March President's Message

While the snow was coming down in the morning on February 26, I had visions of having two meetings in a row snowed out. Thank goodness the snow stopped because we had a very informative speaker, Diane Borggaard, from the NOAA Fisheries Service in Gloucester. She spoke about the herring run restoration from Canada down the East Coast. One of the things you can do to continue gathering information on her talk is to visit www.riverherringnetwork.com. I joined last night.

Our March speaker will be Conrad Caia from the Shellfish Department in Yarmouth, who will speak about shellfish and hydrogen in the water – a good follow-up to the herring talk. Also at the March meeting will be Captains Terry and Sean from Riptide Charters regarding the In-House Riptide Salties Tournament. Get your teams together now so you’ll be able to set a date that night for your crew!

At the same time you get this newsletter, our 2014 events will be listed under the Events tab on our website at capecodsalties.org. First on that list will be the Awards Banquet on March 8 at the Doubletree by Hilton in Hyannis. Number two is the year-round In House Derby, with rules and submission forms. Third is the Wives & Sweethearts Appreciation dinner on Friday, April 4 at Alberto’s in Hyannis. Number four is the May 14 Annual Cod Trip, followed by the 10th Annual Fluke & Sea Bass Trip on Thursday, July 17, on the Helen H. Finally, we have the 8th Annual September In-House Fishing Derby on September 6. You have plenty of time to put together the teams you want to fish with or people you want to attend these events with. These listed events are not all that we do. We will still be putting out dates for herring run cleanups, herring run counts, Dennis beach cleanups, Cape Cod Canal cleanups, and the Learn to Fish Day in August in Dennis. We will also start listing our Tuesday Night Fish with a Saltie event. Let’s not forget our two fish suppers in May and October!

We are a fishing club, and that’s what most of us like to do. We join an organization like this to meet and share camaraderie with people with like interests. At our Awards Banquet on March 8, there are approximately 20 raffle prizes that will give many Salties the opportunity to fish with other Salties and to generate money for the club to meet all of our civic responsibilities. In all honesty, in most cases, all you can get out of the club is what you want to put into it.

A couple of events that Salties might like to attend are the Fishermen’s Yard Sale on April 19 at the Moose Lodge, Rte. 28 in Yarmouth and the MA Bass Expo, March 8 & 9, at the Jungle Gym in Plymouth.

Thanks, and hook ‘em up!

Jack

P.S. The first non-officer of the club who emails me what the new length minimum for striped bass will be in the In-House Derby will be awarded a signed Bob Davies plug!

P.S.P.S. Ralph Mercer, our coffee man for the last two years, is looking to give up that job. Steve Israelian is also looking for someone to replace him as the ads manager. Email me if you are interested (jecreighton45@gmail.com).