Author: Neville Merritt (Page 1 of 39)

On Tuesday 23^rd July it was a calm sunny day, perfect for boat fishing. So we had a pier competition. (Thank you Steve for that line!) Joking aside, we had a really enjoyable afternoon and evening organised by SMDAC who challenged SMAC members to a fishing competition on South Parade Pier. Fishing from 3.30pm to 9pm, 16 members were competing in three categories: most fish caught, most species and heaviest fish.

It turned out that the heaviest fish wasn’t going to be very heavy at all and a moderate bream and a wrasse were both returned before we realized that even a fish the size of a mobile phone would have been in the running.

On the subject of mobile phones, for those not familiar with the pier fishing deck it is surfaced with a grid of very generous spacing so we were all keeping a very tight grip on our possessions, tackle and bait.

Mid evening, Sara from the Best Of British café hailed us for a slap-up meal of burger or sausage and chips of epic proportions, served in individually customised cartons appropriately decorated in sea angling themes.

The species category was fiercely contended by those going for quantity rather than quality. While the latter, inspired by a large bass caught earlier in the day hefted whole squid to the horizon hoping for more than just a few kilos of Solent weed, others were fishing right by the piles with micro hooks and having plenty of fun. Most of us soon listed the obligatory pout and wrasse, but the decider would be who could winkle out something different.

Peter Churchill nailed the species category with five: pouting, corkwing, ballan, pollack and bass. This was in spite of being given angling advice by a casual onlooker who was unaware that Peter is the reigning species king in SMAC. Heaviest fish actually weighed was Steve Kelly’s 6oz ballan wrasse, and most fish caught was 54 also by Steve.

Overall the evening was great fun and our thanks must go to John Wearn and Frank Chatfield of SMDAC for organising such an entertaining evening of fishing, food and plenty of banter.

They talk about stars being aligned but I think the clouds were definitely aligned to miss us on Saturday because we had glorious sunshine for our annual SMAC BBQ. From our vantage point on the BBQ deck (or over the toilets, depending on your point of view) we could see clouds dumping over Goodwood which must have diluted their champagne. However, our beers remained pure and helped wash down the enormous spread of food: procured by Steve, cooked up by Neville and finished off with an enormous pile of fresh scones with jam and cream made by Eleanor.

One of our traditions is to hot-smoke some fresh mackerel. Unfortunately despite lots of feathering from lots of boats we couldn’t produce any in time. Steve nipped off to the fish market so we wouldn’t go short. SMAC buying fish? That’s hard to take but looking at the bill, I’m now a lot less guilty about what I spend on my boat just to catch a few fish for the pot.

We missed our friend Bill but his protege Eleanor and Dan did him proud by extracting £763 from the assembled crowd in true Bill style. As usual we had a free raffle for members then an impressive table of prizes for the main event. Steve compered the comedy act of prize allocation where guests eventually mastered the rules and things went more smoothly. We are also very grateful to those absent members who bought raffle tickets remotely while sipping cocktails in their holiday resorts. It was a sheer coincidence that they won the smallest prizes, honest. At least Dave won’t be short of knives.

Thanks were expressed by all to Steve for doing a serious amount of running around and organising, Tim and Dan for running around shifting things, Eleanor and Dan again for the raffle, Eleanor again for the scones, the cook who just put stuff on the BBQ and everyone who joined on the day in either in person or remotely to make this yet another successful SMAC BBQ.

We are also very grateful to John Wearn for taking lots of photos of the event, a selection of which are in the gallery below.

SMDAC have organised a Pier Competition on South Parade Pier, Southsea for Tuesday 23rd July from 3:30pm to 9:30pm. We will have access to the fishing deck all the time, even though the pier officially closes at 7:30pm. Food and permits will be supplied by Best of British cafe and the competition fee of £15 includes hot drinks and a burger meal from the cafe. Fees must be paid in advance to Steve Kelly, and can be dropped off in an envelope for him in the marina office.

Usual rules of two rods/three hooks applies, and the competition will be Best Specimen, Heaviest Fish and Most Species.

The fishing deck has a grid base so if you don’t want to lose everything you drop, a groundsheet is recommended! Bring your own beer, and if anyone has a drop-net that would be helpful too.

The pier has been fishing well and although fish aren’t massive, you can expect bream, bass, smoothies, dogfish, mackerel and all the usual coastal mini species. Many thanks to John Wearn for setting this up, and arranging the meals with the cafe.

Our monthly meeting was preceded by the SMDAC Annual General Meeting where Chairman John Wearn was expecting to stand down. He wasn’t allowed to! John carries on for at least another year, which shows that if you do a great job there is no escape from it.

Steve Kelly chaired the SMAC meeting as usual, and we had a good turnout again. Standings are below and as you can see Peter Churchill is storming away in the Species hunt with 30 species but the Ladies Species Hunt could be interesting with Pam ahead of Eleanor by only one point.

Fish Of The Month had five entries and was won by Mark Banks with a superb pollack of 16lb 5oz. Congratulations Mark.

Our Summer BBQ had to be postponed due to a dodgy forecast, so we are hoping for better on the revised date of 13th July. If you haven’t booked your free ticket please do using this link, so we can make sure we have enough food!

The next event will be the SMDAC vs. SMAC Pier Competition on Tuesday 23rd July from 3:30pm to 9:30pm. We will have access to the fishing deck all the time, even though the pier officially closes at 7:30pm. Food and permits will be supplied by Best of British cafe and the competition fee of £15 includes hot drinks and a burger meal from the cafe. Fees must be paid in advance to Steve Kelly, and can be dropped off in an envelope for him in the marina office. Usual rules of two rods/three hooks applies, and the competition will be Best Specimen, Heaviest Fish and Most Species. The fishing deck has a grid base so if you don’t want to lose everything you drop, a groundsheet is recommended! Many thanks to John Wearn for setting this up, and his many trips to the cafe to double and triple-check the details.

Dan Lumsden is proposing a Sole Trip on the evening of 3rd August, details to follow nearer the date. This is usually a social, with boats going in convoy to a Solent or Southampton Water mark and returning at night.

The SMAC Open Species Competition is on Sunday 11th August, details here

In Any Other Business, Peter Atkinson (Anyfish) reminded us he has a special SMAC member price of £20 for a 5lb box of frozen squid. Contact Peter to order.

Our next monthly meeting will be on Tuesday 6th August at 7pm in the Marina Bar.

Another month has gone by already and it was great to see a good turnout of 24 members to our monthly SMAC meeting in the Marina Bar, Southsea. It was also good to see that Premier had been prompt in responding to requests to fly the D-Day 80 Flag, which they did!

Steve welcomed us with a rundown of news, activities and planned events. The current competition standings are listed below. It’s hard to keep up with Peter Churchill on the Species Hunt, between printing the list, having the meeting and posting this report his score has changed twice.

Fish Of The Month was dominated by bream from our earlier Open Bream Competition, and Dan Lumsden won this with his bream of 3lb 1oz.which also won him second place in the Bream Competition.

Steve reported on our achievements in the Bream Competition which you can read in full here. Out of 50 entries and 26 boats, SMAC members took home 10 of the 16 prizes which is a good show.

Our next event is the Annual SMAC BBQ on Saturday 22^nd June in the Southsea Marina BBQ area. Please book your tickets on this link to make sure we have food for you! Free food will be provided for all members and families, and we always put on a good spread. Bring your own drinks, and a camping chair or two is always a good idea.

There will be a Pier Competition between SMAC and SMDAC on 23^rd July, fishing between 3pm and 9pm on South Parade Pier for the Best Specimen Fish. This is being organised by SMDAC and details will be published separately. Food on the pier will be available to pre-order, payment with order.

A boat fishing regatta to Brighton has been proposed again, and subject to weather and support it will happen early August. Details to follow.

Our next open competition is the Open Species Competition on 11^th August. Further details here.

The questions we put to the Southsea Marina Manager Dave Frey when he gave us a chat at the March meeting have still not been answered and this needs chasing up.

Finally, in AOB, John Calton gave us a useful tip on a Boat Scrapyard in Gosport, which sells secondhand equipment at very good prices. www.boatscrapyard.com

Next meeting is at 7pm on Tuesday 2^nd July in the Marina Bar as usual. See you there if not before!

Our regular monthly meeting in the Marina bar was held a week later due to the May Bank Holiday, and we had a great turnout once again. There was a lot to report and more to plan, so read on.

First up was a report on the club competition standings which are reproduced below. Dan Lumsden is in the lead overall. Pete Churchill has 15 on the slate in the Species Hunt and there are still over seven months to go, so lots more changes expected!

Fish Of The Month was awarded to Jock Park for a thornback of 15lb (125% of Specimen) which is a very nice fish and returned. It currently leads the Catch & Release Cup too.

The Open Bream Competition was a great success with 58 entries and 26 boats. You can read the full report here. We were ticked off for leaving dead fish floating in the water so we will put up notices for visitors by the cleaning station. Fish trimmings need to be put in the water on an ebbing tide so they are carried away, and any swim bladders popped so they feed the crabs without offending anyone.

The SAC Meet & Fish event last Saturday as part of the Marina Social Day was another great success, particularly as SMAC entrants Peter Churchill and Peter Kinchin carried off two of the five main prizes with Ray Plomer and Richard Pack coming a very close second. The full report is here.

Our next event is the SMAC Annual BBQ which will be held on Saturday 22^nd June. There will be free food and a special free Members Raffle, plus a main fundraising raffle with some excellent prizes. Members and families are all welcome, and to help us plan the event please can you book your free tickets via this link.  £500 is being spent on raffle prizes, a similar amount on food and of course you’ll have great company so this is well worth coming to.

SMDAC have challenged SMAC to an inter-club pier competition. This will be held at South Parade Pier, Southsea from 3pm to 9pm on a date to be confirmed. The timings are already confirmed because that’s when beer and fish and chips can be bought. We’ll have to think of some rules before then, too.

The next Open competition is the Species Competition which will be held on Sunday 11^th August with a reserve date of 18^th August. We’ll start promoting the event so watch out for details as they are published.

We haven’t yet had responses to the questions posed to the Southsea Marina manager, Dave Frey at the March meeting. Steve will chase him up.

Next Meeting will be on Tuesday 4^th June at 7pm in the Marina Bar as usual.