2009 FLEXTEC IRISH TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS

The 2009 FLEXTEC IRISH TEAM FLY FISHING CHAMPIONSHIPS took place on Saturday 15th August on Lough Lene Westmeath.

With 112 anglers taking part representing 28 teams from all over Ireland, fishing was exceptionally difficult. Trout were locking on to the Lough;s migrating snail, and when they do this they are almost impossible to catch. Weather conditions made matters worse with changeable conditions with gusts up to 40kmph

Well done to

Galway & Corrib. Mike Keady, Basil Shields, Tom "Doc" Sullivan, and Andy Boyd.

Best team in Ireland by a long long way. Convincing Champions with 18 fish on an exceptionally tough days fishing.Must mention Basil. Another victory this year. Your on some run basil. Definately in my opinion the Tiger Woods of Irish Fly Fishing. Certainly the best in Ireland for both Wild & Stocked fish.With anglers like Basil & Tom Doc already qualified for the 2010 Spring International on Lough Conn, no reason why the Irish boys cant take GOLD.

2009 FLEXTEC IRISH TEAM CHAMPIONS.... GALWAY CORRIB

Tom "Doc" Sullivan, Andy Boyd, Basil Shields, Ian Rowand (Itffa) Mike Keady (Captain)

INDIVIDUAL TOP ROD ----- BASIL SHIELDS (GALWAY CORRIB)

2nd PLACE --- LOUGHREA

3RD PLACE----- DUBLIN TAA

5TH PLACE --------- AGIVEY

6th PLACE CONN CULLIN

28 team took part. Here are the top 7 teams that got in the prizes.


1st Galway Corrib 5075 points


2nd Loughrea 2700 points


3rd Dublin TA 1825


4th Owenabue 1775


5th Agivey 1650


6th Conn Cullin 1 1525


7th Bandbridge 1475





Of the 112 Anglers taking part 57 anglers caught fish.


Top 20 Individuals were


1st Basil Shields


2nd Mike Keady


3rd Tom "Doc" Sullivan


4th David Egan


5th Sean Goulding


6th Gary Byrnes


7th Seamus Kelly


T8th Brendan Murray, Frank Reilly, John Oneill


11th Gary Stewart


12th Richard Reilly


T13th Barry Healy, John Smith


15th Greg White


16th Robert Reilly


17th Patrick Sweeney


18th Jonnie McMahon


T19th Paddy Daly, Mervyn Campbell, Noel Shields





A BIG THANKS to all who took part in supporting the event and as always a MASSIVE thanks to FLEXTEC TACKLE DESIGN. Look out for their new extensive range to rods & reels in 2010 And thanks to my boat partner Andrew Boyd of Galway Corrib for a great days craic. Would love to have seen you land that monster that broke you mate.

FLEXTEC EMERALD ISLANDERS QUALIFY FOR INTERNATIONAL FINAL

Irish Team, Flextec Emerald Islanders, have qualified for the 2009 Airflo Anglian Water International Final, at Rutland Water in October of this year.

The team consisted of (left to right), pictured above in their new Flextec Tackle Design Fleeces

Top Row: Aidan Rose, Greg White, Arden Pollock, Mark Duncan
Bottom Row: Stevie Ellis, Sam McGowan

The boys travelled to Lynn Brenig in North Wales to compete in the Welsh Heat of this prestigous competition, against some of the top teams in the UK.

Finishing 4th overall, they have secured their place in the grand final where they will compete against some of the top teams in Europe including teams from France & Belgium.

They caught a total of 25 fish on the final day and Arden Pollock (Emerald Islanders) finished the second best rod of the day.

The lads would like to thank Andrew Train for all his help and support and will try exceptionally hard to promote his brand of Flextec at the International final in October. Cheers Andrew mate. We toasted you after our success.


Mark Duncan of the Flextec Emerald Islander with a superb 5.25lb Brenig Rainbow which he took during practise. This turned out to be the heaviest fish of the entire week on Lynn Brenig.

The Flextec Emerald Islanders meeting at lunch time during practise on Llyn Brenig

Arden Pollock's Flextec Rod, bent into a hard fighting Lynn Brenig Rainbow.

Arden with a lovely example of what Lynn Brenig has to offer.

Sam McGowan (Right) and Aidan Rose, stopping to a quick chat at the "Woods"

Mark Duncan "celebrating" after making it to the International Grand Final.

Mark..... Regretting, celebrating, after making it to the International Grand Final.

Cheers Andrew.

LAS Esthwaite Pairs Pike Cup

The last sunday in June and the beautiful location of Esthwaite Trout Fishery played host to the LAS pairs Pike Cup which was being sponsored by Tackle Discounts. Nestled in the Lake District Esthwaite is renowned for its superb Trout fishing and for the first time was to play host to a summer piking extravaganza and become the venue that one fisherman will certainly remember for the rest of his life.

Andrew had taken the weekend off from his hectic work schedule to present the prizes and hopefully to let his blood pressure return to normal and so the two of us set off on the saturday arriving at the hotel late saturday afternoon and almost immediately joined several LAS members in the beer garden. Yes, before you mention it I had managed to book us into another pub. An evening of banter, angling stories and wind-ups was soon underway as we all settled down to our evening meal of crisps, nuts and pork scratchings.

An early start the next morning and a help yourself breakfast of cereals and coffee did nothing to satisfy the hunger of the crowd of fishermen and we made the short journey to the venue with the sound of rumbling echoing in our ears. It wasn't thunder but the sound of our stomachs but all was soon forgotten as we reached the venue to be greeted by a stunning, flat calm water.

There is always a spanner in the works when a fish-in is organised and this proved no different as a text message from Phil Tonks informed me that he had broken down and had to be towed home. I broke the bad news to his boat partner, Rob Smallbone, and with that the pairs set off with Rob up against it from the start as we tried to figure out how we could score it should he get into the top places at the end of the day.

With some of the best Lure anglers in the country present we were certain that it wouldn't take long before the fish were being landed and sure enough we spotted John Cheyne into a fish. With Andrew and myself motoring around taking photos and enjoying the scenery we were not part of the competition but it would have been nice to have landed one of the Esthwaite giants and while

motoring over to the action we received our one........and only hit of the day and I totally failed to connect with our adversary.




The scenery was stunning and after an overcast start the sun burned through the morning cloud and onto the necks of the competitors around 10am, opening up the vista surrounding us.

Stories soon started filtering back to us that some nice pike had been landed which the pair of us put down to chinese whispers as we had only seen a couple of fish landed and the way we were fishing we were unlikely to see any around us

We managed to get to the last 10 minutes without any fish so to uphold my honour I decided to get the light gear into action for the trout and with a small Bete spinner which had proved deadly for trout in the past I cast out and within seconds I had a 4lb rainbow in the boat. Honour upheld we headed home.

One thing which is as certain as not eating in a Lake District hotel is that every angler will have a golden day which will live in the memory long after the event and the unbelievable had happened. Rob Smallbone had managed to catch more than any other pair of anglers, a brilliant acheivement and when his best 3 fish were weighed they came to an amazing 51 1/2 lb. This included breaking his personal best twice over and landing the biggest fish of the competition.

All 7 of his fish came to the net by 10.15am which gave him time to recover before the competition end.

Just behind in 2nd place came Steve Wade and Andy Surgey, a popular result among the other anglers and if they caught as many fish as they gave people laughs over the weekend they would of surely won. In 3rd place came John Cheyne and Steve Bates leaving the Welsh challenge just behind in 4th after months of them promising the cup was bound for Wales.

Alex from the fisheries staff presented a very nice trophy to Rob and which we will be returning next year to fish for again. Thanks to the staff at Esthwaite for putting on a super days fishing and for saving my waistline with a well timed buffet at the end of the day. The predator season at the fishery is from October 1st to March 31st and if you've not been before then put it on your to do list.

RESULTS

1st Rob Smallbone........Best 3 pike.....51 1/2 lb

2 Greys spinning rods

2nd "Wadey and Sharkey"......Best 3 pike.....41lb 2oz

2 Okuma spinning reels

3rd John Cheyne and Steve Bates....Best 3 pike.....38lb 6oz

2 Savage Gear 4play lures of choice

Best Pike.......Rob Smallbone.....19lb

A Flextec Pike Fly rod

Well done to all the lads who showed up and showed me up and a special thanks to Andrew Train from Tackle Discounts (no, he doesn't tell me what to write) and so it ended that the 1st LAS pairs cup was won by an angler fishing alone. Lets hope that we are still fishing for it in 20 years time when the legend of "Golden Rods" who won it on his own is still chatted about over a beer.

Confessions of a mediocre angler!

The Fleet had all we needed. Good beer and a quality english breakfast.

After huge anticipation the 16th had finally arrived and at one minute past midnight myself and two friends, Steve and Phil cast our lures blindly into the dark night of the Warwickshire Avon. The only indication that we had of the lures hitting the water was a distinct splash. Unfortunately it was the only splash we heard and after half an hour we retired to our beds in the Fleet Inn at Twyning which was to become our base for the next couple of nights. It was pure coincidence that we had chosen a pub to stay in........honest guv!

Steves perch looked like being the biggest.

4.00 am and we were up and rearing to go, boats were loaded and the new Minn Kota pulled us powerfully upstream. The rods were out as we trolled to our first chosen swim and at just after 5 am Steve landed the 1st fish in the shape of a small zander and then a couple of minutes later he followed it up with another. It took me a couple more hours before I landed a fish and Phil had been struggling as well.

Phils huge pike upped the ante!

The day continued in the same vein with fish coming slowly until the evening when we retired to the bar for some well earned drinks and food. It had been a beautiful day with the sun burning down on us which we blamed for the low number of fish caught and we staggered off to bed and the promise of a better 2nd day

The zander were not going to get any bigger for me, no matter how close I held it to the camera

Day 2 and that was certainly it for the sunshine. Overcast skies and persistent rain promised much better fishing, especially when zander are concerned. The fish were not having any of it though and we struggled all day to get fish into the boat. After a couple of hours totally fishless the rod finally bent into a........bream. I dunno, you lure fish for 20 years with no sign of the slimy dinnerplates then two come along in a month. This time it had taken a small rapala and was landed with the treble firmly embedded in its mouth.

Why!!!!

The highlight of the day was Phils personal best zander of around 5lb. He never weighed it so I'm allowed to be generous. The evening session was the most fruitful and once again I managed to land a good perch to confirm my "Perchmeister" tag and I landed quite a few fish before we retired once again to the pub.

Tonksys best Z

Come to daddy. 2lb 4oz, my best perch from the Avon

Day 3 and the weather just got worse, rain and a cold forceful wind meant keeping the boat on a good course which required all my concentration. The fishing was poor and we finished our little adventure with very few fish on a very poor day. It had however been a good laugh and much more fun than sitting in front of the TV watching "Pets do the funniest things". We had managed to land about 50 fish between us over the 3 days which by sheer coincidence was about the same number of pints we had downed. I hope my doctor doesn't read this!!!!!