Cork anglers to represent Ireland in world-renowned fishing competition next year
Anne McWilliams, aged 60, and Declan O'Sullivan, aged 38, finished third and 13th respectively in the National Lake Championships, which was held on Lough Melvin, Co Fermanagh on Saturday, June 7.
'I would have qualified through the Munster Lake Championships, which was held in Killarney in May.
'Last weekend, I finished 13th with one fish out of 14 places, so I was lucky enough,' Declan O'Sullivan said.
126 competitors took part on the day, and Mr O'Sullivan described conditions as 'good', but the fishing was 'bad'.
'A lot of lakes these days are just not fishing very well for some reason.
'I don't know if it's the flies or what, but the fish don't seem to be looking up, they seem to be staying down the bottom,' he said.
Ms McWilliams also qualified for the event hosted in Lough Melvin through the Munster Championships, which is deemed the hardest provincial competition due to the vast number of competitors.
She echoed Mr O'Sullivan's thoughts on the challenging fishing performance.
'The conditions were lovely, and you would have expected the fish to rise, but there wasn't many.
'I saw a message from an angler to another angler, who said the conditions were 'brutally hard',' she said.
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Mr O'Sullivan will now go on to represent Ireland for the third time in his fishing career while Ms McWilliams will represent her country for the 13th time and captained her nation on three occasions.
Both Mr O'Sullivan and Ms McWilliams will compete in the Irish Trout Fly Fishing Association (ITFFA) Home Nations competition against the national teams of England, Scotland and Wales.
There were three people in each boat, two competitors and a driver who would line up the boat and place it in a good location to catch the fish.
'I was fishing with a man from Ballinrobe who would have fished the lake once about 20 years ago and I never fished that lake before.
'You are trusting the boatman to put us over fish from knowing the lake,' he added.
The smallest you could kill was 28cm, and Declan's came in at 35cm, and placed him 13th in the leaderboards.
Anything caught below 28cm in size was deemed too small and must be thrown back into the lake.
Each boat would have a measuring device to measure the catches.
'We would have started at 11am and finished at 6pm.
'I literally caught three fish all day, and there would have been people out there who would have caught 10 or 15 fish, but they were too small.
'With these competitions, you really need a bit of luck,' he added.
Ms McWilliams said representing your country is 'something that doesn't happen every day.'
'It's something that doesn't happen every day and it's not east to get onto it (national team).
'I have been trying for a long time to get onto the ITFFA team and it's very similar to the ladies set up,' she said.
She hopes Lough Lein in Killarney will be a chosen venue as it has a 'special place' in her heart.
'It was the first time the Irish ladies won a gold medal, I think it was after 18 years, in Lough Lein, so it has a special place in my heart.
'It would be great to do the double there,' she added.
Both Ms McWilliams and Mr O'Sullivan will represent both Kanturk and Munster at the Inter-provincial Lake Championships at Lough Lein on August 30.
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