We had another well attended meeting in April. I lost count at about 80+ members. We also had another new member join the club and a few visitors from neighboring PSA clubs! Welcome everyone! It is great to see both the new and the old faces as we all continue to learn and talk about our favorite pastime…fishing! If you’ve been on the fence about attending a meeting, stop waiting and come check us out. We have a fantastic PSA Chapter.
Just to change things up a bit, we started off our meeting with fishing reports. Fishing opportunities are heating up as we had a lot more fishing reports from our members this month. The board members gave their monthly updates and we also heard from Larry Bucklin and Art Tachell about government affairs and North of Falcon activities. We held our monthly membership drawing and we had a winner. The winner and member in good standing was Ed Chandler. For those of you who don’t know Ed, he is one of original founding chapter members, member # 4. Thank you John Hager, owner of Southworth Marine, for sponsoring our monthly membership drawing. Our speaker for April was Pete Chadwick from River Bend Jigs and Baits. If you have fished the rivers, then you know that River Bend Jigs makes top-of-the line salmon and steelhead jigs. What you may not know is they also have a complete line of baits as well. Pete gave a phenomenal presentation on how to brine herring with their River Bend Bait Brine. I’ve always used the traditional brine solution with rock salt, powdered milk and Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing… The River Bend Bait Brine is amazing and it greatly simplifies the entire process. I’m sold! Besides firming up the herring like nothing I’ve ever seen, you are able to re-use the solution multiple times by storing it in the freezer to prevent bacteria growth and it allows you to keep your brined herring for months in the refrigerator without spoiling. This solution combined with Pro-Cure Bad Azz Bait Dye’s looks like a winning combination. Check out http://www.riverbendjigs.com for detailed info. Thank you Pete for speaking at our club meeting. We concluded our meeting with our raffle prize drawings.
The club outing for April was the All PSA Derby in Port Townsend. The Sno-King Chapter did a fantastic job sponsoring this derby. Thanks for your hospitality! Our club had 5 participants, next year we hope to see a lot more representing our chapter. This was a really fun event and great time to meet and greet fellow PSA chapter members. The fishing was pretty good as well. I think there were about 62 fish caught during the derby. Our next club outing will be May 17th. It is our annual Kokanee outing on American Lake. For additional details checkout the events section on our website (https://gigharborpsa.org/event-calendar). I’d like to make one correction. The Cast for Kids event will be held on July 19th and not July 26th as originally advertised last month.
Our next meeting is on May 13th and will include our Annual Spaghetti Dinner (and possibly Clams and Oysters). The dinner will begin at 6:00 PM and cost $5.00 at the door. Our guest speaker will be Pat Neal, fishing guide and renowned author. Pat has a humorous way of taking about fishing…this is a meeting you will not want to miss. If you cannot attend the dinner portion of the meeting, the regular meeting will begin at approximately 7:00 PM.
For our June 10th meeting, we will be holding a club-only garage sale. So start cleaning out your garages, sheds and boats for that stuff that is just taking up space and needs a new home. All items should be related to fishing or boating. The garage sale will begin at 5:00 PM. For the general meeting, Mike Perusse and Kiley Brehm from Shimano/GLoomis/Power-Pro will be our featured guest speakers. Please plan now to join us. The June general meeting starts at 7:00 PM, but come a bit early for the garage sale or and grab a hot dog and a drink.
Please check out our website or Facebook page for the latest updates regarding meetings and our club activities. We meet the second Tuesday of every month at the Tacoma Outboard Association (646 N Wilton Road, Tacoma, WA). Guests are always welcome. Better yet, come and join our club and be part of a great group of fishing enthusiasts who love to fish. Wear your lifejacket, be safe on the water, and good luck fishing!