Competitions

Heat 1 - 25th April, River Inny at Float Bridge
84 anglers turned upto fish the first qualifying competition of the 2006/07 Kingspan National Pike Championships on the River Inny.

The river was in near perfect conditions. The only problem was that most anglers didn't bring any sun protection cream. It really was like beautiful summer's day. Those that walked miles of bank in chest waders really suffered.

Under such conditions you would be expecting pretty poor catches. Not so !!!!. Over 200 pike, including 8 doubles to 20lbs, were caught and released. T

The top 5 anglers who qualified to fish in the Final were:
1st John Chambers (Dublin) 6 pike 42-03
2nd Derek Mohan (Duleek) 8 pike 29-14
3rd John Woods (Belfast) 3 pike 27-09
4th Pat Gorman (Tullamore) 7 pike 26-07
5th Marty Lawlor (Belfast) 5 pike 23-13

John Woods nabbed the 20 pounder, Marty had a 13-07. Jimmy Thompson 12-15, John Chambers managed one of 12-05 and one of 10-04. Three other doubles were nabbed.

Heat 2 - May 5th - Gulladoo Lake, Carrigallen, Co. Leitrim
62 anglers fished the second qualifying competition of the 2006/07 Kingspan National Pike Championships on Gulladoo Lake near Arva. They caught and released 85 pike to 9lbs 6 ozs (Sam Lawlor). One of the Newbridge anglers caught a great trout of 7lbs 4 ozs on a spinner.

The top 5 anglers who go through to the Final are:
1st. David Young (North Longford) 5 pike 17-09
2nd. David Dennis (Drogheda) 5 pike 16-09
3rd. Alan Heasley (Duleek) 4 pike 15-12
4th. Thomas McCabe (Newry) 5 pike 14-02
5th. Eddie Mulvaney (Virginia) 3 pike 12-04

Heat 3 - June 11th - Canal nearMullingar, Co. Westmeath
50 anglers attended the qualifier on the canal west of Mullingar. Being a very bright sunny day conditions were far from the best for pike angling. Nevertheless 50 pike to 9lbs 4 ozs were landed and returned. Paddy McKenna from Keady nabbed the best fish of the day. He also caught a jack of 15 ozs. With both fish he just lost out for 5th place.

The top 5 anglers who go through to fish in the Final are:
1st Terry Sheridan (Kilcogy) 3 pike 18-02
2nd John Crudden (Ballyjamesduff) 2 pike 13-07
3rd Des Beatty (Newbridge) 5 pike 11-11
4th Joe Coleman (Duleek) 4 pike 10-12
5th Finbar Meehan (Dring ) 3 pike 10-01

Heat 4 - July 2nd - Lough Egish, Co Monaghan
54 anglers entered and landed a mighty total of 175 the best of which was Laurence Marshall`s pike of 15-06.

The top 5 who go through to fish in the Final are:
1st Ibar Condron (Tullamore) 9 pike 52-00
2nd Laurence Marshall (Keady) 6 pike 28-15
3rd Shane Fisher (Keady) 6 pike 28-14
4th John Marshall (Keady) 4 pike 25-10
5th Gerry McDonald (Kingscourt) 2 pike 24-02

Several other anglers had twenty pound bags.Willie Heasley only missed out by 2 ozs having nabbed 13 pike!!!

Heat 5 - August 13th - Killyfoal Lake,Co. Fermanagh
There was a very poor turnout at the qualifier on Killyfoal lake for this event. Only 37 anglers turned up and 82 pike to 6-13 were returned.

The 5 anglers who qualified to fish in the final next April are:
1st Jim Slevin (Keady) 12 pike 25-13
2nd David Murphy (Athy) 8 pike 16-11
3rd Jimmy Farrell (Dublin) 4 pike 12-04
4th Ray Leonard (Keady) 4 pike 11-03
5th David Roche (Aughnacliffe) 5 pike 9-13

Heat 6 - Sept 3rd - River Suck
There were 48 anglers in all who caught scored of pike to 8-06 which was caught by Maura Martin who has a record of catching the biggest fish at qualifiers.

The top 5 who go through to fish in the Final are:
1st Tommy Winders (Newbridge) 5 pike 20-08
2nd Rory McAllorum (Dublin) 7 pike 18-12
3rd Godfrey Donohue (Dublin) 9 pike 18-01
4th Gerry Keenan (Duleek) 7 pike 17-10
5th Sean Markey (Cootehill) 7 pike 17-06

Heat 7 - Oct 8th- River Shannon (fished River Inny due to flooding on Shannon)
The top 5 who go through to fish in the Final are:
1st. Ian O'Sullivan (Nth. Longford) 1 pike 16-02
2nd. Eugene McCabe (Newbridge) 2 pike 15-03
3rd. Paddy Daly (Cootehill) 2 pike 14-10
4th. Ray Keyes (Tullamore) 4 pike 13-03
5th. Ronan Murray (Cootehill) 1pike 11-05

After a committee enquiry, Pat Behan (Blackhorse, Dublin) was also declared a qualifier from this heat.

Heat 8 - Nov 5th - Swan Lake, Gowna
63 anglers only managed 25 pike.

The top 5 who go through to fish in the Final are:
1st. Martin Carolan (Ardee) 1 pike 10-01
2nd. Stephen Martin (Duleek) 1 pike 9-04
jt 3rd. Michael McKenna (Ardee) 2 pike 7-11
jt 3rd. Frank Leonard (Drogheda) 2 pike 7-11
5th. Mick Woodlock (Ardee) 2 pike 6-15

Heat 9 - Dec 3rd- St. John's Lake, near Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim
We didn't actually end up fishing St Johns Lake but fished a lake beside it. Conditions were really terrible with gale force winds and heavy driving rain. When checking in we even had thunder and lightning for good measure!!. A local farmer told me that the lake level had risen 3 feet overnight so it was obvious that fishing was going to be very hard. The 49 entrants landed 17 pike to 4-09.

The top 5 anglers who go through to fish in the Final are:

1st Fergus Dunne (Duleek) 4 pike 10-15
2nd Vinny Carolan (Drogheda) 2 pike 8-13
3rd Thomas Sheridan (Longford) 3 pike 6-05
4th Willie Heasley (Duleek) 2 pike 6-03
5th Jimmy Thompson (Dublin) 2 pike 4-11

Heat 10 - Jan 7th - Clea Lake, near Keady, Co. Armagh
Sixty one anglers attended the last qualifier which was held on Clea Lake near Keady yesterday. Fishing was poor with only 36 pike recorded.

The top 5 anglers were

1st Brian Donnelly (Keady) 5 pike 18-14
2nd Jim McCabe (Newbridge) 6 pike 10-11
3rd Mickey McKenna (Keady) 4 pike 9-11
4th Bernard McAvenia (Longford) 2 pike 6-13
5th Noel Patterson (Belfast) 2 pike 6-03

No doubt local knowledge played a part here.

Heat 11 - February 2007, Stewards Heat, venue to be decided
This heat was fished at Annagherin Lake near Kingscourt on 4 Feb 2007.

The top 5 anglers who go through to fish in the Final are:

1st Paul Martin, Ardee 1 fish 6-15
2nd Gary Quinn, Duleek, 1 fish6-14
3rd Fred Mooney, Drogheda, 2 fish6-13
4th Joe Mc Entagart, N. Longford, 1 fish6-08
5th Paddy Mc Kenna, Keady, 2 fish 6-03

Kingspan Final - Result and Report
The Final was fished on 31st March, 2007 on a large lake in Roscommon. The lake had lots of lovely pikey features. However many of the pike had just spawned and others were just about to. This, combined with flat calm sunny conditions, resulted in only 43 pike being caught by the 56 anglers.

The top 5 anglers from each of 10 independent qualifying matches could attend. There were also 5 from the stewards qualifier and one other angler who got through after a "stewards enquiry".

Fishing was very slow from the start and it became clear from an early stage that small weights would do well so every fish was going to be important. Lots of really good anglers didnt see a pike all day long never mind getting a tap from one.

Below is a list of the top 10 anglers who will make up the team to travel to England in October to fish against the British team. Well Done to our new Kingspan National Pike Champion John Woods from Belfast.

1st John Woods (Belfast) 3 pike 11-02
2nd Paddy Daly (Cootehill) 1 pike 10-11
3rd Michael McKinney (Longford) 1 pike 8-05
4th Pat Behan (Dublin) 1 pike 7-04
5th David Young (Longford) 4 pike 6-07
6th Fred Mooney (Drogheda) 1 pike 6-07
7th Gerry Keenan (Duleek) 6 pike 6-05
8th Thomas Sheridan (Loch Gowna) 1 pike 6-02
9th Joe Coleman (Duleek) 3 pike 4-12
10th John Chambers (Dublin) 1 pike 4-12

NOTE:

The IFPAC runs The "Kingspan" National Pike Championship each year, the All-Ireland inter-club championship, the "Maver Ireland" National Junior pike championship and the All-Ireland junior inter-club championship.

Anglers are reminded of the following competition rules:
An angler must be a member of a fully paid up affiliated club.
An angler may be refused entry to the competition without reason being given.
Anglers who act as stewards at heats will be eligible to enter a special heat for stewards provided that the person has been a steward at 4 heats and has weighed a minimum of 4 fish.
Fish can NOT be weighed by the gills. It is the responsibility of the angler to ensure this does not happen.
A maximum of two fish in a keep sack.
Objections must be made within an hour unless otherwise stated at the check-in.

The All-Ireland inter club team event was fished on Sunday the 19th of November on Lough Egish, Co. Cavan. Conditions were really bad with driving rain and gale force winds. However, some Individuals had a good day.

The full results were as follows:

First: Belfast Individuals 23-08 Marty Lawlor,Sam Lawlor,John Woods and Anthony Muldoon

Second: Phoenix Pike A.C. 13-08 Ibar Condron,Pat Gorman,Ray Keys Ml Molloy

Third: Keady A.C. 11-12 Jim Slevin,Michael McKenna,John Marshal and Shane Fisher