Category: SMAC (Page 5 of 11)

Happy New Year everyone! Our first meeting of 2024 and our last meeting of the 2023 Season was held a week later than usual because of the New Year break. Despite a conspiracy between the icy weather and the Eastern Road shenanigans we had a good turnout of our core supporters.  Steve opened the meeting as usual with an update of the Club Standings, which are listed below. We have just three weeks to go in our SMAC Season and still plenty of time for changes at the top, particularly Cod and Species competitions.

Fish Of The Month was awarded to Kev Johnson for his impressive 12lb bass (pictured).

Steve gave us copies of the local Tide Tables, and if you want to download your own you can do so here.

The Cod Competition rollover date is 14th January, and as the  weather forecast stands at the moment we could be in luck this time.

In brief Marina news, the Southsea Manager Peter Pring is moving back to HQ, and the new manager will be announced very soon. The shed situation seems to be still unresolved, so we are hoping it will be top of the agenda for the new manager. We will also be renewing our contact with Premier PR and Marketing, in the hope that we can jointly kick-start some RYA Active Marina activity after the recent lapse.

Our next meeting will be our AGM on Tuesday 6th February at 7pm in the Marina Bar. This is the one meeting in the year where we can review rules, appoint or reappoint the Committee Members and consider suggestions for changes. If you have anything you would like to raise at the AGM, please could you message or email Steve Kelly beforehand so we can give sufficient consideration to your suggestions. Thank you and see you soon!

We traditionally fish this club competition between Christmas and the New Year (I’m told the new term for this is Twixmas), for the largest singe cod, or whiting. Boat caught, winner takes all. Well, these are our rules and we can change them if we like so we did. This has always been a social event and this year it became more social then ever, because the weather was awful and everyone wanted the social event anyway. Rather than postpone, we decided to fish the event in and around the marina and cod being unlikely, the prize would go to the most fish caught.

Colds, Covid and family pressures had depleted our expected lineup but despite that, 12 hardy anglers braved wind, rain and lack of worms to fish for four hours for the Mandela Cup. Some decided to snuggle down in the shelter of their cockpits, others risked a wetting and lost hats to fish from the holding pontoon and marina shores. After a few false starts involving crabs, Dan set the hare running with a surprisingly decent wrasse. Ray challenged with a bass that must have hatched yesterday, Pete found another wrasse hiding under the pontoon and Luke scored with a bass that wasn’t at all bad for a marina catch.

The result was a neat tie for all four, sharing the prize pool of £30 which must have lasted all of one round in the bar. After the celebrations, there had been a plan to continue to a curry venue but history doesn’t record whether that actually happened. Anyway, congratulations to all those who fished and well done the winners. Hopefully we can get back to boat fishing and cod chasing with the postponed Open Cod Competition in January.

Tonight we drank a toast to the memory of a dear friend and SMAC member, Bill Arnold who passed away last week. Bill was a huge supporter of the club and did a lot of practical work behind the scenes to help. He was a regular contributor at our meetings, a fearsome seller of raffle tickets and of course a very competitive angler. We will miss him terribly.

To recognise his contribution to the club, there is a proposal to create a new prize which will be announced at the Presentation Night. Bill himself had the idea for both the award and the construction of the prize itself, so it will be nice to see it all come together.

We had a great turnout to the meeting and there was a lot to talk about. The Club Standings are listed below – Dan Lumsden leads (by one point) the Species Competition, the Bass Cup has changed hands and we have a new leader in the Cod Pool. It’s all still happening! The Bass Season remains open until the end of the SMAC year now, so there will be no early finishes.

Fish Of The Month was awarded to the larger of two cod entered, Tony Skinner’s cod of 8lb 5oz.

The Open Cod Competition still hasn’t happened due to the weather, and if it is postponed again on 10^th the next possible Sunday (due to committee availability, Christmas and New Year) will be 7^th January.

We have had very positive messages of support from Premier Marinas so we are hopeful that this will extend to more storage facilities and other practical measures. In turn, SMAC will continue to attract new members and new berth holders for them!

The Mandela Cup competition will be held on Saturday 30^th December, to be followed by our traditional annual curry. This time it will be at one of the Albert Road establishments in Southsea. Details and a poll of members intending to go will be circulated separately.

Our Presentation Night will be held on Saturday 2^nd March in the Marina Bar. This year the cost of glass prize replicas has increased considerably, so instead we will be giving out vouchers from our two main tackle shop sponsors, Fish-On and Cosham Angling.

The January meeting will be held a week later than normal due to New Year, so we’ll see you on 9^th January 2024.

Our stalwart members have got used to the cold dark evenings and this month turned out in force to support the SMAC get-together in the Marina Bar. John Wearn kept us supplied with chewy sweets while we waited for the formalities to begin. Steve put the finishing touches to his paperwork, last meal orders were put in, drinks topped up and we were off.

First item was a review of the club competition standings, which you can read below. Then came Fish Of The Month, and because of the recent weather the list was very short. I was surprised there were any, given the severity of the storms. Nevertheless, we had a vote and the top specimen was a 10lb 2oz Bull Huss earning Mick Beatty a medal and a tenner.

The Cod Pool is still open and currently stands at £320. The only cod entered so far is a very junior 3lb something so if you haven’t put your money down, hurry up because that next cod could be worth a lot.

The last order of our Anniversary t-shirts has now been distributed, and thanks to all the members that supported this.

A quick update on The Shed Saga, Episode 4. The original shed used by SMAC members has now gone back to Premier for re-letting. The number of members wanting shed space puts the total requirement outside the scope of what SMAC funds can cover, so we recommend that those members who want to combine forces to share a shed with freezer space do so without involving SMAC. We have been promised “something” by Premier for the limited club requirements but unfortunately this won’t cover the wider needs of individual members.

The Cod Open Competition will roll on from Sunday to Sunday until we have a suitable weather window.

The Nelson Mandela Cup (a SMAC event) is traditionally held in that quiet period between Christmas and New Year when our families want rid of us and this year will be held on 30^th December. We will fish 8am to 2pm, with plenty of bar time afterwards. Largest cod or if no cod largest whiting will win.

Rumours abound regarding frozen squid availability, but there are some in 1Kg boxes in the marina office freezer for £12 a box.

Club funds stand at a healthy £2,302.29 which means we can have a very jolly Presentation Night. This will be on 2^nd March 2024 in the Marina Bar. Families welcome, there will be a free drink for members and a free buffet. There will be a presentation of cups if we can get the prize cabinet open. Steve has accidently thrown the keys away – does anyone know a locksmith? Otherwise we will just have to point to them instead of giving them, which could make the award photographs a little awkward.

Next meeting will be on Tuesday 5^th December. Nobody has mentioned Winter Bar Times so far so unless you hear otherwise it will be 7pm as usual.

Evenings are drawing in and Portsmouth were playing at home so perhaps that’s why we had just a few of our core supporters at the meeting. OK, so some people had Covid and others had to work, but those are pretty poor excuses. Anyway, with our small but merry band we quickly proceeded with our agenda so some of us could go over to the ECA for the Langstone Harbour Meeting, more of that later.

Steve went through the current standings which are reproduced below. The Species Hunt Cup leadership is changing daily because the top three (at least) are very close. Do remember to photograph your fish before throwing it back though.

There were several eligible catches for the Fish Of The Month medal, but in the end the important decision was which fish would Steve Tambling win with and we decided a turbot of 7lb 9oz was the best candidate.

The Cod Pool stands at £240 so if you haven’t paid, get your £10 to Steve before you catch that winning cod. You can’t pay afterwards!

The Inter-Club competition will be hosted by LHFA this Sunday 8^th October, but you can sign in at the Southsea Marina Office. £5 entry, winner takes all for Best Specimen.

The Cod Open is most likely to be held on Sunday 5^th November, weather permitting.  Hold the date and more details to follow, but it’s highly likely to be exactly the same as all the other years we have run it.

The last order for our 10-Year Anniversary printed t-shirts and polo shirts is being put together, so if you don’t want to miss out please order on this form before 9^th October.

Finally – an update on the shed which we have used for storage. As the tenant who allowed us to use the shed is leaving the marina, we urgently need alternative storage. Premier have asked us what space we need so Steve, Stuart and I will put together a request for Premier to consider.

The next SMAC monthly meeting will be on 7^th November. There being no other business, a few of the few nipped over to the ECA for the advertised Langstone Harbour Advisory Board meeting. Just quickly on that, because it’s not SMAC business really but it is relevant. As we hadn’t read the leaflet properly it wasn’t quite what we were expecting. Anyway, it was interesting and the bar was rammed with mostly sailing and environmental folk. There were four presentations from different organisations each with an interest in the Harbour.

First up was Solent Seascape Project, with some decent funding and can actually demonstrate some practical results in improving the marine environment – oyster beds, seagrass, kelp beds etc.  The Trawler-Free Zone on the Sussex coast shows that the seabed recovers surprisingly quickly. The Clean Harbours Partnership presentation was about monitoring storm discharges by the water companies and didn’t seem to have much in the way of practical proposals to be honest. We are all frustrated by the lack of direct Govenment intervention on this.

Langstone Harbour Board’s message was about the future use of the Harbour and supporting commercial use, leisure use and environmental protection. We know from the Annual Report there is a huge deficit in their budget, mainly because of the drop in revenue from dredgers and leisure use. They are currently exploring more ways of increasing revenue, some being commercial services but others being considered include walk-ashore moorings instead of swinging moorings. It’s good that they are trying to fill the funding gap rather than waiting for the Council to make them cut costs. Final presentation was from Fay Pasani of the RSPB who is acting for the Three Harbours Partnership. She has the probably impossible job of aligning 20 stakeholder organisations into a common strategy. This did appear vague at present but the intention is good – to have multiple partnerships with a common goal rather than the separate, conflicting and overlapping activities that are happening at present. Her presentation style reminded me of Sarah Pascoe which was a nice thought to end on.

Thank you ECA for hosting another interesting evening.

Our annual Inter Club Competition between SMAC, Langstone Harbour Fisherman’s Association, ECA and Southsea Sea Angling Club will be held on Sunday 8th October. LHFA won last year so they were hosting this year’s competition. The competition is to catch the single best specimen fish. Ray Plomer won the competition in 2022 (pictured) but fishing for LHFA which he has supported for many years. Ray is also a member of SMAC. Entry forms are in Southsea Marina office, entry fee pool £5, winner takes all.

Details:

Fishing 08:00 to 17:00

Weigh in by 18:30 at LHFA

Winner Presentation 19:00 at LHFA Bar

If you catch a fish of 75% of specimen weight or more, please let others know on Channel 10 so fish under that weight can be returned if people wish to do so. Further details please contact Ralph on 07383 081325