longest flounder (outside top 2): Chris Whyte – 33cm – €30
Lucky peg draw: Chris Whyte – €20
Well done to all. With one league outing remaining, the overall standings show a tight race at the top as the best eight scores decide the league.
South Shore SAC have announced Sunday 28th December as the date for their Winter Pairs competition to be held at Kilgorman Strand. All details in the graphic above.
This is Jamie's 2nd win this year fishing with the seniors and he also won an IFPAC junior event last April with a fine 19lber so he's had a fantastic year!
The Newbridge & District Pike Anglers’ final outing of the 2025 season was held as a joint competition with the Irish Outgoing Pikers, bringing together members from both clubs for an enjoyable and well-supported day on the bank. The event focused on camaraderie as much as competition, with plenty of banter and new friendships formed.
Fishing took place on both river and canal venues and produced excellent results, with 44 pike caught, including eight doubles. The largest fish weighed 17.04, and all fish were weighed, photographed and safely released. Conditions were windy at times, but the rain stayed away.
Results were as follows: Jamie Hunter won the heaviest fish section with 17lb 04oz, followed by Ian Murphy with 16lb 14oz and Eoin Mahony with 14lb 08oz.
This is Jamie’s 2nd win this year fishing with the seniors and he also won an IFPAC junior event last April with a fine 19lber so he’s had a fantastic year! To round it off in style, we award Jamie our Catch of the Week.
The heaviest bag was won by Paul Wally Geoghegan with 31lb 12oz, ahead of Dave Murphy with 23lb 02oz and Garven Fay with 16lb 12oz. Dave Murphy’s catch was enough to win him the Angler of the Year competition.
The blind pairs competition was won by Jamie Hunter and Alan Cummins, with Wally and Red second, and Dave Murphy and Stephen Whiteley third. Paul Foxy Sheridan won the guess-the-weight competition.
The event was such a success that they plan to include it on next year’s calendar of events.
Another junior member at Newbridge who did really well this fishing with the seniors was Ollie Whiteley who had the club’s biggest fish of 2025 a fine river pike just over 24lb
Wicklow Bay SAC held their Christmas Spurdog and Social trip with Kit Dunne of Wicklow Boat Charters on Sunday. The weather was poor, and the spurs, while plentiful, were all on the small side. There were a few decent whiting caught, but the pick of the bunch on the day was a super near specimen-sized tope of 156cm for Paul Hubbard. Great to see fish of this stamp being caught so late in the year.
East coast waters are home to some of the best fishing in Ireland, with Wicklow boasting record catches of Tope, Bull-Huss, Ray and Spurdog in recent years. Catch Gurnard, Pollock and Codling on the inshore rough patches or on the offshore banks. Target your Specimen Tope, Spurdog, and Bull-Huss with Kit your local experienced skipper and accomplished Irish International Angler.
Angling Charters are offered on a full-day, half-day and evening trip basis and can be tailored to suit your needs. Two boats are available – Manannan Mac Lir and Castle Maiden. All levels of anglers are catered for. Anglers will benefit from your skipper’s angling experience and local knowledge with advice and guidance on-hand at all times.
Rod and tackle hire available, coaching and Bait supply on request.
SPECIALIST ANGLING CHARTERS
Specialist Angling Charters are offered for those who wish to target specific species, specimen fish or try new angling methods.
ANGLING COACHING
Whether you’re a Club, Individual, School or Junior, you can have an angling coaching session or programme tailored to suit your needs.
Castle Maiden
Offshore 105, 370 Hp Iveco
Skipper: Kit Dunne Licence: P5 Base: Wicklow Harbour Operational area: Wicklow, Arklow, Bray, Dun Laoghaire, and Courtown – 30 miles from ports of departure.
Manannan Mac Lir
Swiftcat 11.4m, 2 x 420hp Iveco
The new vessel, called “Manannan” for short, is an 11.4m, (37.5’), x 4.4m, Swiftcat, a state-of-the-art Charter Boat with great speed, safety, stability & comfort. She has a very spacious flush deck with walk around wheelhouse giving ample flush deck space all-round. With today’s high level of design options, she is well fitted out with all mod cons. She is a twin-engine shaft driven Catamaran, fitted with 2 x 420hp Iveco FPT NEF67 engines, she cruises at 18-20 Knots, with a top speed of 28 knots.
The town stretch of the Daingean canal well known for large weights of skimmers and tench normally the early wides are the best often throwing up around 20 lb
The Leinster Coarse Fishing Federation’s 2025 outings concluded last Sunday with the Leinster Fur & Feather match held on the Grand Canal at Daingean. Likely due to the threatening forecasts, only seven anglers attended, and while the heavy rain stayed away until after the weigh-in, very strong winds made conditions difficult. A small number of fish were caught, but no photographs were taken due to the weather.
In the overall results, Caullum Pickard finished first with a weight of 2.15, followed closely by Aidan Gill in second with 2.13. Section A was won by Colin Oliver with 2.10, and Section B by Donal McGuirk with 2.05, both by default.
The next event will be the Leinster Pairs, beginning on 4 January, with bookings through Sean Ward. The Leinster Federation extended its thanks to all who have supported the organisation over the years, with special appreciation to Brendan and the staff of the Blackthorn Pub in Daingean for their continued hospitality. Christmas and New Year greetings were also conveyed to all members.
On Saturday we held the final leg of the Munster Shore League, which also incorporated the Munster Open Shore Gold. The Slob Bank, Youghal was the venue, with fishing from 10:00am–3:00pm.
Fish showed from the very first cast, with several anglers hitting triple shots early on, and it was great to see some quality flounder showing on the bank throughout the day.
Brian Mansfield was very unlucky not to take the flatfish pool, landing two superb 38cm flounder. However, the flatfish pool went to Alan Mulcahy with a cracking 39cm flounder.
It was also great to see day-ticket holder Kenneth Barry take the round fish pool with a 35cm coalfish. Well done lads
Brian Mansfiled with a lovely 38cm flounder
Zone A proved to be the slower zone on the day, but JP Molloy showed his usual class to take the zone with 18 fish.
In Zone B and Zone C, Stephen O Donovan and Alan Mulcahy were neck and neck all day. Going into the final hour it was still too close to call, but a late burst of fish saw Mully edge ahead, finishing on 27 fish, with Stephen close behind on 25 fish to win the title.
Well done Mully.
Results
Top 3 on the Day
Alan Mulcahy
Stephen O’Donovan
Darren Ryan
League winners
Alan Mulchahy
Troy Francis
Richard Gormley
James Ryan
Darren Ryan
1 of 3
Congratulations Alan Mulchay
A massive well done again to Alan Mulcahy on an unbelievable season. Alan completed a clean sweep by winning the Munster Shore League, the Munster Shore Closed Gold, and the Munster Open Shore Gold.
Rumour has it he’s getting new shelves fitted at home to make room for the silverware.
Junior & Ladies Champions.
A big well done to Mochara Fraher on winning the Junior section of the league, and congratulations to Fiona Ryan on taking the Ladies title — two outstanding performances over the season.
Fiona RyanMochara Fraher
This was our first year running the league, and we’d like to sincerely thank every single angler who supported it. In total, 79 anglers fished the league this year, and it’s safe to say it was a huge success.
We are absolutely delighted to welcome Ultima as our new league sponsors. For the 2026 season, the league will now be known as the Ultima Munster Shore League.
A huge thank you to Ultima for their generous sponsorship and support.
For 2026, the league will move to five legs, giving anglers the opportunity to drop one result.
Legs 1–4 will count towards the Munster Closed Shore Gold, with an angler’s best 3 results to count.
Legs 1–5 will make up the Munster Shore League, with an angler’s best 4 results to count.
Leg 5 will also incorporate the Munster Open Shore Gold.
Legs 4 and 5 will be announced during the year once national fixtures become available, as we are doing our best to avoid any clashes.
Des Bridgette reports on the latest round of the Athy & District Anglers Winter League which was fished on Sunday…
Athy Anglers held their match in the marina on Sunday. Some good bags of fish were caught.
Well done to all who competed. No blanks, everyone caught.
1st Dean Murray, 25lb 9ozs
2nd Barry Maher, 17lb 7ozs
3rd Chris Lawlor, 16lb 4ozs
1 of 3
Dean Murray
Barry Maher
Chris Lawlor
This match was sponsored by Clive Dunne of Elk Recruitment, many thanks Clive much appreciated
Marina will be closed next Saturday for a match sorry for any inconvenience
Go fishing…
Athy and District Anglers
If you’d like to fish the Marina Club Grounds or get involved with the club and fish matches like these, then click the links below!
Athy & District Anglers Club was formed in 1959 and to this day they continue to pursue their goals of protecting, maintaining and encouraging the sport of angling in the greater Athy area. The club works with local authorities to improve and maintain local fishing areas as well as organizing events and matches for local and national anglers. Athy & District Anglers Club welcomes all new members and all age groups to the sport! If you’d like to get involved, please check out the Getting Involved section of their website.
Munster Coarse Anglers fished the fifth match of their winter series at Obriensbridge at the weekend. Kevin Leahy reports…
Almost a full turn out for the last league match of 2025 and we competed for the Fur and Feather to boot.
We finally got to fish the rowing course at Obriensbridge after a long absence. With a few more upstream pegs to try, thanks to the hard work of Ian and Morgan, every one was hoping for the best. Although with a strong South Westerly and a lot of rain forecast it was a case of make your self comfortable and strap everything down for the 5 hours!
As you can see from the result sheet it was good and bad with the fish in some pegs and not in others also the size of the fish varied from peg to peg. The 2 end pegs took the honours, Steve Grogan taking top spot with 7lb 0oz.
Munster Coarse Angling Club are affiliated to the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland, NCFFI the National Governing body for coarse and predator fishing and casting sport. www.ncffi.ie
High wind and high rainfall were the weather headlines in the early part of the week, as Storm Bram paid a visit and brought with it orange wind warnings covering the whole of the country, with red warnings for inshore areas. Rainfall was also up to 230% of normal. Together with the high wind and high rain were high temperatures, as the southerly source of the storm brought a brief spell of relative warmth, and parts of the east rose to over 17°C – the highest December temperatures ever recorded for parts of the country.
A week of unusual weather, which actually began with a recorded gust of nearly 300kph in Ringaskiddy – that was before Storm Bram even made landfall. Not a whole lot of fishing done this week then, as one would expect, but the usual hardy anglers did get a cast or two in before the weather went too wild…
While the trout fishing at this time of year is confined to commercial fisheries, the clubs on waters that are currently closed have plenty of time to plan for the season ahead; that is what the Milford and District Anglers, the Loughanure Anglers and the Lough Arrow Anglers have all been doing, as they have planned their competition calendars for 2026 already.
Finally, we would like to once again draw your attention to a brand-new book on sea trout by retired fishery scientist and angler Dr. Paddy Gargan. At 368 pages, The Connemara Sea-Trout Fisheries offers a comprehensive and engaging history of these iconic fisheries, richly illustrated with atmospheric photographs, detailed maps, and informative diagrams—a great Christmas gift for anyone with an interest in these iconic fisheries.
Other news
A reminder that the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment is running a public consultation on the Wild Salmon and Sea Trout Tagging Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2025 and Conservation Measures for 2026. Details of the proposed regulations and information on how to make a submission are available here: Wild Salmon and Sea Trout Regs and Conservation Measures for the 2026 Season announced. The closing date for submissions is 5.30pm on 20 December 2025.
And now the weather
It will be mostly dry on Friday night with clear spells and a few western showers, turning cloudier later and coldest in the east, with lows of 0–5°C. Saturday starts dry before rain spreads southeast, becoming windy with coastal gales and highs of 8–12°C. Saturday night stays wet and blustery but mild with lows of 10–12°C. Sunday begins wet and windy, with rain clearing the west by evening but lingering longest in Munster and south Leinster. Highs of 11–13°C. Rain clears further Sunday night with scattered showers and milder conditions, and Monday looks brighter for most with isolated showers, though rain may persist in the southeast.
Don’t forget to double-check the forecast before heading off, and if you’re going to sea, check the tides.
Castle Maiden
Manannan Mac Lir
Anyone who would like to fish the Munster Coarse Anglers Winter League can contact us by 
