Three Fife-based anglers go for Civil Service glory

Three Fife-based fishermen carry Scotland’s hopes in the Civil Service Sports Club shore championships on Friday.

Gus Brindle (pictured by Nigel Duncan) and Peter Smalls from Dunfermline and Davie McKervail from Inverleithing will cast a line in the six-hour event on the River Tyne between the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and St Peter’s Marine in Newcastle.

All three have represented the Scottish region of the Civil Service before and a Tartan team last won at Otterspool on the River Mersey in 2021.

Last year, Scotland had to fish a man short at the Brixham Breakwater in Dorset and Brindle, who is chairman of the Scottish Federation for Coarse Angling, said that the team from the North-East Region are probably the most consistent in the competition in the last five years.

The match is from 9am to 3pm on Friday and in-form Brindle, who won Match Three of the Edinburgh Winter Shore League, sponsored by the Edinburgh Angling Centre, The Fishing Megastore and Cox and Rawle, at Newhaven last Friday, added: “They will be extremely difficult to beat on home waters.

“That said, we are used to fishing river/estuary matches like the one at Riverside Drive in Dundee and at Erskine on the River Clyde.”

The main target species are likely to be cod and whiting and Brindle added: “We are hoping to push the North-East all the way.”