Lough Swilly Tope & Whitefish Festival - 6th & 7th J

[arthurg]

A difficult weekend's fishing with tides not being ideal and tope being very elusive indeed. The festival has been forced to reduce in size over the last couple of years due to the introduction of only fishing licenced boats. Around 40 fished this year, however there is a new boat due in Rathmullan in the summer so gradually we may see an increase again.

Two days of hard but ultimately frustrating tope fishing saw just one fish being caught and tagged. Weighing in at only 29Lbs it was hardly a monster, however it was certainly sufficient for visiting angler Dougie Peach of Bundoran to lift the cup, cheque and whiskey. It was a particularly poor show since the lough is generally very good for tope. The feeling was that perhaps we were fishing a few weeks too early.

I fished the whitefish competition and we had a reasonable two days despite there being a lot of tangled lines due to the wind and tides being in differing directions. On day one, two fishermen were head and shoulders above the rest of us. Michael Vambeck (156) pipped junior Owen Reid (155) by a single point with bot being a considerable distance ahead of the pack. Johnny McCormack (100) led the remainder of the field.

On the Sunday, with most thinking that Michael only had to have a middling day to lift the prize, Cornie Devlin obviously had different ideas. Cornie is from Letterkenny but now living in Jersey. After being plagued by dogfish on Saturday - he had twenty of them - he caught just about every species going on Sunday. From memory he had Ling, Pouting, Coalies, Pollock, Cod, Red, Grey & Tub Gurnard and Doggies. At the end of the count, Cornie had passed Michael Vambeck's catch to take the prizes. Michael was second and young Owen Reid had shown many of his seniors how to do it by coming third overall as well as bagging the junior prize. Owen is one to watch for the future!

On behalf of the host club, I would like to congratulate the winners and thank our many visitors who support this festival year-on-year. It was also good to meet a fellow 'Sea-Angling-Ireland.org' poster - Dingbat - who had come up from Bundoran to fish the competition.

Thanks to all.