MEMBERS NEWSLETTER – JANUARY 2012

Dear Member,

Welcome to the January newsletter. I hope you all had a good xmas and new year.

Firstly I would like to tell you all that John Amery has now stood down as chairman, this is obviously a sad moment but I am pleased to say that he accepted my proposal for him to become President of the Federation. We made a presentation to him after the meeting in recognition and gratitude for everything he has done for SAMF. Darren Phillips was voted in as the new Chairman.

There is a lot of information contained in this newsletter but the most important bit is that it is subs renewal time again. For those members whose membership runs through from last year i.e. new members who joined late in the year to fish the Masters, and Life members, I will have enclosed a 2012 membership card. Please note this means brand new members and not those who lapsed their membership for one year or more. The rest of members will need to send me a cheque for £20 made payable to SAMF and fill in the reply slip at the end of this newsletter. Those of you on line can also join via the website using paypal. Please don’t forget to do this because it costs time and money to send out reminders. I also need to know if you are a member of the Angling Trust which will reduce our insurance costs.

It is vitally important that members continue to support us, without this support SAMF cannot operate.

MASTERS 2011 – ORFORD

The following is the press release from the Masters 2011 at Orford. Full results can be found on the website:

Grimsby angler George Smith won the 2011 SAMF UK MASTERS on the beaches of Orford Ness in Suffolk on the 11^th and 12^th November.

64 anglers fromEnglandandWalescompeted for the title and even though there was a strong onshore wind on Friday, calming down for Saturday, conditions were good for both matches. The anglers had to leave and return at staggered times to cross to the island by boat, this operation ran smoothly using two boats, the normal one and one supplied by the Natural trust.

Orford Ness is a 10 mile long shingle spit between the River Alde and the North Sea, located just South of Aldeburgh.  Orford ‘Island’ is famous for its deep-water fishing. Orford Ness is a SSSI and is a very important nature reserve for rare species of plants and strict rules have been requested by the National Trust who have agreed to our access to this fantastic venue. We are grateful to Natural England who granted us permission to use this venue.

The venue did not fish as well as it can do and some of the areas were very snaggy with competitors loosing several sets of gear. Also disappointing was that none of the large fish that this venue is famous for put in an appearance. However there were enough fish on both days for competitors to target. The species caught were mainly codling, whiting, dabs & dogfish. On the first day competitors needed between 11 and 23 fish to come in the top two in their sections. Local angler David Cook from Leiston had the best overall catch with 23 fish for 10lb 2oz. There were two heaviest fish caught on day one, of equal weight, codling of 2lb 8oz caught by Tony Thomas from Sheringham and Alan Doy from Beccles.

Day 1 zone positions

A zone 1st        Colin Carey                             9lb 10oz.      

A zone 2^nd        Nick Haward                           5lb 1oz.               

B zone 1^st         Tony Thomas               7lb 6oz.

B zone 2^nd        George Smith               7lb 4oz

C Zone 1^st David Cook                                    10lb 2oz

C Zone 2^nd Michael Emery                               8lb 1oz

D Zone 1^st Saul Page                            8lb 12oz

D Zone 2^nd Ian Reynolds                                   6lb 12oz

ALL SAMF MATCHES ARE FISHED ON A CATCH AND RETURN FORMULA, THE FISH ARE MEASURED AND THEN IMMEDIATELY RETURNED. A CONVERSION CHART THEN CONVERTS THE LENGTH TO WEIGHT. THREE YEARS AGO SAMF INTRODUCED SIZE LIMITS IN THEIR MAJOR COMPETITIONS ON COD, WHITING AND BASS TO TRY AND ENCOURAGE MORE ANGLERS TO FISH MATCHES. AS A RESULT THIS REDUCED THE ACTUAL NUMBERS OF FISH COUNTING TO AN ANGLERS SCORE BUT GAVE EVERY ANGLER THE POSSIBILITY OF DOING WELL EVEN ON THE LAST CAST BY CATCHING A LARGE FISH.

Day 2 again saw good conditions and anglers needed 10 and 20 fish to score well. Top catch was made by Richard Yates from Dover with 14 fish for 8lb 9oz. Once again the biggest fish was a tie – two bass of 2lb 9oz caught by Glyn Savin of Lymington and Christopher Spall.

Day 2 zone positions:-

A zone 1st        Richard Yates               8lb 9oz

A zone 2nd       Christopher Spall                      7lb 5oz

B zone 1^st         Keith Morley                7lb 10oz

B zone 2^nd        Martin Waters              5lb 0oz

C Zone 1^st Matt White                          7lb 4oz

C Zone 2^nd Paul Stevens                                   6lb 14oz

D Zone 1^st George Smith                                  8lb 2oz

D Zone 2^nd Neville Charlesworth                      7lb 12oz

FINAL POSITIONS

1          George Smith               3 pts                

2          Richard Yates               4 pts (748 fish pts)                   

3          Keith Morley                4 pts     (674 fish pts)   

4          Paul Stevens                             5 pts

5          Colin Carey                              6 pts     (760 fish pts)   

6          Matt White                               6 pts     (540 fish pts)   

7          David Cook                             8 pts     (646fish pts)    

8          Tony Thomas               8 pts     (590 fish pts)

Unfortunately there were no Ladies or juniors fishing this year.

A pairs competition was run within the match and winners were:-

1                    Colin Carey  & Paul Stevens both from Worthing

2                    Gary Hutson (Cleethorpes) & George Smith (Grimsby)

3                    Nick Haward (Blythburgh) & Mark Sharman (Lowestoft)

George was overall champion with a 1st place and a 2^nd place in his zone giving him 3 points.  George is a successful match angler who has represented England on numerous occasions. He has fished the masters for as long as I can remember and he is a popular winner having been beaton into 2^nd place twice in recent years by a countback on fish points. 

Richard Yates from St. Margarets near Dover ran him close also with a zone 3rd and a 1^st giving him 4 points.  

Cash prizes down to 8^th position overall and section pools for 1^st and 2^nd places giving a total cash prize fund in excess of £4400, plus tackle prizes and trophies. SAMF is grateful in particular to our member Julian Shambrook of ANYFISH ANYWHERE who donated many of the zone, and individual prizes including a top of the range rod for the winner. We are also grateful to ULTIMA and SEA ANGLER MAGAZINE for donating items for the prize table

Everyone who attended agreed that once again the event had been successful, and this venue will be used again for major events.

Next years final is scheduled to be fished at Otterspool in the Mersey estuary in October/November. Qualifying matches are already being run around the country. Contact Andy Steele, 01772 611597, for details of local events and how to organise qualifiers.

AGM 2011

As usual the AGM took place during the weekend of the Masters and the full minutes can be viewed on the website, the following are the bullet points from the meeting:

• We had 179 members in 2011- down by 25. 60 fished the Masters.

• MASTERS 2012 – Due to go to the North West and we accepted a proposal by Richard Burrows that the North West Association of Sea Anglers run the competition at Otterspool on the Mersey. The proposal was for it to be held in November but some members prefered to have it earlier. Richard said they would look into this, which they have and the decision is still to hold it in November with on the weekend of the 3^rd & 4th  Further details to follow and will be posted on the website ASAP.
• There was a strong feeling at the AGM that we should consider holding a Masters on the Isle of Man. There is a strong contingent of members from there that have supported us for many years and they would be delighted to run the competition for us. I know a lot of mainland anglers would find the travel costs prohibitive but we would pick up quite a few new members from the island. The area rep has said that on average the ferry prices for a car with 2 passengers is approx. £185 and a car with 3 passengers is £230. This is based on travelling Thurs returning Sunday. If there were enough of us travelling we could get a discount on these prices. The competition would be held in November probably in 2013. I promised that I would canvass our members in this newsletter to see how many members would be prepared to travel to the Isle of Man,  So please let me know either using the membership form at the end or send me an e-mail if you would be prepared to go to the Isle of Man to fish a Masters.

• The following people were elected

Chairman – Darren Phillips

Vice Chairman – Eddie Painter

Secretary – Andy Steele

Treasurer – Mary Steele

AREA REPRESENTATIVES

South West Scotland – None

North West – Bill Lindfield

North Wales – Shane Russell                                                                                                   

North East – Bob Gascoigne

Anglia – Mark Sharman

Sussex – Paul Stevens

Hants & Challenge Match organiser – Darren Phillips

Kent – Saul Page & Richard Yates

Essex – Ian Reynolds

South West – Hugh Rathbone

South Wales – Joe Arch

Humberside – Rob Neale

TREASURERS REPORT :–

The  figures show that SAMFs worth is £6442.75 which is a small increase of £67.18 from 2010. Although making this small profit is good we need to understand what is happening – basically we are suffering from a lack of membership and entry to the masters as a result of the financial climate. There is not a lot we can do about this apart from manage the accounts as best we can. This year we were down £900 in membership fees so we had to look at where to reduce costs. We only sponsored the World club team this year. I only sent one newsletter in January to 500+ people to try and encourage them to rejoin and also 400+ letters to try and get people to enter the Masters. These were the only letters sent, which helped reduce the amount spent on printing and stationary with the telephone and broadband costs also reducing.

We are still in a relatively strong position as, long as we keep membership numbers stable, and just need to continue being careful with expenditure. For this reason I propose that SAMF subscriptions remain at £20 for 2012.

BELGIUM & HOLLAND CHALLENGE MATCH 2011

This year the annual International challenge between the UK Sea Anglers Match Federation (SAMF), Vlaamse Federatie Kusthengelverenigingen (VFK/Belgium) and Sprtvisserij Nederalnd (Holland) for the Alan Gilbert Memorial Trophy was hosted by the Belgians at Knokke Heist and Wenduine on 14-16 Oct.  The event competed by 15 man teams comprised of 2 x 4 hour matches.

Day 1 saw the teams fishing at Knokke Heist.  Colour in the water from previous blustery weather was clearing fast and did not bode well.  However, this match included 3 hours of darkness and hopes were still high.  Species caught included Bass, Cod, Dab and Flounder.  After the first hour reports of fish were rare but as darkness settled in things improved.  Catches were not great and unfortunately there were a few blanks. The Dutch emerged as overall winners of the first match with 289 points, SAMF followed closely with 316 and Belgium 3^rd with 427.  Top angler on the night was Saul Page fromKent representing SAMF with 7 fish from A zone for 3.077Kg.

Day 2 saw the teams competing at Wenduine in glorious sunshine.  Despite the weather anglers soon started landing fish  including Dab, Flounder, Bass, Rockling and a surprise Eel.  Once again top rod on the day was Saul Page from SAMF with 12 fish for 2.326Kg.  Once again the competition was tight with SAMF winning the day on 298 points and Holland 2^nd with 345.  Belgium again finished 3^rd with 392.

The overall winners of the challenge and retainers of the trophy were SAMF on 614 points.  Runners up were Holland on 634 with Belgium
3^rd on 819.  Top individual was Saul Page with an outstanding performance winning both days and finishing on 2 points.  Runner up was Benjamin Vlietinck of VFK with 7 points and 3^rd was Martyn Reid of SAMF on 10 points.  Top Dutch angler was Peter Mesie on 19 points.

SAMF thank their Belgian hosts for yet another superbly organised event and great hospitality.  The 2013 Challenge will be held in Holland on the beaches of Zeeland.  If you would like to be considered for this event please contact either Darren Phillips or myself.

DAIWA PAIRS

Once again the SAMF 2011 Daiwa Irish Pairs had continued to be a solid event well supported. And if anyone wants any information about the pairs then a full report and result listings can be downloaded from www.irishpairs.co.uk

SAMF/CAF/FIRE/POLICE CHALLENGE

The 2011 Challenge will be held 27th and 28th January 2012.  This event has been moved from the original November date.  On day 1 we will fish Deneholm beach Horden Co Durham 16.00– 20.00.  Day 2 will be at South Beach at Blyth Northumberland from 10.30- 14.30. The accommodation has been arranged at the Best Western Hotel in South Shields.  As always in these events bait will be supplied.  Costs for team members are expected to be about £200 if staying at the hotel.  Anyone wishing to be considered for the team should contact Darren Phillips or Andy Steele

WORLD CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP

We are pleased to say that the SAMF team of  Malcolm Stote, Stephen Durrant, Mark Pinder, Andy Gallagher, Bill Lindfield and Alan Lewis won the gold medal at the World Shore Angling Championships for Clubs with a very impressive 15 points over the four day event. The event was held from 1st – 6th May 2011 on the Belgian beaches of Knokke Heist and Wenduine and was attended by over 20 teams boasting many World class anglers amongst their ranks. The World Shore Angling Championships for Clubs is a highly regarded World event, second to the World Championships itself. The 2012 event will be held in the south west of France on 21^st May with SAMF gaining automatic qualification. If anyone would like to be considered for the team please contact Darren Phillips or myself. We are also looking for someone to go as manager if anyone fancies doing that.

ANGLING TRUST

We have had several discussions in the past, especially at the AGM’s about a possible integration with the Angling Trust and the majority of members still want SAMF to keep its own identity and keep independent of the Trust. However members should be aware of the good work and representation that they make on behalf of recreational sea anglers.

Just recently they produced a document called Briefing for the Fisheries Debate in the House of Commons Tuesday November 15th 2011. This document, which is well worth a read, shows that with AT we have at last got a strong voice to represent our interests. We have never had an organisation which has been able to initiate such a debate on behalf of sea anglers. 

They are not looking for active support as they have personnel, lawyers etc in place, but they need support in the form of membership and we should at least be encouraging people to take membership up.  All the information can be found on their website. www.anglingtrust.net

NATIONAL SEA LEAGUE

Tony Thomas has been elected as the new league secretary taking over from John Amery. The 2012 Final will be held in North Norfolk as in 2010 on the weekend of 1^st/2^nd December 2012. All teams in every league will now qualify for the final providing the league has a minimum of 4 teams and that the qualifying team has fished in at least 4 matches in that league. Size limits for a Final will be determined by the League Secretary and Local Organiser. The results of the recent final can be found on the SAMF website.

Regards

Andy Steele

SAMF Secretary

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I enclose my Annual Subscription of £20 for SAMF membership for the year 2012, or £200 to cover life membership. Please make cheques payable to ‘SAMF’

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Please return to: Mary Steele, Treasurer, SAMF office, 18 Town Lane, Much Hoole, Preston, Lancs. PR4 4GJ.