GENERAL MEETING:  We meet May 9th, 6:30 PM at the Sheridan Community Center, 680 Lebo Blvd. in East Bremerton.  We’ll start with salad and pizza followed by our regular meeting at 7:00 PM. Our guest speaker is Jeffrey June, Natural Resources Consultant.  He will speak on the challenges of retrieving Ghost Nets and shrimp pots from deep water.       
BOARD MEETING:  The board meets Tuesday, May 15th, 7:00 PM at the Windermere Real Estate Office, 9939 NW Mickelberry Rd. in Silverdale.  The Board includes officers plus Ron Shuts, Art Bruner, Oscar Hyman, Henry Altenburg, Mark Plucinski, Ray Frederick and Louie Morton. All Poggies are welcome.

KIDS’ FISHING PARTY RECAP:  This year the raceways were divided into five sections. By 8:30 AM both sides had kids and parents packed shoulder to shoulder. Many Poggies helped out with the pre-event preparations, the party itself and the clean up, totaling hundreds of hours of volunteer time.  Ed Saftich and Don Palmer directed parking; Ron Shuts, Art Bruner, and Oscar Hyman served cocoa and coffee; Laurie Skola and her friend were in charge of pastries; Fran Frederick and Yoshie Lewis were at the hospitality table; fish cleaning was handled by Bob Heistand, Ken Rathbun, and Ron Lewis; Larry Gifford, Hank and Walt Altenburg, Lloyd Trudeau, and Hunter Shelton kept busy repairing rods and tackle. Trudeau and Shelton also helped with the many direction signs that had to be put up. Chief Poggie Norm Reinhardt donned waders and hopped in the raceways to retrieve bobbers (which were in short supply).
          A small aquarium with baby Chinook salmon displayed on the hospitality table was a big attraction and so were the worm tubs.  Bremerton City Utilities had a great display that attracted and entertained lots of kids. Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent circulated among parents and kids. The Club received over $600 in donations, memberships, plus pen and hat sales for our summer camp scholarships.
          After the Kids’ Fishing Party was over at 1:00 PM, a small group from Peninsula Council of the Blind began fishing at 4:00 PM. This event was organized by Louie Morton and went very well. One of their group was once a Poggie but was blinded by radiation treatments for cancer.

HALIBUT SEASONS:  Halibut season opens May 3rd.  Go to the WDFW or the Poggie Club Web Site for exact details as they are quite complicated.
HALIBUT DERBY: The 2012 Halibut Derby will be on Saturday, May 12th.  Tickets are $25 and will be available at meetings or at Aqua Tech Marine Service in East Bremerton beginning March 1st. You must have at least one Poggie in your boat, and everyone in the boat must have a ticket. If we sell at least 50 tickets, there will be 3 cash prizes with $500 for first place!  Fishing will be in Area 6 beginning at daylight with weigh-in at John Wayne Marina at 3 PM. You may fish out of Port Angeles and drive your fish down for the 3 PM weigh-in. I will be fishing also. Get out there and get a shot at a giant halibut like the 224 pounder Ray Frederick caught in 2009!!!

KIDS’ SUMMER CAMP:  The Poggie Club will again sponsor 4 kids for the Summer Sportsmen’s Camp on Orcas Island. This is a one week camp.  The dates for girls are July 15 – 21; boys are July 22 – 28.  Age limits are 12 – 16 years.  Call Ron Shuts for details: 373-8921.

JANE HINRICHS’ PASSING:  We were shocked and saddened to learn that Ward Hinrichs’ wife died last week. Our sympathy goes out to Ward and his family.

SUMMER PICNIC:  Be sure to keep your calendar open for our picnic on July 22. Look through your surplus items for our silent auction.

WATER FESTIVAL: Poggie members Norm Reinhardt, Laurie Skola, Ron Shuts, Louie Morton and Ray Frederick manned the Poggie booth at the annual Water Festival. We had a display of Chinook salmon smolt and also easels showing salmon and habitat restorations in Gorst Creek. Chief Poggie Norm asked the visiting classes questions about water. Correct answers were awarded packets of gold fish crackers. Louie Morton talked about the five species of salmon in the Northwest.

WANTED: Boat trailer to handle a 14’ to 16’ boat. Also 4 – 6 HP 4 cycle outboard engine. Call Hank Altenburg 692-6085.
FOR SALE: ’95 22’ Kit Travel Trailer. Bunk house style. A/C. New rubber, new batteries, new sanitary dump station. More extras. $6,500. Ron Lewis 830-9150

LETTER FROM THE CHIEF POGGIE:  I’m sure by now we all have heard about our Legislature passing a supplemental Capitol budget which included $2,000,000 for a PNP boat launch. I contacted WDFW, and that appears to be true. What hasn’t happened yet: the Governor still needs to sign that bill and not exercise her line item veto power on the project.; WDFW still has to negotiate the operations and maintenance clause of the MOU it signed with Kitsap County, and this could be a stumbling block. Also, WDFW sent me a reply to a note I sent them telling me that we now need the permits. That’s curious, since I thought we had the permits. So what permits do we need? WDFW won’t answer that question yet. The Lake Tahuya launch received no funding. And we still have to look forward to the challenge of replacing the Misery Point Launch.
So, we have a ways to go for our launches. We still can’t say it’s done. We still have challenges.
What we can do is say to our WDFW department: GET ‘ER DONE!!!