Enniskillen angler James O’Doherty will represent Ireland at this month’s Fishing World Games on the Bloemhof Dam in South Africa.

This will be his second time competing at the senior World Championships following on from his 22nd place in Italy last year and he is hoping to improve on that this time around.

“I would hope to do well. I finished 22nd in the Individual section last year which was my first senior Worlds and I would love to get into the top 15 although I know that it will be tough,” he said.

The Fishing World Games is a massive event with 15 World Championships taking place throughout South Africa and James will be competing in the Feeder Championships.

The five man team are set to fly out to South Africa later this week and they will take part in the opening ceremony in Johannesburg which will include a street parade before the teams will then depart to the various parts of the country for the competition.There will then be five days of training at the venue before the competition gets underway.

“This will be completely different to any event I have competed in before with the main reason that this competition is so early in the year is because it is South Africa’s summer now. The main species of fish we will be catching are wild carp and yellow fish, Like a Mullet, and there will be 20 nations competing which is nine less from last year’s event due to the distance people have to travel to this event,” said the Queens University student.

And he is thoroughly looking forward to the experience.

“It is the trip of a lifetime. We are away for two weeks and I’m looking forward to it. We will travel from Johannesburg to Bloemhof so it is also an opportunity to see some of the country,” he added.

2019 promises to be another busy year for the Enniskillen man with the European Championships taking place in Ireland in July.

James has competed at eight international competitions in seven different countries over the last five years including last year’s World Championships in Italy.

That event also consisted of a five man team with each team member competing against a member from each nation, meaning for the 29 teams competing there were five sections of 29 people competing over the two days.

“I qualified for this team through trials and after finishing sixth individually last year in the U20 group in the worlds I hoped I could get a good result in the senior team.

“I caught lots of small fish both days in the competition which totalled 315 fish and a weight of 8.400kgs to finish the best in my team and 22nd individually at senior level which I was very happy with,” said James.