43rd Cobh International Deep Sea Angling Festival Day 4

People:56 Anglers

Duration:9am - 4pm

Tide:18:28pm (4.0m)

Weather:Fair

Bait:Mackeral

Rigs:All sorts

Results:Best day of the week

Report: I'm over two months behind in putting up this report . I've been too busy bass fishing . As seems to happen every year the best fishing was on the last day. Its because of this that the competition is never over till its over. Many past winners have come from well behind and won it on the last day. This was to prove the case again this year. A total of 229 fish were landed on the Friday. Of these 170 were conger and many were of good size. The biggest of the day was caught by Frankie Cronin and weighed in at 15kgs. A fine fish . Many of the conger caught exceeded 10kg ...a great return. Frankie was to have the best bag of the day with 9 fish weighing 66kg. Paul Parker, Cobh SAC, was second with 9 fish also, totalling 40kg. Hans Vermelis of Holland was third with 8 fish for 39.5kg. Best lady angler on the day was Tina Kneeshaw with 11 fish.

With the final days fishing over it was time to accumulate the results and find out who the winner was. While this was being done the Prizes were put together on the stage for the presentation as part of the final night's gala dinner. A total prize fund of over €4,000 ensured that the display of prizes was indeed impressive.

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Prizes were awarded to the top 21 anglers, aswell as the top two teams, the best junior, the best lady angler, and the best out of state angler. There were also prizes for the heaviest fish, the best conger, the best ling, the best pollack, the best cod, the best ray, the most number of conger, the most number of pollack, the most number of fish, the most number of species, etc.,...Prizes were also awarded for the top three anglers on each day, the best lady angler each day, the best out of state angler, and the heaviset fish each day. Whew !

The results were:

1st place....Frankie Cronin, Cork
2cnd place....Milo Burke, Kilkenny
3rd place....Paul Parker, Cobh

The best out of state....Sjef van der Brand (Holland) (5th position)

Best lady angler....Sandra O' Shea (7th position)

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This was Frankie's first time winning the competition. Frankie has fished the Festival every year for over 30 years. He has been runner-up on a number of occassions before. Well done Frankie .

Sandra O' Shea, best Lady Angler, says she's going to give him a run for his money next year after her creditable performance in finishing seventh.

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Here's a few more photos of the prizegiving

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...and Donegal Danny (aka Roadrunner) didn't do too badly either; he finished in 11th spot. He's getting better at the fishing....he must be getting lessons. Here he is collecting his prize....

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Last, but not least, Donie Geary won the prize for the best skipper of the week....cementing his reputation as probably one of the best skippers on the South coast.

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Just to give you an idea of the fishing for the week, a total of 812 fish were landed over the 4 days. The makeup was as follows:

405 Congers
189 Pollack
102 lsd's
25 Ling
25 Grey Gurnards
23 Cod
16 Whiting
16 Pouting
7 Bullhuss
5 Whiting
2 Cuckoo Wrasse
1 Blonde Ray
1 Garfish
1 Coalfish

The biggest fish of the week was a 15kg conger caught by none other than Frankie Cronin. Frankie actually had two congers of that weight; one on the Monday and the other on the Friday. However, there were plenty of other congers that came very close.

Excellent report there Pat, and good catches.

1 coalfish

thats crazy! great couple of days fishing by the looks of things!

Sometimes at this time of year they can be in plague proportions, but not this year.

Because it has been some time since I posted up the reports of the other days here's a link back to them:

Day 1
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23410

Day 2
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23497

Day 3
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23498

This was Frankie's first time winning the competition. Frankie has fished the Festival every year for over 30 years. He has been runner-up on a number of occassions before. Well done Frankie .

Sandra O' Shea, best Lady Angler, says she's going to give him a run for his money next year after her creditable performance in finishing seventh.

The slaging i have had to put up with over that result (you know who ye are)

well done lads very nice fishing there!

All joking aside this is a great comp to fish you have 4 days fishing, mon-tue and thurs-friday the wednesday is left for you to make more rigs or head to the pub

The comp is mostly fished at anchor and this could be outside on the reefs or inside in the harbour (depends on weather) the variety of fish that is available is amaising the only limit to the number of species that you catch is the angler.

Most of the guys fishing are there for the craic and you see a lot of the same faces there year after year, the after fishing de-briefs go on till the we small hours

The conger fishing in the harbour has to be seen to be believed average size would be 8-10 kilo with larger specimens there for the taking (i have seen a 21 kilo fish taken this year but not in the comp)

This year for some reason there were few pollock about but in years past the comp has been won with pollock and coalies

I think one of the best things about this comp is that you have 4 full days afloat and you can put into practice what you have learned the day before. how many times have we fished a comp and seen a good idea which you said to yourself "must try that" and then forgot about it the next time you went out

I have my place booked for next year ..............hope to see ye all there.

Following our recent AGM the Club is to up the ante this year. Our prize fund is to be increased by over 50%. Upto now there have been over €4000 worth of prizes aswell as the perpetual trophies. All of these prizes have been crystal. This year a cash prize fund of €2000 is being added. Apparently, it will now have one of the bigger prize funds of any competition in Ireland or the UK (at €6000). In the next month or so I'll be posting up entry forms and details of how you can enter. Watch this space!!!

In the meantime if you have any queries, post them here or send me a pm.

Pat O' Shea
Hon. Treasurer
Cobh SAC