Team Ireland Youth will have full representation at the World Youth Championships in France next year — with squads in all age categories for the first time in years!
Thanks to the hard work of Youth Manager Adrian Browne and the dedication shown at our Development Days, a fantastic group of young anglers are ready to take on the world stage.
Huge congratulations to all those selected — your commitment and passion have earned you this moment! The U25 team will be revealed soon — watch this space.
And don’t miss the announcement of our next Development Days, coming soon — the perfect opportunity for more young anglers to get involved!
Youth team travel and entry are subsidised by NCFFI, with support from Inland Fisheries Ireland and partners — but we need your help too! Parents and anglers will be fundraising to cover travel costs, and any support or sponsorship is warmly welcomed to help these young athletes represent Team Ireland with pride.
We also warmly welcome support from our membership — anyone available to travel and support the squad in France will make a huge difference for these young anglers.
Pat Falvey reports on the Munster Feeder Anglers Celtic Masters Festival fished at Inniscarra…
The curtain has come down on another incredible Celtic Masters Festival here at Inniscarra Lake, and what a dramatic finale it turned out to be!
The arrival of Storm Amy made sure that the final day would not be forgotten in a hurry. Anglers were met with gale-force winds, gusts reaching up to 80 km/h, and relentless heavy rain that tested skill, stamina, and spirit to the absolute limit. Despite these extreme conditions, Inniscarra once again reminded us why this lake is so special.
While many sections fished extremely hard in the driving wind and rain, it was the Graveyard section that came alive on Day 5, producing some fantastic weights in the storm. And it was here that the story of the festival was written.
Robertas Zilaitis produced a superb winning catch of 20 kg 500 g from the Graveyard, a weight that not only won him the day but also catapulted him up the leaderboard into first place with a winning weight of 72.970kg. In doing so, Robertas successfully defended his crown and is now the 2025 Celtic Masters Champion, lifting the shield for the second year running.
Robertas Zilaitis
Following closely behind in second place was Andy Lutz, who led the festival going into the final day. Andy fished brilliantly all week, weighing a superb 70 kg 900 g over the five days and showing the consistency and class that kept him at the sharp end of the competition right up until the finish.
In third place, Ken Ince also demonstrated fantastic form throughout the week. With no mistakes and steady performances every day, Ken’s total of 68 kg 255 g was enough to secure a well-deserved spot on the podium.
Final Top 3 Totals:
1st – Robertas Zilaitis: 72 kg 970 g
2nd – Andy Lutz: 70 kg 900 g
3rd – Ken Ince: 68 kg 255 g
As always at Inniscarra, the festival was never over until the final weigh-in. The last-day drama, the shift at the very top, and the resilience of every angler braving Storm Amy made this year’s Celtic Masters one of the most memorable yet.
Special Thanks
This festival would not be possible without the support and generosity of our sponsors: Haigh Rail Ltd, Blarney Brewing Company, and Paddy Mac’s Bar, Coachford. A very special thank you goes to Aileen at Paddy Mac’s Coachford for facilitating the rotation draws and presentations throughout the week, and for also providing the fantastic food that kept everyone going, rain or shine.
Our sincere thanks also goes to the team of stewards who worked tirelessly all week: Dale Malpas, Henk Roskam, Chris Haigh, Andy Lutz, Richard Mowat, Dave Micklewright, Willem Multem , and everyone else who assisted in keeping things running smoothly. Your efforts are what help make the Celtic Masters the unique and welcoming festival it is today.
To all anglers, helpers, and supporters—thank you. The camaraderie, competition, and spirit of this festival are what make it truly special.
Adrian Browne reports on the Open fished at Oaklandson Sunday…
05 October: Open Feeder match today at Oakland. Great turn out. Big congrats to Peter Poprawski who ran away with the match bagging 45.730kg from peg 40.
Today’s Results
1st Peter Poprawski 40.730 kg
2nd Marnel Popa 28.850 kg
3rd Darius Biru 25.430 kg
Section A Chris Simpson 13.570 kg
Section B David Galvin 14.300 kg
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Big thanks to all who fished.
Go fishing…
Next match October 19th Start of the winter league.
A very popular carp fishery. Popular with competition anglers and novices alike. Alway a great chance of a bumper bag here. Friendly staff more than happy to advise beginner anglers. Caters to all sorts of clubs and groups.
It’s been a slow start to autumn for me mostly down to the weather conditions, with September nearly a complete right off. However, I did manage to get out after some autumn beauties in a little weather window over the big tides.
I love this time of the year. The bass are aggressive and feeding hard on mackerel and baitfish amongst other stuff.
No prizes for guessing that I was using a shallow diver, a nice slow retrieve, always a winner.
I am really hoping the weather holds some bit, and we can get some decent fishing in over the next couple of months.
The West Cork & District Sea Angling Club will be hosting an open competition on Youghal Beach this Sunday, 9th November. The word is that the East Cork beaches are fishing well at the moment. Bait is supplied on the day, so competitors need only turn up and catch fish! If it were only that easy…
Amy is “her” name, and she’s sweeping in today from the Atlantic. The first named storm of 2025-26 winter season is upon us, with a RED WARNING for Co. Donegal this afternoon, orange warnings for several western counties, and yellow for everywhere else. There is also a RED WARNING for coastal areas from Loop Head in Clare to Fair Head in Antrim, so if you are near the coast take all precautions and stay well clear of the water. As I write the winds have really picked up here in the west, with very strong gusts.
Last week provided some lovely settled weather, which came to an end this week, with very heavy rainfall on Thursday and the imminent storm today. Hopefully it will settle down a bit after this!
For a change we begin our round-up on foreign shores, in Spain, where the World u-16 and u-21 shore fishing championships finished up yesterday. Some fantastic fishing by the irish teams saw the uner-16s take the bronze medal, a brilliant result, while the under-21s were denied a medal on a count back, having tied with Italy and the Netherlands behind the winners Spain. Back in home waters, there were good reports from sea anglers around the country, who enjoyed last week’s settled weather. David Edwards, skipper of the Silver Dawn, reports on good blue shark fishing in west Cork.
Luke Aston reports good mixed fishing from west Clare, with pollack, scad, spurdog, tope and ray among the species coming to the boat. In Mayo, Newport SAC held their end-of season team competition,, where the stiff competition enjoyed plenty of sport, the highlight being Ciaran McGowan’s 62-inch Common Skate, our Catch of the Week.
Ciaran McGowan pictured with his 185lb Skate on board the Finnaun skippered by Joe Gibbons during the recent Newport SAC Annual Teams competition.
Competitors enjoyed great conditions, if the fishing was a little tough, on various venues around the Dingle Peninsula for the modifed Daiwa Pairs event this year, but some fine fish were caught, including a fine sting ray off Inch beach in one of the pegged matches.
The game fishing season has come to an end on many fisheries, although some continue into October. Better water on Lough Currane, which finishes on October 12th for sea trout, made for a good week, with 10 salmon landed, as well as good numbers of sea trout to 3lbs.
The season on the River Lee finished on Tuesday, with 17 salmon reported in the last week, and in west Cork, rain brought nice water for salmon fishing, with salmon reported off the Bandon, Ilen, Owvane and Glengariff rivers. |There were also salmon reported off the Laune in Kerry, and on the Erriff a salmon and a couple of sea trout for Damien Lavery saw the Erriff finish the season
In coarse angling, Munster Feeder Anglers kicked off 9 days of festival fishing on Inniscarra with the 1 day Celtic Masters Open, followed by the 3-day Inniscarra Feeder Classic.The fishing was off the charts, with the top 5 anglers in the open weighing in over 100kg! The weights continued in this vein for the Classic, and the fishing continues this week with the 4-day Celtic Masters, with more great weights reported already. Read the full report here.
On the River Shannon, Joe Nolan was top rod in the Portumna September Festival, where great daily catches of up to 21kgs were recorded.
And in Co. Leitrim, Ulster were crowned the 2025 NCFFI Inter-Provincial champions after the 2-day team competition at the weekend.
Steve McDonagh from the Fishing With Steve YouTube channel is back on the bank, but this time, it’s river pike and not lake monsters that Steve is after. Check out the report and video here.
Bodo Funke also reports on a nice trip for a father and son duo from Austria, who caught good numbers of pike to almost 1m in challenging conditions.
Finally, 83 anglers took to Lough Ree for the King of the Lake competition, where just 13cm separated the winners from second place. With so many anglers on the lough, fishing wasn’t easy, but there were some smashing fish caught, including a longest fish of 112cm for one of the teams.
Anglers and angling associations are some of the organisation’s key stakeholders, and this document will guide IFI’s role in any future involvement with recreational angling and the angling sector.
The public consultation will be open for submissions until Friday, October 17th, 2025.
Extract from the IFI Statement of Strategy
And now the weather…
Storm Amy is currently battering the western half of the country, moving on to Scotland this evening and tonight, but in the meantime, batten down the hatches!
Saturday will be wet and windy with strong and gusty westerly winds. A band of heavy showery rain will move down from the north. The afternoon will gradually become drier with just scattered showers and some sunny spells. Cooler with highest temperatures of 12 to 15 degrees.
Generally cloudy and blustery on Sunday with well scattered light showers; more persistent rain pushing in from the northwest in the evening. Highest temperatures of 12 to 16 degrees in moderate to fresh W/SW winds.
The outlook is for showery conditions in moderate to fresh SW winds, and max temps of 14-16C.
Jim Clohessy of TopFisher.eu was on the water for his last September run out last weekend – with some decent fish to show for it from the wrecks:
Yesterday’s run was welcome after losing much of September to poor weather. We weighed up our options and headed for deep water as the conditions allowed.
Lo and behold we caught mackerel in the outer harbour and for the first time small mackerel have started to show up. The sea condition was more choppy than the forecast hinted at. The sea was running from the SE. We were still able to manage a comfortable 20knts running out.
We could see immediately that there was a lot of life about. There were hundreds of dolphins all around the place. While some were leisurely the majority were actively hunting. We did have to stop to watch the tuna as well, always something to behold. We take such sights for granted…. Blue planet stuff!
We eventually hit our first wreck with a few hours of the ebb tide to go. Drifting was tricky on this particular wreck but it has been fishing reasonably well. We had a few handy ling, nothing earth shattering but decent all the same. I was suffering from a fair bit of tackle loss as the drift was pushing us into a “dirty” part of the wreck. Off the wreck was slow enough so we headed for some broken ground.
By now the tide had turned and the wind v tide slowed the drift right down. We had a few decent whiting and the slow drift threw up some doggies (they are the one species doing well it seems, they are all over the place!).
All too soon it was time to head back to base… While the fishing wasn’t electric, it was a fabulous day on the water. Sometimes the whole package saves the day. What do they say? “A poor day fishing beats a good day working!”
See Jim’s Facebook Page for a full report and plenty of footage or check out TopFisher.eu for plenty of fishing and boat related tips, tricks and useful information.
It was a bittersweet end to the World Championships in Spain for our young Irish teams.
Our U21s ended the campaign in a tie with Italy and the Netherlands on 12 points and suffered cruelly in the tie break ending up in 4th position and just out of the medals. They fished brilliantly all week and their efforts will stand them in good stead in the years to come.
Unfortunate three way tie for the U21s
On the other hand our young guns refused to give up after a semi disastrous first day where some pegs were completely unfishable. The lads battled back on the southern beaches of Pinar to haul themselves up the table. Day 3 was another head scratcher at times but practice pays off and the lads with palometta on their pegs bagged up notably Daniel Gricius blazing a trail. In the end when the dust settled Alex, Mochara, Joseph, Danny and Daniel along with management team of Barry and Liam took to the podium to collect their well earned Bronze medals.
Bronze for the U16s
Outstanding fishing by our young anglers and a huge thank you to all the parents and members that took time to get the lads there driving half way across Europe with gear and pulling together to make this happen.
Final scoreboards
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In the end a double podium eluded us but I for one am very proud of the effort that was put in to get the results and on another day it would of gone our way.
Training days at sunset
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Thanks to our sponsors, including Inland Fisheries Ireland, for their continued support.
The Daiwa Pairs committee faced some difficulties this year in running a full festival event, but they still managed to bring a large number of anglers to Dingle for a modified pairs festival, with a return to full festival activities next year. This year’s event was a great success, with the settled weather providing lovely fishing conditions, and some great fish were caught during the week.
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Specimen fish were thin on the ground this year, with the highlight a specimen bull huss. There was also a fine sting ray caught during the match on Inch, as well as some lovely bass.
The overall winner of the pairs were Mick Tapsell and Tom Wells, with runners-up Darren Bond and Colin Carey. Top individual rod was local Kerry angler Troy Francis.
