This week I had an email from MCA advising that they have migrated the old database of registered beacons (EPIRBs) to a new portal. They advise updating the information on the new portal so they have the correct and current information about the beacon, you, your boat and usual area of use. When you go to the new portal there is quite a lot of information that they will collect so it’s worth setting aside 15 minutes or so to do it. You will need your beacon and vessel information to hand when you do it.
“It is important that you do this, to assist the emergency services should they receive a ‘distress alert’ from your beacon(s). If you do not claim your beacon(s), the data will eventually be deleted.”
If you have a beacon and haven’t received this notification, check your email Junk Folder or visit the new Beacon Registry Service at https://www.gov.uk/register-406-beacons If you have changed your email since registering your beacon, you may not get the notification. You can update it using the portal.
“If you need advice or support on how to update your details, please contact the Beacon Registry Team, Telephone: +44 020 3817 2006 or email UKBeacons@mcga.gov.uk“
A quick reminder that ALL bass must be returned to the water unharmed after 1st December 2021 until the end pf the year. If this year’s bass rules roll over to 2022, then we can expected to be able to retain some bass after 28th February 2022 but that remains to be confirmed. This rule applies to both boat and shore fishing.
The summer fishing seems to have extended well into autumn this year, with the mackerel staying with the spratt shoals right up to the end of October before fading away. The amount of baitfish seen on the fishfinders is spectacular, attracting mackerel and bass. This is probably why the dolphins are being seen inshore here and bluefin tuna not so far offshore too. Every day that I have been out over that last two months I have seen large flocks of gulls working within a mile or two of shore, and if you like catching school bass on light gear you can catch a fish almost every cast, some of them actually into the “keeper” size of over 42cm.
Bream have stayed on the Blocks and rocky marks into early November, and looking back at my log I don’t see I caught many this late in previous years, although I probably wasn’t targeting them. I have always been interested in fishing methods used in other countries and this one caught my eye recently: fishing for yellow snapper (very like our black bream in habit) groundbaiting with oatmeal – or what we call porridge oats. I gave the method a try and it certainly produced some nice bream. Best bait was fish strip or prawn, not the usual squid strip. It wasn’t a scientific test because there was no other boats nearby using a different method to compare, but if you want to see the technique in use here’s the original video:
I was expecting more whiting by now and some are showing but not in the numbers we can expect as we move into winter. There are some good sized fish around – Lee Marshfield shows one that will produce some nice fillets.
Further out some nice bull huss have been caught – shown here a 12lb Bull Huss to Andrew Law fishing from Moonshine, and one of similar size for John Jones.
There have been plenty of good bass caught and Ben Lumsden showed his dad how to do it:
Finally – cod. Yes, some have been caught but there’s a reason why they are called Solent Unicorns – because they aren’t very common. One boat reported catching four but that is unusual. One or zero is far more likely. Tim Andrews did a very good job of making this one look sizable, but the game was up when we saw the weight in the Cod Cup listings – 5lb 6oz but still good enough to be in second place behind a 5lb 7oz fish caught by Tony Callard earlier.
The Cod Competition has been postponed from 14th November to 21st November, so that gives the cod and whiting a bit more time to organise themselves into turning up.
We had a good crowd in the Marina Bar on Tuesday to catch up on the latest club activities. The Marina Bar has just launched a new menu which might have contributed to the attraction too (thumbs up for the burger and blue cheese by the way).
First up was voting on Fish of the Month. Dave Ford won with a specimen Small-eyed Ray of 11lbs, a good fish. This is 100% of the specimen weight. The fish was released.
Other club standings were confirmed, as listed below.
The new Scales Hut is now in place. The door can be opened with a code which can be obtained from the marina staff, although if you know the code that is used elsewhere on site you can guess it correctly. The electrical power point has been installed and a floor will soon follow. The height of the hut has been kept low so as not to obstruct visibility from the marina office, so don’t expect to have a party in it.
The Open Cod Competition will be held on 14th November. High Water is a Neap at 08:20 with a mean range of 2.4 metres. This is very convenient for marina-based boats because the Cill will be open from 05:13 to 11:13, and again from 17:44 so we can put our boats away after the presentation which starts at 6pm in the Marina Bar.
Chris Ellis gave us an update on next year’s Open Species Competition which will be held in the summer, probably a weekend in August and this time running over two days. The organisers of the Sea Angling Classic will be loaning their mobile app for competitors to register their catches in real time.
Steve Kelly passed on a message from Premier Marinas for all members to make sure their boats have the boat name clearly marked on the boat hull or superstructure to avoid confusion during boat movements carried out by the yard crew.
Neville Merritt asked if members would be interested in a Fairtrade alternative for branded SMAC hoodies. Currently Vintage Pig can supply standard hoodies with our logo, although not everybody knows that. If there is sufficient interest in a good quality Fairtrade hoodie, Neville will bring a sample to a future meeting.
The next meeting will be at 7:30pm on Tuesday 7th December in the Marina Bar.
Today, the iconic landmark of the old power station chimney at Fawley, visible from east and west Solent, was demolished. Bang. Just like that. It was demolished along with the other power station buildings to make way for a waterside development including 1,500 homes. These days with GPS and many other landmarks nearby means that its demise won’t be a particular problem for navigation but it is the end of an era during which the chimney was a prominent feature for anyone steering a course along the Solent. Well done to the hardy souls who braved the winds today, and our thanks to Parker Adams Boat Sales of Hamble who posted this video on Youtube.
Premier Marinas invited Liz Baugh, founder of Red Square Medical to run a refresher course on CPR and defibrillators for all berth holders as part of the national Restart a Heart week. This campaign is to provide enough basic information to as many people as possible, so more by-standers in a cardiac arrest situation have the confidence to “have a go” and hopefully keep someone alive until Emergency Services arrive and take over.
I have attended a number of CPR courses and every time I learn something new, partly because there is always more to learn, and partly because medical recommendations are changing. Liz Baugh, formerly a RN Medic now runs a successful marine medical training consultancy, and she is a wonderful trainer herself. She kept us engaged, amused and informed. This event was run virtually, and one of the challenges of this format is to find ways for people to practice rather than just watch. Liz asked us all to bring a pillow, an old pillowcase and a marker pen. We had to draw a head and torso on the pillowcase and that made a life-size dummy to practice on. A prize was awarded for the best drawing – James and Ali were the winners with this cheeky lady, who doesn’t seem to be suffering too badly from the experience.
This illustrates a serious point actually – proportionally more men receive attempted resuscitation than women, due mainly to the reluctance to get personal with a woman’s chest area even in such a dire situation. Liz told us that there is legal protection for anyone trying to save a life or administer first aid. If anyone is afraid of American-style litigation, don’t listen to the scare stories and have a go whoever they are.
Another useful explanation was the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest. One may lead to the other but not necessarily, and there are other causes of cardiac arrest.
Think of your heart as an electric bilge pump, working hard to pump seawater out of a flooding boat. A heart attack is like a lump of seaweed getting jammed in the pump, or a pipe collapsing. The pump may still work but the seaweed is significantly reducing the efficiency of the pump and it needs urgent attention. A cardiac arrest is like an electrical failure that stops the pump. No water is being pumped and very quickly the boat will sink. A heart that stops is no longer supplying oxygenated blood to the brain, and without a blood supply the brain will soon die. CPR is like turning the pump over manually to keep the water flowing – or blood, in the case of your heart “pump”. This won’t solve the problem long term but will buy time and keep the brain alive until help arrives.
One of the best short videos of CPR is the Vinnie Jones film from the British Heart Foundation: you can watch it here.
A defibrillator can re-start a stopped heart by administering an electric shock and “bump-starting” the electric motor that is the heart. Liz also demonstrated the use of a defibrillator with a film from Red Square Medical resources.
You can access this instructional video for free on the Red Square Medical website.
This is our annual head-to-head competition between SMAC, Eastney Cruising Association (ECA), Langstone Harbour Fishermen’s Association and Southsea Sea Angling Club. It’s a simple winner-takes-all for the largest specimen weight by percentage. The winning club hosts the competition the following year, and as last year’s winner was ECA, it was duly hosted by ECA.
Dave Ford caught good specimens of Bull Huss and Small-eyed ray, but unfortunately he caught them the day before the competition.
Bill Arnold got our hopes up with a bass of 8lb 10oz.
Tony Dickson was chasing him with a nice bull huss.
Then Mark Argyle boated a bass of 9lb 15oz and sealed the competition for the ECA (again).
Well done Mark, congratulations on winning with such an impressive fish. Looks like the ECA will be hosts again next year!
The first week of October has been windy so when the forecast was for a calm weekend a lot of local boat anglers grabbed the opportunity and headed out. The mornings were initially very misty but within a few hours the visibility improved. The strong winds of the previous week had left murky water and a bit of a swell but otherwise all we had to contend with were strong tides, plenty of weed and an easterly wind. Nothing is ever quite right is it?
Birds can still be seen working over shoals of baitfish being attacked from below, but the attackers are now shoals of small bass as most of the mackerel have now dispersed.
Bass fishing on the banks has been superb with good catches of quality fish. Kev Johnson and his bass are our Featured Photo above. An unusually high number of bull huss have been caught on local marks. Although bull huss are not unknown, they are more commonly caught on deeper marks. Dave Ford caught two of 12lbs and a very nice small-eyed ray of 11lbs.
In previous years, larger bream have moved offshore leaving hordes of tiny bream behind to shred our baits. This year we have been catching good quality bream right into October – fish strip fished near or on the bottom seems to work well. Here’s a nice bream caught by Jim Atkins.
It’s always nice to see dolphins – thank you Dan Lumsden for sharing this photo, taken near Medmery Bank
The following information was discussed at the October meeting.
Fish of the Month goes to Kev Johnson for his Bass 8lb 6oz. Kev wins a medal plus £10. Well done Kev. (Reminder – please make sure you enter your fish in the book within 7 days of capture to qualify!)
We have 2 competitions coming up:
The first is the Interclub Trophy and takes place this Sunday the 10th of October. Fishing from 8am until 6pm. Weigh in is by 6:30pm latest at the ECA. Presentation will also be at the ECA. Entry is £2.50, winner takes all. Winning fish is the best specimen by weight. Rules and specimen sheet will be handed out at sign in which can be done at the Marina office.
The other competition is the SMAC Cod Open. This year are we hope to fish this comp on Sunday November 14th. Entry will be £10 per angler. Fish from 8am until 4pm, weigh in will be in the Marina by 5:30pm latest followed by presentation in the Marina Bar at approximately 6pm. This year we have an even more impressive prize table. First prize will be £500 cash plus free entry into next year’s Sea Angling Classic. There are loads of other prizes consisting of cash, tackle and services. More information will be sent out after our November meeting. In the event of not being able to fish due to weather we will roll over to following Sunday until it is fished.
Please follow the link above. Neville Merritt has kindly set this page up on his fantastic boat-angling website. If you have any photos or stories you’d like to share there is a link on his website to do so.
Dates and details have been announced for the ever-popular annual Cod Open Competition which will be held on 14th November 2021. Reserve dates are 21st and 28th if the weather is too bad on the day.
First prize is a whopping £500 PLUS entry to the Sea Angling Classic 2022 competition worth £250. There is a cash second prize and a large prize table for runners up.
Prizes will be awarded for heaviest cod, and if there aren’t enough cod caught, we weigh in heaviest whiting.
Sign in at Southsea Marina office.
Enry fee £10 per angler.
Fishing from 08:00 to 16:00
Last weigh-in 17:30
Presentation of prizes in the Marina Bar 18:00
Any questions please contact Steve Kelly at Southsea Marina (details in the poster below).
