For May we held our Annual Spaghetti and Clam Dinner followed by our general meeting. I was not able to attend due to a conflicting business trip, but from the reports I received, everyone who attended had a great time. A great big thanks to Jim Chaffey for harvesting and donating the clams. I’d also like to thank the volunteers who came early and stayed late to help cook and cleanup for the dinner. Thank you!
We had several guests and some additional new members attend our meeting. Our club keeps on growing, which is fantastic. A special thanks to Michael Brazeau, our VP and Derby Chairman, for running the meeting in my absence. It’s great practice for next year Michael. It sounds like a lot more of our club members are getting out and enjoying the fishing opportunities that the month of May offers. There were a variety of fishing reports for Lings, Shrimp and Halibut. I know that I was able to get out get my shrimp limits a couple times in Area 11 prior to my business trip. In anticipation of our May 17th Kokanee outing, Tony Dobson presented at the fish-talk-table. Tony is one of our active military members and has recently returned from deployment. Welcome back Tony and thanks for staffing the table. We drew Jim Chaffey’s name for the monthly membership drawing, which is sponsored by Sourthworth Marine. Jim unfortunately was not present so there was no winner this month. That means the pot grows to $260 for June. Our guest speaker for our meeting was Pat Neal, Olympic Peninsula Guide and Author of the “WildLife” books. Pat has a great sense of humor and can tell a fish story like no other. He also had a nice slide show presentation that showed the beauty of the Olympic Peninsula area. He had great fish pictures and heartfelt comments on the on the conservation of the Olympic Peninsula fisheries. Thank you Pat for speaking at our meeting. To learn more about Pat Neal or book a trip, checkout his website at http://patnealwildlife.net. We concluded our meeting with our raffle prize drawings.
The club outing on May 17th was our annual Kokanee outing on American Lake. Hopefully there were a lot of fish caught. Top prize for the biggest fish is a new Kokanee rod and reel. Our outing for June 21st is our Past President’s Derby. For more info, see the events section on our website (https://gigharborpsa.org/event-calendar).
For our June 10th meeting, we will be holding a club-only garage sale. 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. 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. For our July 8th general meeting, Bruce Warren of Fishing for Fun Guide Service will be speaking about Buoy 10 opportunities and tactics. I also want to make sure that everyone is planning for our August meeting. August 9th is our 19th Annual Salmon Derby. We will hold the board meeting and regular meeting on the first Tuesday of August, which is August 4th. We have traditionally done this so that we have our meeting prior to the derby. The board meeting will begin at 6:00 PM and the general meeting will be held at 7:00 PM. Our speaker for August is club member Captain John Keizer (of Salt Patrol). He always has a great presentation on catching derby fish. You will not want to miss any of these meetings.
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!
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!
March Madness is upon us… best of luck surviving your bracket selections and the near record rainfalls! The March general meeting was well attended and we had 8 new members join our club. That’s about 15 new members since January. Our goal is to increase our membership by about 25% in 2014 and we are well on our way. We had Salt Patrol and some of the Lowrance guru’s onsite during our meeting and they upgraded the software on 25 units along with providing configuration recommendations. Thanks guys, we appreciate your support! We had the usual updates from the board members. Larry Bucklin provided an update on government affairs and Art Tachell provided very detailed update from the North of Falcon meetings. Chris Tremblay, our activities director, reviewed the schedule of club outing for the remainder of the year. We will post our outings on our website and Facebook page. There weren’t a lot of individual fishing reports. However, it did sound like those who have been out razor clamming or smelting had great success. We held our monthly membership drawing and unfortunately Richard W. was not present, so there was no winner. The pot will grow to $260 for our April meeting. Thanks again to Southworth Marine for their continued sponsorship of our monthly membership drawings. Our speaker for March was Mike Jamboretz from Jambo’s Sportsfishing (http://www.jambossportfishing.com). He gave an outstanding presentation on fishing Neah Bay. Looks like a phenomenal fishery… Sign me up! Mike is a very knowledgeable and accomplished charter captain and he gave everyone a lot of great fishing tips and techniques that can be used anywhere. I know I learned some new things that I’m going to try the next time I’m out fishing. Thank you Mike and Shirley! We concluded our meeting with our raffle prize drawings.
In addition to our general meetings, the second Tuesday of each month, we also have a monthly club outing. We encourage club members to get involved in our outings. They are a lot of fun and it’s a great time to put into practice all the good info we have been gleaning from our guest speakers! Here’s a list of some of our upcoming outings:
April 5, 2014 All PSA Derby, Port Townsend
May 17, 2014 American Lake Kokanee Outing
June 21, 2014 Past President’s Outing, Area 11
July 26, 2014 CAST for Kids –Thea Foss Waterway
August 9, 2014 Gig Harbor PSA Salmon Derby
September 13, 2014 Gig Harbor PSA Picnic, Owens Beach, Point Defiance
On April 8th, our guest speaker will be Pete Chadwick from Riverbend Jigs. One of the topics he will be discussing is bait curing and where the process is going. It should be another fantastic meeting to learn about fishing. On May 13th, we will hold our annual Spaghetti Dinner at 6:00 PM. Cost is $5.00 per person and you can pay at the door. Our speaker will be Pat Neal. If you have never heard Pat, he has a humorous way of storytelling and talking about fishing. You will not want to miss either meeting so mark your calendar now!
If you haven’t been attending, you’ve been missing out. We have had 3 fantastic meetings thus far in 2014 and the speakers have been world class! For those of you who are regulars, help spread the word about our club. Our regular meetings start at 7:00 PM, but come a bit early and grab a hot dog and a drink. Please check out our website or Facebook page for the latest updates regarding meetings 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. As always, we hope to see all of our members in attendance at both our general meetings and club outings!
Wear your lifejacket, be safe on the water, and good luck fishing!
