The first match of the SFCA Summer League 2008 took place at Broom Fishery on the 18th May. The conditions on the day were very warm and muggy with the fish perhaps having other things on their mind other than feeding.

Before the draw most anglers were praying for an end peg, preferably one with cover to fish to, either that or the peg that had won the previous day with 33lb of mainly Carp. True to form yours truly drew the flier with reeds to fish to and a swim full of fish!!

Team wise, the mighty Monklands All Stars were eager to finish off the bottom, a feat we had acheived last year in every match - must be some kind of record.

The Monklands teams for this year are as follows:

Monklands A

Ian Whitson

Darrin Ferguson

Stephen McAveny

Ewan Weed

Monklands B

Davie McAuley

Simon Murray

Alec Napier

Dougie Garmoury

Monklands All Stars

Michael Neary

Mike Shaw

David Anderson

Bryan Hewitt

The match was split over 4 of the ponds, the Canal, Square, Small Carp Pond and Large Carp Pond, with one angler per team on each lake.

Section points are awarded, 15 for first, 14 for second and so on. The team event is decided on total points whilst the individual points accrue until the end of the series with the angler on the most points winning the title. On the day there was payouts for the top 2 in each section, the top 3 overall and the top 2 teams.

The match itself was hard going for most, even the normally productive corner pegs on the square were struggling. Most anglers on the Canal and Small Carp Pond were struggling with the fish pre-occupied with getting ready to spawn, or at least going through the motions.

It was John Calaghan on the Large Carp Pond in the top right hand corner, peg 88, that stormed ahead and won the match with 25lb 6oz.

In second place was Monklands Angler Mike Shaw from the first corner peg on the left hand side on the Large Carp Pond. I weighed 15lb 5oz of Carp, Chub and a solitary Barbel - probably should of had more but I honestly don't think the fish were feeding at all, several foul hooked fish almost confirmed my thinking.

Third place was shared between Monklands member Darrin Ferguson and Central Steph Hunter, both of which had 12lb 8oz from the Square.

Team wise the win went to Central with 53 points closely followed by Monklands A with 51 and Magiscroft with 48. Amazingly, the Monklands All Stars finshed well off bottom in 6th place with Monklands B finishing in joint 8th.

Full results courtesy of Mike Weed (thanks Mike), can be viewed here.

My Match (Mike)

Just a few words about how I fished my peg.

I drew the flier on the Large Carp Pond and in all honesty expected to empty it! With plenty of fish knocking the reeds before the all in I was more than happy with the peg and could wait to get started.

A quick chat with John the owner revealed that most anglers fish into the corner, under the tree at 12.5m - this was definately one line I had already ear marked, I also decided on a second line at 15m out towards the middle of the reed line. A third line close in on a top 4 and a throw away line at 13m straight in front was fed - I had no intention of fishing straight in front but put something in just in case it was dire in the corner.

Plumbing up I found around 3ft on all 3 reedbed lines, perfect. Rig wise I setup two 0.2g Mick Wilkinson Power Diamonds to 0.16 Ultima Power Match straight through to a 14 Gamakatsu Pellet and a Mick Wilkinson SM Paste rig to 0.16 Ultima Power Match and a size 12 Gamakatsu Pellet. Elastic was a tight number 16 Latex on all rigs, the Carp in Broom are rocket propelled - I've never seen fish fight like these.

Kicking off, I put in one potfull of 3mm pellets and a few bits of Corn on the 4m and 15m line and two pots on the 13m line in front - I never actually went on this line all day so I never topped it up after this. I started on the 12.5m line right in the corner feeding pellet and corn via the toss pot, within 10 minutes I had a small carp, 10 minutes later I'd lost my first carp in the reeds. I was purposely feeding a good 3ft from the reeds to give myself enough time to lift into the bite and stop the fish ploughing into the reeds. The problem with these fish is that once that float moves I'm convinced they've already built up a head of steam and are heading for the reeds. I'm also convinced that fishing heavy elastics is the wrong thing to do - reason being, theres enough bend in the pole itself to allow the fish to enter the reeds and secondly, the more pressure the fish feels, the more it will pull back. All you end up with is being snagged in the reeds with a heavy elastic to deal with.

Anyway, back to the fishing. The rest of the match was spent alternating between the 12.5m swim and the 15m swim, it was a case of catch a fish, feed the swim via the toss pot and move to the next swim and repeat the process. At no time during the match did I feel like the fish were having a proper feed despite the reeds knocking every now and then and fish obviously being present. A quick look on the inside line later in the match enticed several samll chub but no Carp, I finished the match with the final 15 minutes fishing paste on the 15m swim, loosing one fish which was foul hooked but not catching anymore.

All in all it was very frustrating, having a peg full of fish but not being able to catch them! Maybe next time...