23 August - 4 September This year Howard went to a fishing festival in Ireland with a fishing friend, Martyn, from Australia. The photos in this blog post are from Howard and Martyn, and Howard has provided the details. From Howard: The fishing festival was in Gowna in County Cavan, and is based at Fitzpatrick's pub where we stayed. I've been before: they do a great bed and breakfast and everyone is really friendly and helpful. This year the festival had 72 anglers fishing. Howard caught a pike out of competition I hired a car from Schipol Airport near where we are moored, and drove to England via the Euro Tunnel. I met up with Martyn and stayed the night at his sister’s place in Barrowby near Nottingham. Friday morning we somehow managed to pack everything in to the car and set off. We arrived at Hollyhead in North Wales a little early and spent our time in a fishing tackle shop (of course). The ferry ride was 4 hours and as we approached Ireland the weather got really windy and rainy. Well it is Ireland. The pub Eventually we got to Gowna around 8 PM unpacked and headed to the Bar. After introducing Martyn to the locals it was time to get a pint and some dinner. This was our nightly routine, and I enjoyed the good pub food (as well as the pints). Saturday Martyn and I caught up with another friend Dara Finnegan. Dara is Irish but use to live in Sydney. Martyn and I know him well as we fished with him in Canberra and Mildura. Dara moved back to Ireland a couple of years ago and lives about an hours drive from Gowna. Dara kindly lent us some “tackle” that we didn’t have. After that we headed off to Einneskillen in search of the fishing tackle shop to get a few last minute items. Enniskillen in Northern Ireland is the closest fishing tackle shop. Sunday was a practise day with most competitors getting a chance to have a fish and a look at the different sections. We fished Tessa's Shore - Martyn got 1.75kg and I got 3.3kg. Registration for the first day of competition was Sunday evening. Martyn and I did a van draw - which means we are always sent to the same section as we were sharing a car. On Fridays however it is a free draw, and you could end up in different sections. The fishing in Ireland is actually very technical and the different sections fish differently each day depending on the weather and also the direction of the wind. Their results are in the attached file:
Our objective was not finish on the second page (ie be amongst the top 50 fishermen - out of 72) and to win a mini section of five. Unfortunately we both failed both our objectives. We did, however, have a great time and learnt a lot. It’s a real challenge fishing in the large big loughs of Ireland and I’m sure that the next time we go we will do better. We had a break from fishing on Saturday. After the standard cooked breakfast – bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, black pudding, white pudding and potato bread - we went out touristing. On Sunday we decided to go fishing with Dara. We went to the River Suck near Roscommon (close to Dara). The river has been specifically set up for match fishing with great wooden jetties for each person. Martyn took the deep peg in search of some skimmers and bream, whilst Dara and I each had a roach peg. We caught plenty of fish although Martyn managed to catch 2 big eels which Dara claims he hasn’t seen caught there in 20 years (eels are a protected species in Ireland and must be returned immediately to the water). I had a bonus pike (about 6lb) caught on a big worm. Unfortunately for Martin, he didn’t get any big bream but he did catch a few nice skimmers. In all we had a nice day. It was then back to the pub for a farewell drink with our friends, old and new (whom generally stay for the month fishing everyday) and then packed up ready to return home. I dropped Martyn off on the Monday evening and stayed at Martyn’s sisters the night again, before heading home early Tuesday morning.
We had a great time and I’m sure we'll be going back ..!!!
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AuthorWe are sharing stories about and travels on our barge Moondance. Archives
August 2023
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