Author: Neville Merritt (Page 14 of 44)

This being the first meeting of the new 2023 season and only three days after our Presentation Night, it was a nice surprise to see so many members attending. We were also able to welcome new member Keith Dundee who is moving to Southsea Marina with Team Anstey in preparation for the Sea Angling Classic competition in June.

Fish Of The Month was a tough one. Out of the two fish entered, would it be a pollock caught by Mark Banks or a pollack caught by Mark Banks? Rules being rules, we decided by a vote of hands to award the FOTM prize to Mark Banks for a fine specimen pollack of 15lb 5oz. This also puts Mark in first place for the Pollack Cup, Specimen Cup and club points. When the rest of the club actually starts fishing in earnest that may change of course.

We agreed to renew our membership of the Angling Trust as this gives us the specimen certificates and also insurance cover for events. Club funds are in a healthy position so far following the superb fundraising by Bill Arnold and Eleanor Atkins at the Presentation Night which brought in £910. A typical years’ expenses will be around £1,500. Currently we have 53 members confirmed for 2023 and 14+ likely to re-join. With some successful open competitions and another raffle or two we will be in good shape financially.

Our next Open Competition will be the Bream Open on 7th May. Ross Honey and Lowrance will donate an entry ticket for the Sea Angling Classic worth £250 to the competition winner, in addition to the cash prize.

We have a special 10-year anniversary logo picture above, which we can have printed on tee shirts. Unlike our hoodies and polo shirts which are embroidered to order, tee shirts have to be ordered in bulk. To give us an idea of likely interest and shirt sizes required, please could members fill in this mini questionnaire? SMAC T-Shirt Survey

Next meeting will be 4th April in the Marina Bar at 6:30pm unless otherwise advised.

Our annual Awards Night celebrates the achievements of our prize-winners, and is also our most popular social gathering where we include SMDAC, members, partners and families. This year was no exception and by the start time of 7:30 it was standing room only so raiding parties had to be despatched to the front bar to secure more seating.

Steve Kelly, our amazing and dedicated Chairman not only organised venue, food, free drink, raffle prizes, trophy engraving and a microphone, he also expertly hosted a very enjoyable evening. Steve had invited local (well, the marina anyway) celebrity Rupert Bremer who, never knowingly under-dressed, was resplendent in a stunning fish-themed ensemble in honour of the occasion.

Steve opened the ceremony by reminding us that 2023 is our 10-year anniversary! How time passes. Like the tide, membership ebbs and flows as people join or leave the marina but there are some rocks that remain steadfast – if that’s not getting too poetic. We are all massively grateful to Steve and other long-serving committee members and helpers who make our club so successful, and a great community to be a part of. Bill Arnold, king of the raffle sales (Treasurer); Steve Andrews (Social Secretary) and Tim Andrews (Commodore) have all supported the club for many years and of course, we are also very grateful for the patronage of Premier themselves.

The full prize lists and photographs are below but there are some that are worthy of a special mention. The annual club Species Hunt was highly competitive and hard fought to the last day. Peter Churchill not only won the cup, he won the SMAC one-day Species Competition proving that it isn’t just luck. He knows where to find them.

Jim Atkins deserves a special mention for the most awards won for a single fish, although to be fair it was a very impressive bream weighing 4lb 7oz. This fish won the Bream Cup, Open Bream Competition, Best Specimen; Best Placed Bream Cup Member and of course an Angling Trust species medallion.

Tim Andrews won the Mandela Cup which is a one-day competition for the largest cod, and if no cod are caught, the largest whiting. No cod were caught and most competitors assumed that the prize would be won by a whiting at least north of a pound and a half so threw back anything smaller. Tim deserves the prize for his highly developed sense of optimism, weighing in a whiting of only 12oz. This fish almost certainly wasn’t the largest caught, but it was the largest that reached the weigh-in which is the bit that counts.

Finally, Dave Newnham proved that you can win a cup without winning a cup. Our Club Champion Cup is awarded to the member who wins the most points across the other competitions, and Dave accumulated enough second place points to become Club Champion overall. Congratulations Dave.

After a hearty buffet, we then moved on to the raffle. With Bill Arnold providing the force and Eleanor Atkins providing the glamour, this sales team netted over £900 for the club funds. There was a great array of prizes carefully curated by Steve but without the generosity of members both present and through on-line pledges we wouldn’t have raised so much. We are very grateful for all the support. Club membership is only a nominal £20 so these fund-raising activities are essential to help us pay for our competitions and social events.

The 2022 Season is over. The counters are reset. Now there is all to play for in the 2023 season. Species tallies are already coming in so it looks like another fun year ahead. Good luck everyone!

Neville Merritt

SMDAC Results:

• Largest Fish From Lakes Cup: John Wearn
• Pier and Beach Cup: Chris Satow
• Mixed Lakes Cup: Frank Chatfield
• Best Cod Caught From Lady Elsa: Frank Chatfield (Whiting 1lb 11oz)
• Best Specimen Caught From Lady Elsa: Chris Satow (Undulate Ray 16lb)
• Specaies Hunt On Lady Elsa: Frank Chatfield (12 species)
• Combination Cup: Frank Chatfield
• Champions Runner-Up Cup: Chris Satow
• Champions Cup SMDAC: Frank Chatfield

SMAC Results:

Our Annual General Meeting was very well attended, probably more due to everyone being starved of fishing conversations than actually wanting to debate rule changes! This meeting is sandwiched between the end of one season and the start of another, so we marked the occasion by reminding ourselves who won what in 2022 (competition list below). We’ll make a bigger thing of this at Presentation Night on 4th March. We will be borrowing the ECA disco equipment so if anyone has a suitable music playlist please let Steve know. We’ll make a donation to RNLI/GAFIRS in appreciation.

Still in 2022 Season – Peter Churchill picked up his prize for 19th place in the Open Cod Competition. He was extremely pleased with his mackerel feathers, which was nice.  We also voted on Fish Of The Month for January, which was won by Neil Glazier for a very decent undulate ray of 17lb. SMAC sent 20 Specimen Forms to the Angling Trust in 2022 which shows some of us can catch some decent fish. That sounded like it included me, but it didn’t.

The Species Hunt competition was fiercely fought to the end and is probably our most popular competition. It certainly gets a lot of airtime on the WhatsApp Group. Only days into February, the 2023 hunt is already under way!

Subs are now due for 2023 – please can all members pay their £20 to Steve Kelly. This must be done before any catches are recorded, and definitely before you get a free drink at Awards Night. With renewals we are expecting 68 members and 39 boats which puts the club funds in a very healthy position to pay for our annual events, prizes and competitions.

We then moved on to the AGM agenda. First up was to vote in a new Committee. If anyone was hoping for some drama here they were disappointed because we all voted the same committee back in again. A warning to others, once in there is no escape.

• Chairman – Steve Kelly
• Deputy Chairman, Competition Assistant, Writer of Things and BBQ Cook – Neville Merritt
• Commodore – Tim Andrews
• Treasurer – Bill Arnold
• Social Secretary – Steve Andrews

There was a minor rule change voted in – all competition entries (species hunt, catch and release, species cups etc) have to be claimed and recorded within 48 hours of capture. We also have a new competition and prize. Thanks to a cup donated by Dave Newnham, we now have a Brill and Turbot Competition. Following a vote, the rules were agreed that qualifying fish for this annual cup must be a minimum of 2lb for a brill and 3lb for a turbot, and weighed on the club scales. The cup is awarded for the best specimen of either species.

The meeting closed with Any Other Business. John Evans reminded us of the sad news that a local angler was drowned this week off White Cliff Bay. Lifejackets save lives, and now is a good time to do annual checks (see here for a how-to). Bill Arnold also reminded us we were planning to invite the RNLI in for a safety talk at one of our monthly meetings, so that needs to be organised.

The next event is Presentation Night on Saturday 4th March in the Marina Bar, from 7:30pm. A free drink for members, snacks and a raffle – partners and families welcome. We will be awarding the cups and prizes listed below. The next regular monthly meeting will be on Tuesday 7th March at 6:30pm and we’ll decide at that meeting whether to swich to our summer meeting times in future.

Neville Merritt
February 2023

31st January came to a close and the SMAC winners for the 2022 Season can be announced! No last-minute changes so the positions over the weekend remain in place. Club champion is Dave Newnham, and well-deserved too. It also shows that points mean prizes, because the  competition he won outright was the Pairs Cup with Clive Newnham, but he came second in enough other competitions to secure the Club Champion place.

The other hotly-contested competition worthy of special celebration was the Species Hunt Cup, won by Peter Churchill with an amazing 45 species. He was chased all the way to the finish line by Dan Lumsden but don’t feel too sorry for Dan, he won the Cod Pool and Cod Cup!

Congratulations to all the winners and all the placings. We have many highly skilled anglers in the club and no top spot is safe for long, which makes it all the more interesting and fun. The full results are listed below. The Awards Night for presentation of these prizes will be Saturday 4th March in the Marina Bar.

Well done all!

This was meant to be a quick meeting in the Marina Bar followed by a curry upstairs in the Bombay Brasserie, but unfortunately due to the unpleasant weather causing accidents and traffic jams we delayed the start to give those travelling towards us a bit more time.

First up was a review of the current competition and points standings. We only have until the end of January to put more scores on the board, so we need a few more fishable days in January please! The current positions are on the sheet at the bottom of this report.

The next regular item on the agenda was Fish Of The Month. We actually had several cod to choose from and an impressive pollack, but as cod are such rare catches these days the best cod won. It weighed 13lb 10oz and was caught by Dan Lumsden.

We all agreed that the Open Cod Competition had been a great success, and the option to allow online payments for entry fees will be continued for future Open competitions to encourage participation (and a bigger prize pool!) from further afield.

Promotion for our next Open Competition, the annual Boat Bream Competition on Sunday 7th May will be starting soon, so save the date! There were some really good fish caught in 2022 so hopefully we’ll see a good turnout for the 2023 event.

Some more dates for the diaries: the Mandela Cup will be fished either on 28th or 29th January, and in the sea, harbour, marina or bar depending on the severity of the weather. It has to be done, the SMAC season ends 31st January!

The annual Awards Night will be held on Saturday 4th March in the Marina Bar. There will be drinks (a free one for each member), snacks, music and prizes so all members are invited, and families too. We will all be on our best behaviour so we don’t embarrass anyone in front of their partners. We save that for the WhatsApp Group.

Our next monthly meeting will be the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday 7th February where we decide on the committee members, rule changes and any other business of global significance for the 2023 season. It will be held at 6:30pm in the Marina Bar so please come along because your vote is important. SMAC is an amazing community and it will always be as long as it is run by us all, for us all. Some of us have more time to devote to club activities than others but don’t worry about that, every member counts.

Finally, we retired upstairs to enjoy a curry, a drink and some great banter. It was a pleasure to include the stalwarts from SMDAC too! I’d also like to thank Luke Scott for his extraordinary generosity, it was much appreciated by all.

Neville Merritt