Cork Small Boats Festival 2009

Cork Small Boats Festival 2009: What A Week In Cork!

Match Day 1 (Species Hunt Day 1)

The festival kicked off on Sunday 20th in fine conditions allowing the fleet access to the offshore marks and most boats availed of the good sea state to make the trip to the Ling Rocks and surrounding areas. The sight of the fleet leaving the harbour at thirty knots was breathtaking!
By the time that 1700hrs arrived the majority of boats had notched up impressive totals of species: From Nauti-Lass, Escapade and Skua with 15 to Screaming Reels and Quattro with 16 and out on their own on a cracking 17 species – Wimps.
The forecast showed a breezy day for Monday and an improving situation for the rest of the week. While we could have fished the harbour on Monday it was decided that we would take a day’s break and resume again on Tuesday. The local publicans were delighted!
The Festival is actually two competitions – a three-day species hunt and a one-day specimen hunt. It is normal to give the species hunt the best available weather so we fished our specimen hunt on Tuesday 22nd.

Match Day 2 (Specimen Hunt)

With favourable conditions the fleet fished for the “outside list” of nominated species: Bass, Cod, Ling, Whiting, Plaice and Pollack. With attractive prizes on offer the fleet headed to sea to target their favourite species, and also to attempt to secure the best combination of the six fish.
The fish of the day had to be the 10.20lb bass for Quattro. Catch 22 had a fine Plaice of 1.80lb while Hannah Lou weighed in a superb 13.40lb Ling. Lusca triumphed in the Pollack section with a nice 6.40lb fish. Cod continued to be elusive for some boats but a creditable fish of 4.30lb took the spoils for Fifty-Fifty.
The combination prizes were shared by UK boat Hannah Lou winning a weekend in the Bella Vista Hotel in Cobh, including a self drive Warrior 175 for the duration and Screaming Reels from IRL winning accommodation in Trabolgan for next year’s event.

Match Day 3 (Species Hunt Day 2)

While conditions were good on day 2 many of the fleet stayed within the harbour in order to attempt to catch the “harbour” species – flats, rays and bass. Other than the few deep-water species all others can be caught to size within the harbour. The conditions were hard to resist so many boats headed offshore again and there were some good catches reported: Stryker II posted a creditable 13 species and both Screaming Reels and Bass Hunter notched up 14.
The overall positions were showing a tight competition with two boats on 21 species. There was little to separate the top ten with three species separating first to ninth! It had the making of some tense fishing on Species Hunt Day 3.


Match Day 4 (Species Hunt Day 3)

The final day of the 2009 festival dawned picture perfect; it was another Tee-Shirt day at the end of September, our most exceptional weather ever. The fleet quickly dispersed, the leaders hoping to top up their count while others decided to chase “most on the day” prizes.
Crews fished to the close of the day with many securing their blonde ray within minutes of the 1700hrs finish. You could feel the sense of tension at the slipway as crews checked with each other to see how many species had been added. Screaming Reels – winners of the Rosslare Small Boats Festival – must have thought they’d done enough by adding 5 more species to their total giving them a creditable 26 species. The industrious crew of Wirral boat Wimps had managed to add 6 species finishing on 26 with less weight than Screaming Reels. However fellow Wirral boat Quattro managed to add a brilliant total of 7 species on the last day giving them a record finish of 28 species! Quattro,
Congratulations to Phil Simpson, Russ Scott and Steve Lunt of Quattro – A well deserved win!
Well done to Martyn Rayner and Seirt Schultz of Screaming Reels – another incredible year!: A Rosslare win and second in Cork – some fortnights angling men!
To the dark horses on Wimps – Bert Williams, Andy Lunt and Tony Williams – a super finish with steady angling – your day will come!

Best Bass went to Quattro with a Specimen of 10.20lb

Best specimen went to Stryker II with a Cuckoo Wrasse at 108%

Thanks as usual to: Failte Ireland, Anglers World Holidays, Trabolgan, Bella Vista Hotel and self drive boats, Rosie’s bar, Irish Angler Magazine, Henrys Tackle.

What a week! Thirty odd species caught to size not including minis and bait fish. Perfect weather, superb craic and great atmosphere. Roll on 2010!!

Full results are available online at http://www.skuaangling.net

Quattro 28 79.40
Screeming Reels 26 60.80
Wimps 26 46.80
Bass Hunter 23 60.30
Sea Pigeon 23 55.15
Predator II 22 50.50
Fifty-Fifty 22 48.05
Skua 22 47.90
Beastmaster 22 41.95
Highlander 22 40.65

Sounds like a fantastic week Jim, congratulations to quattro on the win and for screaming reels with the second,though I'm sure Martyn would have loved to get back to back wins. Just hope theres some fish left in the harbour for us next week

Great report Jim, sounds like you got the weather for it too.

I happened to be out on the last day of the comp to see all of the competitors steaming back full tilt to make the 5pm close. Very impressive. I was less impressed to see the amount of cr@p immediately after the event floating in the harbour in the form of beer bottles, crisp packets etc. More than would normally be seen in the flotsam. Maybe a quiet word to the participants from the organisers might be in order for next year?

Phil

I think you will find that the tides around that week were almost the highest of the year. Indeed there was an amount of crap holding in the eddies around the harbour. I would imagine the crap was largely washed from the high water mark. I spent the latter part of the last day anchored on the bank along with about six other boats. I did not see anything thrown overboard, I would be shocked if I did. I would suggest to you that our competitors are serious and considerate anglers – litter has never been an issue for us and I cannot imagine it ever becoming one.

Hi, and i for one do not take beer on a boat!!!, i know some do, but its a serious comp, i hardly get time to drink water!
Would'nt like to think about the fact of all the sanitry rubbish i collect on my line fishing on the bank , very much doubt thats been thrown over by the competitors!!
regards
screeming

hi, i would second what jim and screaming has just posted,you should look at the boats and jeeps etc what are used during the comp,they are all spotless and owned by proud anglers,even the tenis club used by all the compedetors was left spotless,i would look else where for the litter poloution,eddie..................