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Reminder: Dr. Christina Hunt needs fishy photos!

At the September SMAC Monthly Meeting we had a guest talk from Dr Christina Hunt from the University of Portsmouth. She outlined two current projects: seabed mapping and a fish-length AI development project. She nows has a volunteer for the seabed mapping but still needs lots of fish photos with rulers, so her AI program can “learn” how to measure fish from a photo. I admit I keep forgetting, but if you catch a fish please can you take a photo of it next to a fish-length ruler and send to Christina at christina.hunt@port.ac.uk ?

Thank you!

P.S. You can still add your boat to the Seakeepers Discovery Yacht Programme if you would like to be involved in future research projects

2024 Open Cod Competition

This will be our 7th Open Boat Cod Competition from Southsea Marina and it gets better and better. As usual the First Prize will be a whopping 60% of all the entry money, Second Prize 30% of entry and a table full of runner-up prizes from our generous sponsors. Heaviest cod wins, and if we run out of cod the heaviest whiting will count. Ladies and Junior (under 16) Bonus Prizes too. Sign in at Southsea Marina £10 per angler in cash or online with Eventbrite (booking fee applies). If you book online you do not need to start from the marina, but you will still need to weigh in at the marina. Fishing 8am to 4pm, weigh-in by 5:30pm at the Marina and presentations in the Marina Bar at 6pm.

Please check Eventbrite and Facebook pages for dates. If bad weather causes us to postpone the event, we will roll it forward to the following Sunday. All tickets purchased will be valid for the revised dates.

Entry tickets can be purchased online here

Seakeepers, CAST and SMAC

Southsea Marina Angling Club were delighted to host a talk from the International Seakeepers Society and Dr Christina Hunt at our monthly meeting at Southsea Marina in September.

Gill Rodrigues, Director of International Partnerships introduced Seakeepers which is a non-profit organisation promoting and enabling oceanographic research and education through the yachting and boating community. Seakeepers connect boat owners with researchers so that research projects can be undertaken without the major expense of boat charter, and boat owners can have an active part in supporting marine research and conservation. In addition, Seakeepers have a fleet of yachts which are used as research and education platforms.

Seakeepers are based mainly in the USA, but have UK and Asia-Pacific teams locally. They have an interesting form of funding: when super-yacht owners decide to replace their vessel they gift it to Seakeepers, which in some countries is a tax-deductible transaction. Seakeepers maintain the vessel in their fleet for three years and then sell it on. Unfortunately for SMAC members, supporting this presents us with a bit of a challenge because in the UK the tax concessions are not so generous, nor do any of us have a super yacht to give away.

Even if you don’t have a superyacht to gift or loan for scientist-led expeditions, anyone can be involved in other parts of the Discovery Yacht Program. These include Citizen Science Initiatives such as the one below; Educational Outreach and Community Engagement.

Gill then introduced Dr. Christina Hunt who is leading the Competitive Angling as a Scientific Tool (CAST) project for the University of Portsmouth.   Dr. Hunt explained that the project is to map seabed habitats of five species groups in the eastern Solent area: Bass, Bream, Skates & Rays, Tope and Smoothhound. It is no coincidence that these are the species in the Sea Angling Classic competition because the catch size and location data for all the SAC competitions will be used to analyse the habitats and better understand the connection between the underwater topography and species movements.  

Dr. Hunt is looking for volunteers to map the seabed in a number of specific locations using Lowrance or Simrad sonar. This hardware restriction is because the data analytics software is based on data formats from these manufacturers. For more details of the project and to get involved please see here

There is another project under way at the University of Portsmouth which is to develop an AI model to calculate fish length from a photographic image. To help the robot “learn”, it needs to look at a lot of fish photographs with a length ruler so if anyone has any such photographs from past catches please forward them to Dr. Christina Hunt.

SMAC would like to thank Gill Rodrigues and Megan Hickling from Seakeepers and Dr. Christina Hunt from the University of Portsmouth for a very interesting talk. We hope to keep in touch with both Seakeepers and the University of Portsmouth researchers so that we can help in these and future projects. Marine conservation needs to be based on knowledge, and sea anglers have a great interest in supporting both the research processes and conservation outcomes.

Useful links:

www.seakeepers.org

https://castproject.co.uk

https://www.seakeepers.org/program-opportunities/competitive-angling

SMAC September 2024 see the full Monthly Meeting Report here.

Open Species Competition 2024

Our popular summer Open Species Competition will be held on Sunday 11th August, with a reserve date of 18th August if weather conditions are against us. Fishing will take place between 8am and 4pm, with all claims to be submitted by 5pm. There will be presentations of prizes (lots!) in the Marina Bar or terrace from 6pm.

First prize will be 60% of entry fees, Second prize 20% of entry fees and a Ladies Bonus Prize of 10%. There will also be a Junior bonus prize and many other prizes from our regular sponsors.

Entry fee will be £10 per angler, payable in cash on the day at Southsea Marina or using our online link for boats not starting from Southsea Marina. All claims must be made in person at Southsea Marina by 5pm.

Rules: Maximum two rods per angler, maximum three hooks in total. All fish must be photographed with your entry card visible, and photographs must be available to substantiate all claims. A list of qualifying species will be provided. In the event of a tie, a species score tie-break will be used.

A full list of eligible species and rules can be downloaded here

SAC Meet & Fish, Southsea Marina

On Saturday 11th May, Southsea Marina hosted the Sea Angling Classic Meet & Fish Competition which was the first event of a Social Day for all berth holders. There was also a Beach Clean, a SMAC information stand, RNLI lifejacket check, a raffle and a shanty band so plenty to keep the non-fishing folk entertained. Anyway, back the SAC Competition. This was a friendly, following similar rules to the SAC main event but with a big difference – it was free! Prizes were awarded for the longest of five species: bass, bream, ray, smoothhound and tope. Thirteen boats and crews from across the Solent entered, including two boats and crews from SMAC. The event started with registrations at the marina followed by a captain’s briefing by Ross Honey, founder of Angling Spirit which organises the SAC events.

Boats headed out of Langstone Harbour for a 9am competition start, each making for a mark that was most likely to produce some big specimens. We were very fortunate with the weather, because although tides were strong and the wind easterly, the sun was shining and the sea relatively calm. Through the day, competitors caught fish, measured them on the boards supplied and sent photographs of catches back to the event organisers.

By 4pm the competition was over and crews were back at Southsea Marina to hear the results, and we were delighted that SMAC members secured two of the five top prizes! Here are the winners:

Longest Tope – Peter Churchill (SMAC) 160cm
Longest Tope (Junior) – Carla Bream 125cm
Longest Ray – Peter Kinchin 58cm
Longest Bream – Caroline McKell 37cm
Longest Bass – Nick Wallis 62cm
Longest Smoothhound – Jason Williams 120cm

Peter’s tope was actually the longest tope ever recorded in SAC competition history, so well done Peter! It was a very close competition, SMAC members Ray Plomer and Richard Pack came within millimetres of the winning bream but unfortunately there were no second prizes. They made up for it carrying off five raffle prizes so all was not lost.

Marina staff Rupert and Sergey did a great job as hosts for the day, organising event space, berthing and all the things that need to happen behind the scenes. Steve Kelly represented SMAC with a table and stand display, and that stand is another of Bill Arnold’s legacies for the club.

Here is a gallery of photos from the SAC Meet and Fish Competition, prizegiving an entertainment.


Sea Angling Classic: Meet & Fish Southsea Marina 11th May

Southsea Marina is hosting the SAC Let’s Meet & Fish fun day on Saturday 11th May from 9am. The event is free and you can pre-register for fishing here. Prizes will be awarded for the longest specimen in each of five species categories: Bass, Bream, Tope, Smoothhound; Ray; plus a bonus for top placed Junior. It is part of a series of fun SAC Meet & Fish days around the Solent, the next one will be from Gosport Marina on 1st June. There are also separate SAC Qualifiers, running up the the 2024 Sea Angling Classic from Port Solent Marina from 20th-23rd June.

Premier Southsea Marina will be organising a host of other attractions on the 11th May. These are open to all:

Beach Clean – 10am to 12pm helping to keep the local area tidy and free from plastic with a community beach clean. Meeting at the marina reception for 10am, the litter pick will begin at the foreshore, with the intention of walking along the shingle ridge and up to Milton Common and back.

Safety Day and Spring Social – 12pm to 6pm

  • RNLI will be offering ‘safety advice onboard’ for your boat and a life jacket clinic at their marquee, alongside running a raffle in aid of Portsmouth Lifeboat Station with some great prizes to be won
  • Portsmouth Marine Training will be promoting their RYA courses and training
  • British Divers Marine Life Rescue will be offering advice and information about protecting marine wildlife
  • Sing and dance along to live music from The Portsmouth Sea Shantymen
  • Explore the taste of locally sourced gin from Portsmouth Distillery
  • Meet club members and find out more about what’s on offer with Southsea Marina Angling Club

Food is available from local food vendors or at the onsite marina restaurants, The Marina Bar and Bombay Bay.

SMAC Open Bream Competition May 2024

A date for your diaries: Our next SMAC Open Competition will be the hugely popular Bream Competition for the heaviest single bream caught from a boat.  The competition will be held from Southsea Marina on Sunday 5th May with reserve dates the following Sundays in the event of unsuitable weather. £10 per angler cash entry on the day or on-line booking will be available for boats not starting from Southsea Marina. For more details and on-line booking please click here.  Details of the prize table to follow.

Portsmouth Aircraft Carrier Navigation

I’m sure you will all be familiar with the sets of huge beacons that are outside and inside Portsmouth Harbour. You also probably know that these are to help the Navy’s new aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales squeeze through the harbour entrance. However, have you wondered why in an age of technology that can pinpoint a letterbox from space you need visual leading marks? I have too, and you might find this video interesting. It is presented by David Goddard MBE FRIN (yes, the Goddard of the Goddard Beacons) and although it is rather slow and detailed, it does explain why they are needed and how they are used very well. Enjoy.

 

Bass Closed Season 2024

This is a quick reminder that the Bass Take Season for recreational anglers is closed from 1st February to 31st March. If you catch a bass in this period you must release it immediately, unharmed – preferably by unhooking in the water. From 1st April you can keep up to two bass per angler per day provided they are longer than 42cm. The official details are on the government website but trust me, you’ll be glad I summarised them above.

The Bass Nursery Areas remain in force and include Portsmouth, Langstone and Chichester Harbours, and Southampton Water. These are closed for bass fishing from 1st May to 31st October. The areas are defined on the Southern IFCA Website

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