Darren
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MacMillan Big Fish at WoodfordMacMillan Big Fish Competition
At Woodford Fly Fishery
Woodford Fly Fishery, Carrickfergus held its annual MacMillan Cancer Support Big Fish competition on Friday 27th June, with 16 anglers taking part, all raising money to help with this very worthy charity and hoping to catch one of the four MacMillan tagged fish with prizes of £500, £300, £200 and a booby prize.
The evening started off well with all the competitors enjoying the complementary BBQ and the craic, but this was all to change with the weather conditions taking a turn for the worst as a stronge westerly breeze picked up, bringing the rain clouds with it.
The competition was to be fished to a 1fish ticket then catch and release to keep the competitors fishing to the end of the competition, only their 1st fish caught would be weighed and any fish caught on catch and release would count as 2lb weight.
The fishing started at 6pm and it wasn’t long before the 1st fish was caught, falling to a dry fly pattern fished by Woodford regular Geordie Hall. The first large fish was caught by Belfast angler Philip Donnelly, a nice rainbow trout weighing 7lb 1oz, again falling for a # 18 dry fly.
Local lad Darren Haggan got off to a good start catching 3 fish in the 1st hour and a half, his 2nd and 3rd fish of which were touching double figures, but would only count as 2lb each. Newtownabbey angler Kenny Ferguson raced ahead of the pack, catching 5 fish in the 1st two hours, all falling for small dry flies.
Woodford regular Uel McClure left it late catching 4 fish in the last hour, as did local man Tony Denyer, who caught another great conditioned rainbow trout tipping the scales at 8lb, but again it only counted as 2lb as Tony had already caught his 1st fish.
At 10pm the final whistle sounded and this years competition came to and end with none of the tagged fish being caught it only left prizes for the biggest fish and the best bag.
Philip Donnelly weighed in the best fish of 7lb 1oz and Kenny Ferguson caught the best bag of 8 fish. This years top sponsored angler was Ken Huxley, who raised over £200.
On the night the anglers raised over £1500 for the charity so a big THANK YOU to everyone that supported the anglers with their kind donations and to the anglers who took the time to take part in this great event. This takes the total to over £12000 raised by this event at Woodford over the past few years.
Heaviest fish winner Philip Donnelly with Rosaleen from MacMillan
Best Bag, Kenny Ferguson
Highest sponsored angler Ken Huxley
Everyone that supported the event
Darren 
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FIREY BROWN
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McMillan CompetitionGreat report Darren and well done to all those who took part and raised money for such a worthy cause,,what a shame the weather wasn`t a little kinder on the night but still the main objective was achieved which was to raise funds for cancer research
Regards
FIREY BROWN
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sydb
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MacmillanWell done Darren
Looks like a brilliant event
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fossil-fish
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Excellent. Agreat event and a very worthy cause. Chhers Darren.
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Watty's Rock
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Nice one Darren and well done to all.
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tack4
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as some know part of my role as a colrectal nurse endoscopist (i use flexible endoscope (camera) to look up wards ie tail end) i deal with cancer a fair bit
nice one darren and i have a cunning plan for next year for this event
how about a forum enrty or six for this worthy cause? 
the pluses = raising money for needed cause,
great craic doin it
and another forum outing ( any excuse)
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