Another year has come and gone and with everything that is happening the upcoming year could be a defining one for many clubs. Not a whole lot has changed over the last few weeks in regard to the impending mako ban due to the Christmas break but I am sure once parliament goes back there will be more action taking place. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the meeting at Hastings last Wednesday night due to work commitments but from all reports it was an informative night with the latest information available. One thing that did come from the meeting was we still need to write letters and phone the various politicians voicing our objections to the ban. Theres no sense complaining afterwards if you don’t do anything now!
What may be the last tournament we can fish for makos, will be held at Welshpool this weekend (16th & 17th) and it’s sure to attract several entrants. The briefing and registration will be on Friday night as usual with the tournament base at the old ferry terminal. If you want any more information or can help out on the weekend just give Stevo a call.
It was very pleasing to see so many people in attendance at the last general meeting especially those visiting anglers from other clubs and after speaking to Daniel from Pelagic Boats and Andrew from Hella Marine they were very pleased with the outcome. Hella Marine are wanting to attend a general meeting later in the year to do a talk for us.
The next event we have planned is on the 8th of February at the club rooms where we will have Peter Pakula from Pakula Tackle and Andrew Jones from Williamsons Lures presenting a night of information on all to do with lure fishing. The event is open to all anglers and we welcome visitors from all types of the fishing community. Although the night is free if you could give me a call for catering it will be of assistance to the social committee. There will be a BBQ beforehand starting about 6.30pm with the talk to get underway at about 7.30pm and raffles afterwards.
The club recorder has finally had something to do with several captures and tag sheets returned to her over the last few weeks and I am told even a few pending club records. If you do tag a fish remember to fill the tag card in completely making sure there are some latitude and longitude details entered. With the impeding mako ban there are plenty of anglers out looking for them and travelling offshore trying to avoid berley trails is almost impossible. This combined with the large amount of baitfish in the water is making the makos rather difficult to find and there are plenty of anglers returning empty handed.
I have had several people asking about the future of the club or what changes the club might make if the ban is unable to be reversed.
At this stage there is a lot still to play out with the mako situation and no one I know can predict the future so the committee at the moment is focused on the upcoming Welshpool tournament and making it a success. The committee is also still working hard on the San Remo tournament and will wait until the end of the month to see the extent of the ban before making any decision on the tournament. So at this stage there are no plans to change anything about the club we are still a Gamefishing Club and will remain so until there are no more gamefish to target. Dale is keeping the web site as up to date as possible and any urgent messages will be sent via our text messaging.
Craig