The Scottish Federation of Sea Anglers SFSA recently announced its return to the match calendar and hosted its first sea angling event over the weekend as the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions ease. 

Mike Horn the Chairman of the Scottish Sea Federation (SFSA) held the event on Saturday 12th of June 2021 at Dundee’s renown Riverside Drive. Mike was delighted to once again be able to kick start and organise fishing events. The match was a positive move in the right direction toward having open and federated competitions in the future.

The event was limited with a maximum of 45 pegs to fish, in order to comply with Covid 19 government guidelines. Each Angler was well spaced out and had more than 2mt between them, leaving ample space to fish, and reducing contact with others competing. 

Mike Horn, Chairman of the SFSA told us “The places for the event were filled quickly or SOLD OUT and that demand for these kinds of events was bigger than ever”.

Many international competitors were keen to get the rods out and fish the match, some of which traveled up from England to compete at the highest level with Scottish Internationals. 

Pegging already done 

The event and draw method this time was quite different. Normally the draw would take place on the morning of the match, hoever this time it was all done before the match kicked off. This change enabled those fishing to get their peg number and go quickly to their position to set up, once again protecting the Anglers and avoiding the need for competitors to be in contact with other bubbles.   

Rules 

All Anglers were asked to fish with 2 hooks only. 

*Size limits**  
20cm and 5 pts per undersized fish All eels 30cm

*No sea trout to count.

Payout

1st Prize £180 2nd Prize £120      
1/2 in each zone 15 to a zone £60/£40 Longest fish – £75      

A total of £675 total was available to be won. 

Gallery from the event

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Bright weather for the match

The weather during the day was dry, warm and windy, and plenty of fish were caught. The general feeling from those competing was one of joy with many sighting the day as a milestone. More than a year has passed since the last match..  

The final results  

Winners 1&2 1st Gareth Gardiner 31 fish 448pts  2nd Kenny Greason 16 fish 415pts    
         
Zone 1  1st Steve Potts 39 fish 413pts 2nd Mike Kyle 32 fish 389pts    
Zone 2 1st Kevin Lewis 16 fish 356pts  2nd Davy Dobbie 18 fish 323pts     
Zone 3  1st Chris Empson 15 fish 319pts  2nd Chris Horn 11 fish 263pts     
Longest fish  4 way split 37cm flounder.       

Mixed bag of fish 

A good variety of species were caught as the tide came in. Aside from the usual flounders and eels, whiting, bass, codling, coalies and viviparous blennies were also being counted and caught along the match stretch.

Next sea angling match

The next SFSA event will take place on Saturday 3rd of July on Lunan Bay. Bookings and more information about this event will go live on Friday 18th of June to non members of the SFSA, for more info visit and updates keep an eye on the offical SFSA Facebook page below.