Finally getting around to this, here is a quick roundup of
how the Irish Bass Festival went this year. First of all we would like to thank the
entrants for taking part and making the festival such a great success. The atmosphere in
the shop all weekend was outstanding with everybody entering into the festive mood
and the banter as always was great.
With regards prizes we were very lucky to have some incredibly
generous sponsors that included Topwater lures, Costa del Mar, Fiiish, UK Bass
and Active Angling Ireland. Among the prizes were some of the best rods on the
market, top polarized sunglasses, lures and accessories and even a weeks
fishing break to Ireland!!
So how was the fishing....
The weather was what it was, blue skies bright sunshine
with very little lift on the water making things a little more difficult for
the anglers. As the saying goes "adapt or die" and the anglers who
adapted to these conditions reaped the rewards. It was a bit deja vu with regards
weather from the 2012 festival however confidence was high among the anglers who were waiting to register and get out fishing. We opened the doors
at 5am to car loads of eager anglers ready to get out along the
coast, by 10am we had almost 80 anglers signed in and out fishing. Soon, the
messages start flying around of fish being caught and it was obvious it had
been a successful morning for some anglers. Fish were taken during the early
morning and throughout the day with some anglers having impressive numbers of fish on
surface lures. Estuary marks were producing fish in the daylight hours and rock
marks in low light conditions. After an 18 hour shift in the shop it was time
for us to catch up on some sleep safe in the knowledge that anglers were out
throwing all manner of hard and soft lures into gullies along the copper coast
through the small hours of the morning.
Time for breakfast after a long night fishing...
Taking a break from the summer sun...
It was another early start for us in the shop, as our main
job during the festival seems to be ensuring there is a steady flow of coffee
in the shop for tired anglers who pop in with updates. Saturday saw a small
change in the weather with a slight SW picking up, again fish were caught
throughout the day and the rumour mill was in full swing of high sixties and 70
plus cm fish being landed. Sunday morning came around very quickly and before
we knew it we were registering fish from anglers who had been fishing hard all
weekend. A big thanks to Fred and Sandra from Fiiish who spent the day in the
shop on Sunday answering questions anglers had about their products and giving demos on rigging Fiiish black minnows.
Overall there were good numbers of fish caught by entrants
over the weekend (official numbers to follow) and those who put in the hard
hours were rewarded with some nice catches over the weekend. Here are the
official results.
1st - Jamie O' Rourke
(71cm)
2nd - Eric Upton
(70cm)
3rd - Jason Nash (69cm)
Best 3 combined -
Eric Upton (193cm)
Best Visiting angler
- Timothy Pound (67cm)
Juvenile Winner -
Mark Kett (63cm)
Timothy Pound (best visiting angler)
Juvenile winner 2013 (Mark Kett)
With some nice fish caught and some monsters lost, plenty of
sunburn, some falling in and epic fishathons this year's festival has
some great stories that we will be hearing about until the next festival comes
around, which we are already looking forward to. We have some big plans from
next year festival to make it even bigger and better. Watch this space!
Jamie O' Rourke (Irish Bass Festival winner 2013)
Once again thanks to all the entrants who made this event
possible and all the sponsors who provided outstanding prizes, Henry Gilbey who helped with prize giving and also the Grand hotel for looking after the visiting anglers and hosting the prize giving....see you all again next year.
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