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A rough guide to Baltimore Deep Sea Angling Festival

The festival has been taking place annually for more than forty years. It is held over the four days preceding the last Monday of August (the UK bank holiday weekend), divided between one day's shark fishing and three days' bottom fishing. It usually attracts upwards of fifty anglers from Ireland and abroad.

You are free to enter for as many of the four days as you wish. There are daily cash prizes, presented at a different pub every day after fishing. Overall trophies and prizes are presented at a prizegiving dinner on the Sunday night.

The festival is noted for its friendly atmosphere as well as for good fishing, with many competitors returning year after year.

Baltimore Deep Sea Angling Festival is a conservation event (and has been for many years). The main prizes are determined on a points basis so that fish not wanted for eating can be returned safely to the sea.

Fishing grounds Fishing takes place at anchor, mainly on rough ground. All the boats normally fish within a mile or two of each other and keep in regular radio contact so that chances are as equal as possible.

Boats are licensed charter boats in the range 30 to 36 ft long. Competitors are allotted to a boat on the pier in the morning. Whenever possible groups of anglers will be able to fish together on the same boat right through the festival. However, you might occasionally be requested to change berth in the interests of maintaining an even balance of numbers between boats.

Fish species Conger and ling feature prominently. Also to be expected are cod, bull huss, pollack, pouting, rays, common skate, whiting, wrasse, haddock and dogfish. Blue shark are the main shark species.

Bait Fresh mackerel is generally the preferred natural bait. Boats stop en route to the grounds to enable anglers to catch bait for the day. Other fish caught at this stage do not count towards the competition.

Shark fishing Thursday is a separate tag and release shark competition and the results have no bearing on the rest of the festival. There is a perpetual cup for best shark (determined by length) and cash prizes as on the other days.

Cash prizes About 15% of the daily entry fee goes into the cash prize fund for the day. The value and number of cash prizes depends on the number of entries, but there are normally prizes for the four or five highest scores plus the heaviest 'edible' fish of the day.

Overall prizes The festival has an array of silverware. There are perpetual trophies for the first, second and third angler, heaviest edible fish of the festival, best lady angler, best team of three, best catch of the festival. In addition, the first ten or more anglers overall have a choice of prizes donated by the festival's sponsors.

Scoring system For the ground fishing competition all results (except 'heaviest edible') are determined on a points basis, according to species and in some cases length.

'Edible' species are those, including ling, cod, pollack, etc, that would normally be kept for eating. In addition to their regular points value, good specimens can be entered in the 'heaviest edible' category for the daily and overall prizes. These are the only fish weighed on shore.

Daily timetable
Check-in on Baltimore pier at 9.30am. Boats leave at 10am. Lines-up at 5pm. Thursday, Friday, Saturday: daily prizegiving in a different bar each evening at 7pm approx. Sunday: Final prizegiving and dinner at 8pm.

Entry fee
In 2009 the entry fee was € 60 (euro) per day. The fee includes competition entry fee, place on a boat and cash prize pool.

For more information or to book a place email

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