Author: Neville Merritt (Page 19 of 44)

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 1^st 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 19^th 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 9^th March so if you want free delivery at the April Meeting please place your order here by 9^th 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 5^th April in the Marina Bar.

Neville Merritt

March 2022

Thank you to everyone who came along to the meeting which was the best attended – and longest – of any of the SMAC meetings I can remember. Was it to hear the results of the nail-biting competition finale? Was it because a fight was anticipated over proposed rule changes? Was it because it wasn’t worth going fishing? Who can tell. Anyway, Steve Kelly opened the meeting and asked if anyone wanted to propose themselves to take on any of the Club Officer roles. Everyone was smart enough to keep very quiet and the current incumbents will continue their positions through 2022.

• Chairman – Steve Kelly
• Deputy Chairman and Competition Officer – Chris Evans
• Commodore – Tim Andrews
• Treasurer – Bill Arnold
• Social Secretary – Steve Andrews
• Publicity, Cook, strategic negotiator etc. – Neville Merritt

I can’t actually remember crossing the line between being coerced into writing Catch Reports for a now-defunct mag and having my name up there but hey, it’s all fun.

Next up was a reminder that fees are due for 2022, and you can’t enter any fish into competitions until you are a paid-up member. £20 each to Steve Kelly please, or more accurately, the cashbox.

The AGM marks the end of one club year and the start of the next, so the winners of the club cups were announced. The final tally is listed on the sheet below and the winners include:

• Kevin Johnson – Champions Cup; Bass Cup; Pollack Cup; Catch-and-Release Cup
• Tim Andrews – Bream Cup; Best Specimen Cup; Pairs Cup; Nelson Mandela Cup
• Mark Banks – Plaice Cup; Pairs Cup
• Brian Van Daal – Cod Cup; Cod Pool
• Pete Churchill – Species Hunt (27); Open Cod Comp Best Placed Member
• Bill Arnold – Species Hunt Day Competition
• Eleanor Atkins – Ladies Cup; Ladies Species Hunt (7)
• Ben Lumsden – Junior Cup;
• Jake Kelly – Junior Species Hunt (7)

January Fish of the Month: out of nine entries, John Jones won with a conger of 70lb (feature photo) on the basis that a) it was  a good fish and b) he bravely risked losing his ear to it.

It was decided to roll the annual Presentation Night, usually held in February, forward to later in the Spring when hopefully COVID risks will reduce and members and families will be more confident about going to socials.

Chris Ellis proposed a Summer Open Competition to be held in August. Ross Honey from SAC is keen to promote the event and feature the SAC winning boat. Two options were discussed; a mini-SAC five-species competition, or a full species competition as organised by Chris last year. A members’ vote opted for the full species competition.

An Open Bream Competition will be held on 1^st May. Club funds will be boosted by retaining 10% of the entry fee, the balance to be distributed as prizes.

Proposed Rule Changes: after much discussion it was agreed that Rule 9 restricting anglers to fish SMAC competitions from an annual berth holder’s boat could be waived in individual circumstances on the agreement of the Club Officers. The club Rule Sheet will be updated. In the interests of keeping things simple, other rule changes discussed were not adopted.

Finally, Neville Merritt showed the SMAC Hoodies from Fairtrade brand SU-stainable, with sample sizes to try on. Due to the high level of interest from members, the company will set up a dedicated ordering page accessible from the SMAC website page. Delivery will be to home addresses for a fixed delivery fee, or for the first batch of orders delivery to the marina for collection will be free of charge. More details will be circulated when the ordering page is live.

Next Meeting: Tuesday 1^st March, 7:30pm in the Marina Bar.

Neville Merritt

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the club will be held at 7:30pm on Tuesday 1st February in the Marina Bar. Results of all the annual competitions will be announced. Also on the agenda is an Open Bream Comp, Open Species Comp, Presentation Night, voting on Club Officers, Rule amendments plus any other subject brought up by members present.

Subscriptions for the year will be due from 1st February: £20 per person, concession for Juniors.

I will also be bringing samples and try-on sizes for the 2022 SMAC draw-string hoodie so if you are interested you can see the quality and try for fit. These are made to order in batches so we need to have a few folk interested before we can commit to supplying them.

See you there!

Neville

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 15^th 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.

The first meeting of the year was held on 11th January, at the earlier time of 7pm to allow Ross Honey to present an Open Q&A at 7:30pm about this year’s Sea Angling Classic competition.

Club News

Steve Kelly provided an update on the club competition standings, see below. The Bass Cup winner is confirmed as Kevin Johnson as that competition closed with the bass season. The other competitions will close at the end of January, so there’s still time for it all to change!

Fish Of The Month was awarded to Ben Lumsden for his flounder. This monthly competition is awarded by votes on the night, and takes account of Specimen Size, notable species or a story about the catch. Members all agreed that a 1lb flounder was a rarity today compared to in previous times, so we unanimously voted for young Ben.

The Mandela Cup will be fished on Saturday 15th January. Best cod, members only, winner takes all. This is a friendly competition and in seasonal spirit, takes place partly in the bar.

The date for the Presentation Night will be agreed at the next meeting.

Neville Merritt reminded members that he welcomes all photos of catches and reports for the website Catch Report and SMAC pages. You can send via FB Messenger, Whatsapp or email.

Also at the next meeting Neville will bring a selection of sizes of hoodies to try on and confirm costs so we can order a batch of SMAC branded hoodies if there is sufficient interest.

Next meeting will be on 1st February at 7:30pm. This meeting will the one where we elect club officers (Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and Commodore) and review any rule changes that members propose.

Sea Angling Classic Q&A

We were pleased to welcome Ross Honey and Glen Milligan who joined the meeting at 7:30pm to host an open Q&A session. Ross first provided an update on the events surrounding the competition, clarification on the rules and explained how the prize table is made up.

There is now an extensive Q&A page on the SAC website, please see here . This covers many of the questions raised at the meeting.

The event itinerary is here. More details are being discussed and it appears that Portsmouth Chambers of Commerce, Council, KHM etc are all keen to use the event as a way of promoting Portsmouth. They are providing a lot of support which will make this fishing competition more like a festival!

The main prize of an amazing boat package plus an expenses-paid 18 month experience programme is unprecedented. Thanks to the generous sponsors, this fully kitted out Extreme 745 Game King fishing boat will be insured and storage paid for 18 months enabling the winning crew to participate in other competitions including the 2023 SAC if they wish. The boat package will be the focus of a “Boat Reveal” in Portsmouth on 19th March, after which it will go on a road trip around the coast stopping off in London for a trip along the Thames before continuing along the South Coast and back to Portsmouth. There are other competitions and prizes within the SAC and these are being updated as more sponsors come forward.

These Q&A sessions are a good way for the SAC team to explain more about the event and also collect valuable feedback and ideas from the local angling community. For example, a question about potential disruption from anti-angling pressure groups was raised. This has since enabled the SAC team to prepare a detailed risk assessment and have contingency plans in place to address this if it occurs.

We were also given the opportunity to try out the SAC app which will be used to manage catches and the leaderboard in real time during the event itself. There will be further app training sessions available nearer the date of the event.

Follow the Sea Angling Classic Facebook page for more event news as it develops.