2011 International Festival...the results

Danny Kane, Cobh SAC, has won the Cobh International Deep Sea Angling Festival, held in Cork Harbour last week. This is Danny's second year in a row winning this event and comes just two week's after finishing third in the National Boat Masters. Well done Danny!!!

Danny, didn't have it easy, though, and was lying in 6th position coming into the final day. He beat off stiff competition to reach the top spot, narrowly squeezing past Steve Williams of Wales by only 55 points!

This year's competition was a superb event with numbers up on last year. 52 anglers from 6 nations participated with a few new faces amongst the hardy annuals. Some of the international anglers have now been participating year on year. In fact one group of Dutch lads have now fished the Festival 36 years on the trot! That's dedication for you but is also a testament to what a great event this Festival is.

As is the case every year, the boats used were from the Cork Harbour Angling Hub fleet. This year the following boats were used; the John Boy, the Lee Star, the Naomh Cartha, the Cuan Ban, the Wreck Hunter, and the Lagosta II. Many thanks to the skippers whose facilities and expertise were second to none. Indeed, with the tough conditions that prevailed their expertise was

called upon. Weather conditions for the week were extremely tough with frequent gale force winds, intermittant squalls, and sea-states at times exceeding three to four metres. Despite this the skippers did put the anglers on fish.

On two of the days the boats were able to get out to the outer reefs; the Smiths reef on one day and the Pollack Rock reef on another. On the other two days the boats were confined to the Harbour mouth and within 1 mile of Roches Point. Fishing as a result was tough. Nevertheless, a good mixture of fish were landed with good numbers of pollack, cod, ling, and conger, along with whiting, grey gurnard, red gurnard, cuckoo wrasse, ballan wrasse, whiting, dabs, huss, and dogs. Good quality conger were landed every day with many conger up around the
15kg mark. Fish of the week, though, was a superb specimen conger of 19.0kg landed on the final day by Danny Kane.

In winning the event Danny collected a cheque for €1,000 aswell as an array of crystal and trophies. Steve Williams of Wales, as runner-up, collected a cheque for €400, and Tom Johnson, Ireland, in third place won €200. The winning two-man team of Steve Williams and Paul Tennant collected a cheque for €400. Most species went to Andrew Tucker of Wales with 8 species and most number of fish went to Pat O' Shea, Cobh SAC, with 48 fish. On the ladies side two old salts, Sandra O' Shea and Tina Kneeshaw slugged it out for pole position. This year was to be Tina's year; well done Tina! For a more detailed report and results have a look here.

Once again the social side of this event was memorable. Many thanks to the pubs and restaurants that sponsored each night's entertainment where the craic, banter and slagging went on till the wee hours. The one that got away certainly seemed bigger after a few pints of the dark stuff!

Work is already under way in organising and planning next year's event. The fishing should be very good next year as the event coincides with the first set of springs in September. If you would like to fish next year's event or would like more information why not contact Cobh SAC club secretary, Mary Geary, on 00-353-21-812167 or by email on seaangling@esatclear.ie.