1. The April 2008 Monthly meeting opened with a welcome to the 6 guests and 29 members present.
2. The 8th Annual “PACK Cup” Tournament is scheduled for June 7, 2008 at San Luis Pass County Park. Tournament flyer and Tournament Rules will be posted on website early next week. The Tourney is for members only.
3. $10 raffle tickets are ready for the donated Wilderness Ride and Guided Fishing Trip at Bay Flats Lodge. Funds received from the raffle go toward financing our annual Holiday party. Let’s get out and sell some tickets. Drawing will be held at the 8th Annual 'PACK CUP' Anglers Tournament on June 7, 2008. You need not be present to win. Call or email Adrian to coordinate picking up some tickets.
We have been soliciting sponsors hard and as a result we have some great prizes for the best fishermen along with some great door prizes. Guests will be required to pay for the BBQ and will not be able to participate in the tournament. ($10 adults and $5 for kids)
4. Eli presented a report on the Shoal Water trip. While they battled a windy weekend with a 6 mile paddle to the camp site, everybody caught fish. They had a great trip and are ready to do it again.
5. This past weekend several Pack members were representing us at the REI paddle demo day in Sugarland. REI brought a whole new type of paddler – the recreational paddler with family in tow. We handed out our newly printed 2008 flyer and it was a big hit – lending credibility to us as an organization.
6. Hats off to our member Brad for creating the 2008 PACK brochures and the Tournament Flyers. Nice work, Brad. Thanks! Our website is just about running on auto-pilot thanks to webmaster Bruce. There aren’t many more features we can add.
7. Our guest speaker is a great story-teller and has been a friend and supporter of PACK for many years. Scott Null with the Southwest Texas Outdoor Sales reviewed with PACK the different features of the Shimano Reels, specifically problems like line twist and how Shimano has overcome these traditional Spinning Reel problems. Which leads into a great fishing story involving Slowride and Mrs. B.
Location: Light House Lakes
Guide: Slowride
Client: Mrs. B.
This was Mrs. B’s first time on the water in a Kayak, and her first attempt at fishing. Dean provided Mrs. B with a spinning rod & reel. Everyone had noted that Dean had brought along several backup rod & reels just in case there were problems like line twist resulting in a backlash; Dean’s plan was to retrieve the rod (example) with the backlash and hand his Clients another fresh rod ready to go. As the story goes, Mrs. B was experiencing backlash after backlash with a spinning reel. She would cast and you would hear the swoosh of the line leaving the reel. Dean was in panic mode, he was running out of rods & reels, and was franticly requesting from Scott and others the use of their back up rod & reels. The story continues; Dean was scrambling around and a BEE flew up his shorts pants leg and stung him in an out of sight private place. Mrs. B who had been receiving all of Dean’s full time attention, was now trying to comfort Dean and attempt to apply her loving care first aid to his private parts BEE sting injury. The fishing lesson ended, and Dean retreated to his vehicle.
Mrs. B was in attendance last night and confirmed the story as told by Scott. I must admit it was interesting how Scott was able to use the real time fishing guide backlash experience in illustrating how Shimano had added features to its reels to overcome these problems with its spinning reels. It was a good story that we all enjoyed at your expense Dean.
Scott, PACK thanks you very much for a very enjoyable evening.
(Written by Ken J)
8. Mark your calendar for these up coming events:
April 19 East Bay Blacks Reef
April 25-27 Mustang Island campout
April 26 FTU Demo days
April 26 Galveston Bay Foundation Marsh Mania. While not a PACK event it is a useful and fun event to volunteer and plant marsh grass. Contact Dick McGonigle for more information
May 10 McNabb Lake trip has been changed to Turtle Bay
May speaker – Jason Bryant
June Speaker – TPWD Game Warden
Adrian A. Ramos
2008 PACK President