Wow, another nearly full house! Our SMAC monthly meetings are getting so popular you’ll have to arrive early to bag a seat. We now have 76 members so perhaps that isn’t too surprising.

Our Chairman Steve Kelly opened proceedings by going through the Club Standings (details below). Of particular note is the highly competitive Species Hunt with Peter Churchill on 39 and Dan Lumsden in hot pursuit with 38.

Fish Of The Month Competition for Best Specimen: there were plenty of good fish entered in August which is a good sign. In fact there were so many to list we nearly awarded the prize to the wrong fish but having sorted that out SMDAC member Frank Chatfield collected his medal for a 15lb Undulate Ray (see header photo).

The Open Species Competition was held on 27th August and there is a full report here. Peter Churchill won it for the Club with 15 species, congratulations Peter.

The Cod Pool started on 1st September. £10 to enter, winner takes all for the largest cod caught between now and the end of January 2024. See Steve Kelly to enter, but only if you have £10 in your hand.

The Club Sole Night Trip took place on Saturday 2nd September, organised by Dan Lumsden. A small flotilla headed to Southampton Water to fish into the night, keeping together for safety. Most sole came to the net from dusk to nightfall, after which things went quiet. The joint winners of the Unofficial Sole Competition were Luke Scott and Steve Tambling, 11 ozs each.

The Inter-Club competition will be held on 8th October, and because Ray Plomer won last year on behalf of LHFA they will be hosting. The term “hosting” will be applied loosely, because the weigh-in may not be at LHFA for various reasons. More details to follow.

Steve reminded us of the open invitation to attend the Tagging workshop for Bream, Sharks and Rays to be held at the ECA on Monday 2nd October from 6pm to 8pm.

Nearly all of the SMAC 10th Anniversary t-shirts have now been collected by members. If there is enough interest we’ll put in one final order for more so watch out for the notice on WhatsApp and Facebook.

There may or may not be a Berth Holders BBQ at the end of the month to celebrate the new paint job on the BBQ area, we await details from Premier.

And that’s all for this month! Next meeting same time same place (Marina Bar) on 3rd October.