The SMAC Mandela Cup is a light-hearted, club-only competition which we try to fish (weather permitting) over the Christmas break. Often it is postponed, and sometimes the weather is so bad it gets to the point that we have to fish something, somehow before the end of the Club year and end up dangling hooks in the marina. I kid you not: one year absolutely nothing was caught so the cup was shared between the oldest and youngest competitors.

I digress. The weather didn’t permit us holding the competition over Christmas this year but 15th January promised suitable weather and the date was fixed. The competition is simple: winner takes all, one prize for the largest cod and if no cod are caught, the prize goes to the heaviest whiting.

Whiting have been very obliging this season and plenty of good-sized whiting were stashed in cool boxes in anticipation that they might be eligible.

Hopes for a whiting victor were dashed when Tim Andrews, fishing with John Evans messaged that he had boated a 7lb cod. This turned out to be the only cod and therefore the winning fish, so Tim was presented with his winnings in the Marina Bar afterwards by John Evans. Congratulations Tim.