The Irish Federation of Sea Anglers have separate systems for selecting their International shore teams for the World Championships and the annual Home Nations events.
The Irish home nations shore teams are selected in the following way for the following year.
Mens team
The winner of the All Ireland Open, automatically joins the team and takes the place of captain. The All Ireland usually has a field between 80 and 120 anglers competing on the day. The four other team members plus one reserve place are selected via the Home Nations Team Fish offs. This championship is held towards the end of the year where the top five anglers from the four provinces, Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster, compete for the remaining places on the team. This championship is held over three legs on one weekend. These five members of the provincial teams are selected by a series of closed competitions open only to members within a province over a fixed number of legs. The selection differs between the provinces. Leinster has an eight leg league with the best six scores selecting the top anglers. Munster has four separate legs to choose its top five. Connacht and Ulster both have a three leg weekend competition to select the top five.
Ladies team
The top five ladies plus one reserve place are selected via the Home Nations Team Fish offs. As with the Men, this championship is held towards the end of the year where the top five anglers from the four provinces compete for the team places. This championship is held over three legs on one weekend. These five members of the provincial teams are selected by a series of closed competitions open only to members within a province over a fixed number of legs. The selection differs between the provinces.
Junior/Youth team
At a separate event to the men’s and lady’s fish offs, the juniors/youths compete for the top five places. This championship is again held over three legs on one weekend. Again it is organised on a provincial basis with teams of five selected via closed competitions. The junior/youth fish off takes place over a weekend in March.
The situation for the world team is different and involves a selection system over a rolling three year period. Each year a club selects an angler from their club championships who then fishes in the annual Master Angler event. Larger clubs can submit one entrant for every 10 club members.
On average around 100 anglers qualify for the MA weekend which comprises a three leg competition. The top angler in the Master Angler event automatically qualifies for the FIPS World team as captain for the following year. The next ten anglers on the leaderboard qualify for the world team fish off and in the case of the shore team are joined by the top 20 anglers from the previous year’s fish off, the winner of the All Ireland Open and the Provincial winners of the Provincial closed gold medal competitions.
After the fish off the top 5 anglers on the leaderboard become the four members of the Irish World shore and the reserve. They join the Master Angler winner as the team captain. The next 15 anglers on the fish off leaderboard also retain their place in the fish offs for the following year and do not have to qualify through the master anglers system. And the process continues each year rolling over.
