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!