It was wet. It was windy. Nobody had caught much. Portsmouth were playing at home. Folk were working. Kev was playing midwife to lambs. We thought it would just be Steve, Steve and me at the meeting but surprisingly we had a great turnout! Thank you everyone for coming along and thanks also to the Marina Bar for staying open for us.

Fish of the Month turned out to be…nothing. The £10 prize went into the growing RNLI jam jar and the medal went back in the box. Better luck next month hopefully.

The Species Competition fared very slightly better, slightly because it is only just more than also being zero. Jake Kelly surges into the lead in the Junior Species league with one fish and Peter Churchill rockets up the main Species Competition with two.

The new Bass Regulations 2022 are now in force which means that recreational anglers can take a maximum of two bass over 42cm length per day. If that sentence is too difficult to understand, the North Western IFCA have produced a helpful visual. I’m not sure what that says about their local anglers, but anyway.

The Annual Awards Night is likely to be held in the Marina Bar some time in April, COVID confidence permitting. Watch out for the notice. There will be prizes, there will probably be a drink, there might also be snacks. It will be a good night anyway. Bring family along too, to show them what civilised company you keep during the year.

We had a reminder of the Open Bream Competition, scheduled for 1st May 2022. The prize table is growing nicely with contributions already from Baits ‘R Us, Marina Bar, Premier and local tackle shops.

The Sea Angling Classic Prize Boat Reveal will be at 12noon on 19th March at Gunwharf Quay. This isn’t a SMAC event but as SAC donate prizes to SMAC competitions they deserve a mention.

The first SMAC Hoodies order will be processed on 9th March so if you want free delivery at the April Meeting please place your order here by 9th March and mark your order Click and Collect. You can order at any time if you want delivery to your home address with the standard delivery charge. If you have already paid Neville at the March meeting, these will be delivered at the April meeting.

Neville also reminded those present that he welcomes any catch reports, photos, stories, news and gossip for inclusion in the monthly Catch Report on the website. News has been a bit sparse lately because of a combination of the season and the weather.

If members have not paid their annual subscription please can you do so as soon as possible, to Steve Kelly. If you for some strange reason don’t want to renew, please tell him that too.

Next meeting will be at 7:30pm on 5th April in the Marina Bar.

Neville Merritt

March 2022