Silver for Ireland in World Feeder Fishing Championships
Historic achievment for Irish coarse fishing team in World Championships
125 anglers from 25 countries were based in the Coachford area of Cork last week in preparation for the weekend's World Feeder Fishing Championships. Going into the competition the English team was a clear favourite though home advantage and meticulous planning meant that the Irish and Dutch teams were also in the running.
In the end England held true to form and had an impressive victory that also saw team members Steve Ringer win individual Gold and Mick Vials Bronze. The English team had visited the venue a number of times in advance of the competition as part of their preparations so was not surprising they did so well. The South Africans, Germans, French, Spanish, Italian, Belusrussians, Romanian, Swedish and Czech anglers all made signs that they were going to make inroads on the leader board but in the end the Irish finished second and the Dutch came in third. German angler Felix Scheuermann took individual silver with an impressive display.
The Irish finish was especially satisfying as it is the first team medal in a world championships. Congratulations go to Francis McGoldrick, Richard Pratt, Tony Kersley, Paul Leese, Nigel Houldsworth, Ken Ince, Brenton Sweeney– Captain and Roger Baker– 2nd Captain.
The other winners were Coachford and the Inniscarra reservoir, which with the newly developed match stretch and an impressive stock of roach, hyrids and bream, cemented its reputation as a world class venue. On the first day of the competition 8000 fish weighing 756kg fish were landed by the anglers and safely released at the end of the session. By the end of the second day the total catch had grown to 16,236 fish weighing in at 1463.563kg. This impressive tally equates to an incredible average of 5.85kg per man each day.The heaviest individual catch was 20.176kg caught by Ireland's Richard Pratt on day 1 at the Garden Centre stretch.
Full results tables are at the NCFFI website http://www.ncffi.ie/wffc/?page_id=2389
