Happy New Year! With the start of a new year I’m inclined to set some new year’s resolutions. For example, I resolve to fish at all of our PSA club outings in 2015 (work schedule permitting). I resolve to sit down with my fishing buddy and plan out our annual fishing calendar… too many missed opportunities when we don’t plan. I also resolve to fish a new marine area or river. Finally, I resolve to get someone new interested in fishing. Have you set any resolutions for 2015? If not why not take some time to think about some 2015 bucket list items and go out and do them!
Our January meeting was the first meeting with our newly elected board members and I look forward to working with each of them in 2015. We look forward to a really fun and informative year. John Hagar of Southworth Marine could not speak at our January meeting as originally announced so Pete Chadwick from Riverbend Jigs and Bait came and spoke at our meeting. Pete is the owner or should I say former owner of Riverbend Jigs and Bait. He introduced Cody Hayes as the new owner. Both spoke on river fishing for Coho and Steelhead using twitching jigs and jigs under a float. It was very informative session. I actually got to try my hand twitching jigs with Pete and fishing buddy and caught my first Satsop River Steelhead on the Thursday following our meeting. Twitching works and it’s a lot of fun… Resolve to give it a try. There were not a lot of member fishing reports for January. It did sound like razor clamming was excellent. We had 2 new members join our club, welcome Ted and John. We did have our monthly membership drawing and unfortunately the name drawn was not present. That means that our February meeting will be $260. A big thanks to Sourthworth Marine for sponsoring our membership drawing. We concluded our meeting with our regular raffle drawing. Oh and before I forget, now is the time to renew your membership. Cost is a $30.00 donation and covers your entire family.
On January 17th we held our first club outing on Lake Washington and fished for Cutthroat Trout. It was a fun outing and the weather wasn’t bad. It was the typical northwest drizzle but not very cold. There were 3 fish caught. This is a great fishery and doesn’t seem to get much fishing pressure. Not sure who caught the largest fish, this will be announced at our February 10th general meeting. Our next club specific outing will be on May 21st. We will be fishing for Kokanee on American Lake.
Our February 10th meeting is our annual Crab Dinner and Awards Ceremony. We need everyone who wants to join us for the crab dinner to RSVP by no later than February 3rd. We will be announcing the winners of our annual largest fish awards and our anger of the year award. The dinner will begin at 6:00 PM followed by our general meeting at 7:00 PM. Our speaker for February will be Eric Linde. This will be my first time hearing Eric. I have heard that he is a fantastic speaker and am really looking forward to hearing him. Our March 10th Speaker will be Todd Girtz from Todd’s Extreme Fishing. He will be talking to us about his new business and coastal fishing opportunities. It should be another great meeting.
In 2014 we had 163 active members in the Gig Harbor Chapter. Our goal is to raise our membership to 200 in 2015. If you want to become a better fisherman, come check us out! Guests are always welcome. Checkout our website or Facebook page for the latest updates regarding our meetings and our club activities. We meet the second Tuesday of every month (except in August) at the Tacoma Outboard Association (646 N Wilton Road, Tacoma, WA). Wear your lifejacket, be safe on the water, and good luck fishing…