NIFSA Two Dayer 2022.
Last weekend saw our annual two match comp which was scheduled 9-11 September with our headquarters based at the Waterfoot Hotel, L/Derry.
We considered cancelling it on news of Queen Elizabeth's death but the decision was taken to run it on a more slightly low key format due to the fact that we had a lot of visiting anglers who were already in N.I or on their way here.
First off, the Waterfoot Hotel was excellent with good grub and a nice little bar which we commandeered from the off and good craic was had from beginning to end. The bar staff were particularly good craic and very accommodating to our needs letting us do the check in inside the bar and prize giving at the outside seating.
In all we had fifty four anglers, which is slightly down on previous years with most citing the "cost of living crisis" as reason for non attendance. This is something that is likely to affect us all going forward in the next few months. Nevertheless we had anglers from Northern Ireland, Ireland, Scotland, England and even Germany this year competing for the £1000 top prize.
Session One
Portsalon, sat morning.
Weather: Super hot and little wind. Sea state: calm Tide: fished 4hrs down and 1hr up Species caught: dogfish, thornback Ray and flounder.
This venue has big walks to the pegs but generally anglers are rewarded with a good days sport for their efforts.
The fish however did not read the script this year with some anglers blanking in the baking Sept heat and some only registering single fish.
Zone A 1st Davey Dobbie 6 fish 338pts 2nd Tommy Tate 5 fish 267pts 3rd Joe Perry 5 fish 224pts 4th Billy Buckley 4 fish 220pts 5th Kevin Lewis 3 fish 185pts 6th Adam Johnson 3 fish 184pts 7th Gary Dolby 3 fish 166pts 8th Nicholas Mcneill 3 fish 165pts
Longest fish Zone A was a 70cm thornback ray for Kev Lewis.
Zone B
1st Kenny McCoy 8 fish 440pts
2nd/3rd/4th/5th were all tied on 2 dogfish for 110pts so the monies were split evenly between Alan Mulchay Lee Mullan Karl McCullough Andrew Logan
6th Gary McCurry 2 fish 100pts 7th Harry Sr 2 fish 81pts 8th Gav Owens 1 fish 67 pts
Longest fish Zone B was a 62cm thornback ray for Gav Owens.
Session Two
Zone A Longfields wall Zone B River Roe estuary
Weather: started dull and a bit blustery but turned monsoon like for half the match Tide: fished four down and one up Species: flounder
After reports that longfield in particular hadn't been fishing well, hopes weren't high for the estuaries but on Sunday the fishing gods smiled on us with some nice bags of flatties recorded.
Zone A (longfield)
1st Neil Cutler 16 fish 450pts 2nd Diarmaid Adams 15 fish 441pts 3rd Joe Perry 14 fish 365pts 4th Steve Potts 13 fish 364pts 5th Graeme Ruddy 11 fish 296pts 6th Gav Owen 10 fish 292 pts 7th Alan Mulchay 10 fish 274pts 8th Paul Hill 10 fish 266pts
Longest fish Zone A Neil Cutler 36cm flounder.
Zone B (roe)
1st Harry Jr 19 fish 553pts 2nd Gareth Gardiner 16 fish 514pts 3rd Tommy Tate 16 fish 473pts 4th Kev Lewis 16 fish 470pts 5th Paddy Kerrigan 13 fish 369pts 6th Gav Owen 10 fish 292 pts 7th Drew Hendry 10 fish 290pts 8th Katriana 10 fish 287 pts
Longest fish Zone B was a 36cm flounder for Gareth Gardner.
Cash was paid for 1st to 5th place in all zones while tackle sponsored by Belfast Angling Centre/Mckees Angling was given to 6th /7th/8th place.
Longest fish prizes were cash and tackle again sponsored by the Mckees Angling Centre.
There was also three lucky peg prizes which were two reels and a rod.
OVERALL WINNER WITH 5 ZONE PTS WAS TOMMY TATE FROM ENGLAND WHO TOOK HOME A NICE FAT ENVELOPE CONTAINING ONE THOUSAND POUNDS.
WELL DONE TOMMY!
The team event was won by England A which consisted of Gav Owens Steve Potts Joe Perry Jordan Hunter Nicky Robson
I'd like to thank everyone who attended, the sponsors and the rest of the commitee who made the event run as smoothly as we could make it under unfortunate circumstances. I was a bit under the weather and the rest of the commitee done a great job in compiling scores, pegging beaches and all the other boring jobs nobody sees behind the scenes.
Barry Platt Recorder.
