NIFSA fishes the Magrini Cup in Sardinia
On the 27th of May two anglers from NIFSA travelled to Italy to fish the Italian leg of the International Surfcasting Friendship Cup in Sardinia.
Accommodation was the Horse and Country Hotel in the Arborea district of south west Sardinia and was hosted by the Hippocampus Club, a super organised large organisation of Surf Anglers.
On the practice nights behind the hotel we thought we were going well and proceeded to make up our rigs accordingly. How wrong we were. On the first competition day we both blanked and getting back to the hotel feeling a bit flat we sought out some serious info on how to fish it. Joe Arch, Dave Morrell and Chris Clarke (and Sean Ivory being accosted in the corridor and forced to give us snood lengths), offered up some good tips and it was apparent how off we were with our rigs. A quick trip to the tackle shop saw us scaling down all our tackle to fish roach type sizes at distance on the second night and we at last caught counting fish.
Dean finished with a very commendable 2nd in the zone catching 3 fish including a small ray, Harry said he had no comment!
The weather was a balmy 30 degrees each day and the accommodation was a very reasonable 80 euros a night for double bed and ensuite for each angler, breakfast lunch and evening meal, with a constant flow of wine. The staff were incredible and could not do enough for us, with daily Italian lingual lessons of all the basic words thrown in!
NIFSA supplied the Best Junior Prize , sponsored by Belfast Angling Centre with the winner being a young Polish lad. Well done sir!
The organisation club of the competition were really slick with this competition in its 34th year. The committee members were like a well oiled machine and possessed that latin welcome when approached for advice on things like directions and “where and what happens next”.
Italian competition angling seems to be light years ahead of most countries and have massive sponsorship with tackle companies and councils alike.
A great competition and we will be back again next year for sure
