ANGLING NOTES:IRELAND'S SHORE angling team, representing the Irish Federation of Sea Anglers (IFSA), has made history by winning the world championship in South Africa. Now in its 27th year, the championship was contested by 16 nations at Langebann in the western province.
The competition was held over five days and the Irish team led from day two, overcoming strong pressure to beat seasoned performers Italy and Spain.
The team travelled to the venue several weeks beforehand to practise and devise a winning strategy.
Team selection was through a series of qualification competitions held across the four provinces. This process, introduced a couple of years ago, is designed to produce the best on-form five anglers. “Now we have the results to prove it,” says IFSA spokesman, Brian Cooke.
To put the result into perspective, the team is self-funded by the IFSA and individual members. Ireland’s previous best finish was a silver and two individual world champions: Timothy O’Sullivan from Kerry and Michael Kearney from Dublin.
The Irish team comprised JP Molloy (captain), John O’Brien, Timothy O’Sullivan, Mark Beatty and Derek Kenrick. The manager was IFSA chairman Tom Lillis.
As well as the team’s win, John O’Brien and Timothy O’Sullivan finished second and fourth, respectively, in the individual table.
The event was held in shallow, clear-water bays where water temperature reached 24 degrees, several degrees warmer than the open coastline. This extra heat attracted fish of all species, especially small shark and rays, says Cooke.
The IFSA is a 32-county federation and national governing body for sea angling in Ireland. It is recognised by the Angling Council of Ireland and Irish Sports Council.
This result has sealed a fabulous year for Irish sea-angling. In the home nations competitions, the senior boat team and shore under-16s and under-21s took gold medals in Belmullet and Scotland.
- Congratulationsto John Geary on his appointment to the board of Inland Fisheries Ireland. As editor of Hooked on the Moy magazine he is a keen salmon and trout angler and recently opened a solicitor's office in Castlebar, Co Mayo.
- Althoughwater levels were not ideal, July and September produced good fishing on both river and lake, says Colin Folan, fishery manager at Lough Inagh, Recess, Co Galway.
The salmon catch was up on last year with 79 fish recorded (26 released), compared with 56 fish for 2009. There was, however, a shortage of double-figure salmon with only two topping the 4.5kg mark.
Sea trout numbers were also up in both size and quantity with 502 fish compared with 470 for 2009. It was a poor season for brown trout with only 212 recorded, down from 424 and just one big fish of 4.9kg.
This year’s top patterns were Bibio and Connemara Black. Top salmon fly for the river was a Cascade, taking 16 fish. “All the spawning streams were tended to last year and with a fantastic run of salmon this year, hopefully, we will have good numbers of fish spawning,” Folan added.
- The NationalBiodiversity Data Centre has launched an online atlas of freshwater fish in Irish lakes in collaboration with Inland Fisheries Ireland. The atlas has a species search tool which provides information, photographs and distribution map for 23 species. It also has a lake browser for species recorded from 956 lakes across Ireland: log onto biodiversityireland.ie/new-online-atlas-of-freshwater-fish-in-irish-lakes
- Correction:the caption on the photograph in Angling Notes of November 8th should have read Lauren McGuirk from Mulhuddart Community Youth Project.
- angling@irishtimes.com