Newly elected PACK President Jason Talley opened the meeting at 7p.m. with a full agenda. He introduced the new board for 2007, Jim Richards, VP, Eli Rivera, Treasurer, and Ron Romeis, Club Secretary who was unable to attend this meeting.

There were 20 members and 3 guests attending.

Tonight’s meeting was held as a reschedule due to freezing rain conditions experienced the night of the original meeting last week. Scott “Let’s Go” Null was the featured speaker but had to go out of town on the same evening as the rescheduled meeting.

Phil Perry, founder of Coastal Kayak Angler website (http://www.coastalkayakangler.com) and the “Fishing Mission” (http://www.coastalkayakangler.com/radio.php?PHPSESSID=7ffbdb22845acd57c3a30f7d36cb036f) web based broadcast program was in attendance. He discussed the upcoming Saturday Jan. 27 Swap Meet he, Scott Null and others or organizing. It was to be held at Armand Bayou Park, but they are looking for a new place to hold it. When a new location is identified they will announce it on the kayak fishing websites (i.e. CKA, PACK, & TKF).

Fishing Reports: Dick McGonigle discussed the Armand Bayou/Clear Lake December trip as a “kind of a bust” due to weather conditions. He added that he had heard of an area in Channelview (East Houston) accessible from the Riverside Marina called White Lake that has produced limits of trout. He said he’ll check it out. Jason reported that the Trinity River estuary adjacent to Anauhac had been hot in late December.

Ken Jennings reported on the January Dana’s Cove outing. The fog that was present kept most fishermen off the water until late morning. Even though he didn’t string any fish, a few other fishermen were successful.

The Port Mansfield trip for January was cancelled after receiving local reports that the water in the bay was blown out from northerly winds and the water temperatures were too low for fish and bait to remain the area. No word on a reschedule, but Jeff Wolfanger may do a rescheduled PACK trip when conditions improve. He needs at least six to eight people to make it work. Please contact Jeff if you are interested.  Joel Berry discussed a fishing vacation to Cabo San Lucas for marlin. He said there was a heavy concentration of marlin down there and that they boated three fish. Both Bob Roesing and Bruce Behrens recently made successful powerboat fishing trips.

Jason discussed an upcoming event called the 8^th Annual BASS Pro Shop Fishing Classic where they have invited the PACK Club to man a kayak fishing table. That event was scheduled for early February but was pushed back to February 18^th the same day as the Smith Point outing. He asked for interested parties to contact him about working the table. Since he has gotten minimum response for the new date, he expects to cancel PACK’s participation. He mentioned that REI will be conducting a similar event in the future that PACK will be attending. 

The next major item discussed was the 2007 PACK Tournament. Jason related to the club the obvious fact that the kayak tournament calendar has become crowded/competitive and that the effort to solicit and collect sponsor donated prizes is getting to be more than the tournament board can bear year after year. There are many other steps involved in putting on the tournament and the board has decided to open the discussion about whether to keep the tournament “as is”, scale it back, make it members only, or cancel altogether amongst several options. There was sizable feedback from the attendees, including Phil Perry - CKA who has fished kayak tournament circuit for the last few years. Jason and the board will consider the ideas discussed and will take more feedback from the club in the next week before making a final decision. The general consensus was for PACK to have a member only tournament which will promote a fun but competitive event that will allow us to scale down the amount of work that goes into putting one on.

Milton Robertson made the point that the club needs to decide about where to make base camp for the Colorado River trip. It was agreed to keep it the same as last year’s for safety sake if children are involved.

Jason introduced Bruce Behrens who has organized a new PACK website that is more dynamic in it’s ability to interact with the users. Bruce acknowledged past webmaster, Jerry Blose, on all his work to maintain the PACK website. The new website will require the users to register for accessing some of the advanced functions of the site. Trip leaders can now manage the details of the trip plans and attendee lists without having to relay information to the webmaster. One of the neat features is that trip leaders, as well as registered users, can communicate without displaying email addresses or phone numbers. This feature will reduce if not eliminate the possibility of SPAM (junk e-mail). There will be a photo gallery page where members and non-members can upload photographs. All photos must be authorized by a key moderator before they are displayed. The new website will go into effect as soon as possible. Users must provide a User Name and Display Name in order to register. The User Name would be the individual’s name and the Display Name would be users’ Nickname (i.e. Mullet Head). The website will function just like other database / interactive websites we now utilize.  This gives PACK to the ability to easily maintain club information through different moderators and allows PACK members and guests to be more interactive in one location for PACK events.

Bob Roesing has provided extensive details regarding a week long trip to the Florida Everglades using well known Capt. Charles Wright’s outfitting and guide service in Chokoloskee, FL south of Ft Meyers, FL. Although there was interest in the trip, Bob did not secure the minimum of six solid commitments to book the trip. He said he’ll make a trip in the near future and will continue to work at organizing a trip with PACK members.

Announcements: Phil Perry said that he and local kayak fishermen have organized a banquet on Saturday February 17^th at the Texadelphia restaurant on Westheimer in Houston to recognize the folks who have made and continue to make an impact on kayak fishing. Our own Ken Jennings will present the history of kayak fishing. There will be door prizes. It is limited to 100 attendees, tickets are $25 each or $48 for a couple. Details at: http://coastalkayakangler.com/banquet.php

Chris Arceneaux made mention of the upcoming 4^th Annual Smith Point Outing at Spoonbill RV Park and Lodge on February 16^th through the 19^th. He’ll be accepting contributions to meal planning via the PACK / TKF web link: http://texaskayakfisherman.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=47 Also, we had 18 folks sign up for this great event.

Vihn Ha has organized the Lake Conroe striped bass day trip for February 24^th. He discussed in detail what lures and downriggers to apply as well how to troll with them. The trip details are on the PACK Events page. We have heard a lot about the big stripers that Vinh and his friend Dan have caught on Conroe. PACK looks forward to turning to fresh water fishing and catching some BIG STRIPERS. Please contact Vinh for more details on how to rig up for this trip.

Meeting adjourned at 9:00pm

2007 Dues are now due. (Note these dues are the same as 2006 dues, no increase in this years dues) 

Dues are as follows:

New Membership - $45 (consists of $15 to PACK & $30 to ACA- American Canoe Assoc)

Renewal Membership - $15 (goes to PACK – and ACA will mail your renewal to you)

Send to Eli Rivera or you can pay at the next meeting. You can retrieve the forms for membership and the address to maill in your membership forms  at this link on the PACK website: http://www.packtx.org/WebPages/Membership.htm

Next meeting is Tuesday, February 20^th, 7p.m.at Canoesport where owners Bruce and Charles will be our speakers. See this Link for the location: http://www.canoesport.com/moved.pdf

By Chris Arceneaux