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Category: SMAC (Page 2 of 9)

SMAC BBQ 2024

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 vs SMAC Pier Competition

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.

SMAC Meeting July 2024

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.

SMAC Meeting June 2024

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 22nd 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 23rd 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 11th 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 2nd July in the Marina Bar as usual. See you there if not before!

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

SMAC Meeting May 2024

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 22nd 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 11th August with a reserve date of 18th 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 4th June at 7pm in the Marina Bar as usual.

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.


SMAC Bream Competition 2024

Sunday 5th May 2024 will go down in history as the time the SMAC Bream Competition actually took place on the scheduled date! After weeks of very variable weather we were delighted that the weekend forecast was reasonably settled, and a total of 56 anglers set out for eight hours of intense competition. Unlike our Cod Competition where cod are hard to find, there’s no shortage of bream in May and the question is only – how big?

Bream fishing is a combination of knowing where the big ones are likely to be, and the right tackle and methods.  As the day progressed and the weather changed from sun to drizzle and back again, news of catches started to come in. We knew that the winners would have to land fish of over 3lbs.

Steve Kelly officiated at the club weighing scales and a number of good fish were weighed. The leaderboard kept changing as better and better fish were weighed in but finally we drew the line at 6:30pm and the prize table was allocated. We had 14 prizes in all, plus bonus prizes for top Lady and top Junior.

The presentation was held as usual in the Marina Bar which was by then packed with anglers, each with a pint and a distant gaze. It had been a long and tiring day. Steve brought us all to attention at 7pm and the prize-giving began. The results were as follows, and photos are in the gallery below. Weights are in pounds decimal as the margins between fish can be very small!

1st – Mark Oldfield (winning £350): 3.10lb
Top Lady – Pam Eckersall: 0.86lb
Top Junior – Toby Challinor; 1.32lb
2nd – Dan Lumsden: 3.08lb
3rd – Steve Andrews: 2.94lb
4th – John Evans: 2.60lb
5th – Pete Churchill: 2.54lb
6th – Kevin Johnson: 2.50lb
7th – Mark Argyle: 2.48lb
8th – Luke Scott: 2.44lb
9th/10th Draw – Lee and Ryan Whitcome: 2.36lb each
11th/12th Draw – Steve Tambling and Wayne Comben: 2.18lb each
13Th – Paul Brindley: 2.10lb
14th – Tony Skinner: 2.08lb

We are very grateful for the prizes donated by our sponsors: Premier Marinas, Cosham Angling, Fish-On Bait and Tackle, Baits’R’Us, Victory Heating, Southsea Marina Disabled Angling Club, Prestige Plumbing, Sportsmans Knight, British Big Game Charters, Newnham Builders, Brian van Daal and our hosts the Marina Bar.

We would also like to thank all our helpers and of course all the competitors without which these events wouldn’t be half as much fun. Plus of course whoever is organising the weather, and to top off the day we were treated to an amazing display of rainbows.

Watch out for our next SMAC Open Competition which will be the Species Hunt in the summer.

SMAC Meeting April 2024

The weather has been so poor in the last month that we haven’t met up on the pontoons much, so it was nice to get together and chat on Tuesday evening in the Marina Bar.  Steve opened the meeting listing the Club Standings (see below), this was a lot shorter than usual as the season is making a slow start.  It seems to be the Steve Tambling/Richard Pack show so far, and Richard also won the Fish Of The Month for his 14lb Pollack (pictured). Our club funds are very healthy but sadly the SMDAC funds are not looking so good so we have gifted £200 to their kitty. This is also in recognition of all their support and contributions to prize funds previously.

The date for the SMAC and SMDAC BBQ has been set for Saturday 22nd June, serving food from 2pm and the raffle prizes drawn from 4pm. All members and families are welcome. There will be free food, just bring your own drinks and cash for the raffle (because Bill is still watching).  The BBQ location is above the toilet block at the west end of the marina, and I promise it is a lot better than that sounds. This will be our first year without access to the shed so we may have to build a gazebo encampment.

We also had notification of a couple of fundraisers in our neighbouring club. Mick Beatty at the ECA (Mad Mick!) is very poorly and has lost a leg. There is a fundraiser event for him on 20th April  at LHFA. Also at LHFA, our own Michelle Plomer is organising a Blackout Football sweepstake with the South of England Open Championship for Rowan’s Hospice. See Steve Andrews for entry tickets, £5 an entry, pick your own team from the list.

Our next event, the Bream Open Competition is almost on us, to be held on 5th May weather permitting. Details here.

Our new SMAC burgees (pennants) for your boats have arrived. There are two alternative designs, £20 each from Steve Kelly. Don’t be the only one without a club pennant on your boat! Also, summer caps and winter beanies are still available at £10 each (including children’s sizes) while stocks last. These will be for sale at club meetings and events.

Our next monthly meeting will again be at a later date this time due to the May Bank Holiday:  Tuesday 14th May at 7pm in the Marina Bar. Let’s hope for some good fishing weather in the meantime!

 

SMAC Meeting March 2024

We had a special guest at our March SMAC Monthly meeting: Dave Frey, the new manager at Premier Southsea Marina. Dave was invited along to meet and get to know the SMAC folk and also answer any questions from members.

After serving in the police force, Dave joined Premier Marinas first at Brighton then Gosport Marinas before moving to Southsea as Manager. Although there is a lot for him to catch up with at Southsea, Dave was very open to our questions and feedback. He was clearly very sympathetic to some of our issues being a boat owner himself. He explained that there are some company policies he is unable to change however although he is very willing to be a channel for our feedback to Premier.

There are local things that Dave can help with and we were pleased to hear that. He promised to look into the possibility of providing multiple “Lift & Scrub” packages; providing a new shed for our combined use and approaching LHB to see what can be done to remove the obstructions on the point that continue to ambush propellors at dead low water.

Unfortunately, some of our issues will go head-to-head with company policy. The restriction on overnight camper vans is unlikely to be relaxed, nor a time extension for boats on blocks.Although LHB show a reduced rate for harbour dues if paid through a club, this only applies if the club or business administers all the collection of fees. This would be a significant administrative overhead if Premier did this for 315 berth holders, because each one would have to be checked to see if they used the harbour. Liveaboards and boats stored afloat would not require harbour dues if they didn’t go outside the marina. It would probably cost more to do this than the savings would bring, so it isn’t a vaible option unfortunately.

Overall, it was good to meet Dave and I think we all felt it was a beneficial meeting. He is certainly more aware of SMAC now and we all look forward to getting to know him better individually.

Now on to monthly club matters. We all agreed that the Presentation Night on Saturday was a resounding success and the generosity of members with the raffle means we have a very healthy cash tin to support events and continencies. Our next events will be the Open Bream Competition in May, and the SMAC BBQ on a date to be agreed at our next meeting.

There being no fish weighed in during February, the Fish Of The Month Award was transmuted to Neville Of The Month Award. As only one of those was weighed in, he was given the medal in recognition of services rendered.

The SMAC caps and beanies have arrived and are on sale from the Club Shop (which is a grand name for a cardboard box) for £10 each, while stocks last. Kids sizes are available too.

Now that we are all enthused about club merchandise, we agreed to go ahead with the purchase of a small batch of SMAC burgees. These will go on sales at about £20 each. There was interest on both the Richard Pack design and the Bass design. We will be ordering a small quantity of each so everyone will be happy. We hope to have these available by the next meeting.

The next SMAC monthly meeting will be on Tuesday 9th April at 7pm in the Marina Bar.

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