THE NEXT GENERAL MEETING, REMEMBER THE DATE: THURSDAY February 1st, 7:30 PM, AT THE CLUB HOUSE, LINCOLN PARK ROAD, IN DERBY TOWNSHIP.

.February 1st the guest speaker is Chris Petre who represents Normark-Rapala.

NEW MEMBERS

The S.S.A. welcomes the following new members:

Shane Wilcox Adult	David Shipley Family	Peter Schultz Adult
Tim Fletcher Adult	Bruce Thom Adult	Bob McLinden Adult
Dennis Lindenschmitt Adult	Shane Thom Family	Lawrence & Jayne Cannon Family
Bruce Parsons Adult	Dave Ford Adult	Brendan Merritt Adult
Trevor Carson Adult	Michael Abbott Adult	Dan Mills Adult
Christy Johnstone Adult	Darrell Wilson Family	Rob MacKenzie Adult

DATES TO REMEMBER!!

AWARDS NIGHT

This annual event will once again highlight the achievements of S.S.A. members and their families in their quest for excellence in their chosen field.
Awards will be presented for many disciplines, including successful hunters, anglers, rifle, archery and pistol shooters and to our most important resource, our young members for their achievements in many areas, including of course , conservation.
The banquet will feature an excellent hot buffet meal, with a full bar available for your enjoyment. Incredible raffle prizes will be available, courtesy of the efforts of Grant Ferris, who seems to provide better and better prizes for each successive meeting.
Tickets are $12.50 per adult, $6.00 per child aged five to twelve years, with children under five years of age being free.
So, plan on an entertaining evening, eat well, win prizes and support our young people. Phone me, at 794 4423, as soon as you receive this newsletter, in order that I can confirm numbers with our caterer.
Stewart Wallace---Social Co-ordinator

CONSERVATION DINNER

Saturday March 3rd, Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre
Tickets are $35.00 per person. Call Fred Geberdt, 376 2369 , Randy or Ruth Moore 371 0378, Bill Thompson 376 4555, for tickets.
Plan to attend this fun event and support conservation. Live Auction, Silent Auction, General Raffle and Special Raffles.

Attention Reloaders and Potential Reloaders.

Anyone interested in attending a one day workshop on Handloading for Centrefire, Pistol and possibly Shotgun, please contact David Tebbutt at 986 2731. If there is enough interest, Dave will arrange for a date at the Club House, probably a Saturday or Sunday, in the near future.

Youth Activities Program
Regular meeting at clubhouse to plan upcoming events. Next meeting February 11th @ 1:00 PM @ the white house. We'll be planning our winter campout,  which we will be holding the 10th and 11th of March.
Laura Stephenson, YAP Co-chair.

Wildlife Advisory Committee

The Indian Fishing Agreement has been signed as we outlined in our last bulletin. We were aware that there may well be some severe flaws in the agreement. However, we adopted a "wait and see" policy.
We hope the agreement works and it appeared to be doing just that. However, things have been becoming a bit unravelled in the waters off Meaford.
The area covered by the Fishing Agreement lies west of Vail Point. is a few miles north of Meaford. Also, it should be noted that the signed agreement constitutes a commercial fishing licence. Therefore, fishing east of Vail Point would be considered fishing without a licence.
Just before the turn of the year, an Indian fishing tug from the Saugeen Reserve set and lifted a net east of the Licenced line. The boat was met at the dock by Conservation Officers. The boat then left the harbour, picked up its nets and departed the area. That problem was solved.
Shortly after the New Year, and when the new quotas came into effect, two Indian tugs appeared off Meaford an began fishing. The fishing was east of Vail Point. This caused an uproar in Meaford.
There were at least three issues that concerned Meaford residents:

1. The commercial fisherman licenced to fish out of Meaford was having his quota usurped by Indian fishermen as happened last year. 
2. Townspeople were concerned about dock damage as happened last year. 
3. Most important to SSA members and is the concern that Meaford anglers had is that uncontrolled commercial fishing would once more decimate the lake trout stock and again close the season

1. The fishing was for commercial purposed. 
2. The fishing was out of the licenced area.

The Owen Sound Sun Times - 01.01.12
CONSERVATION OF THE FISHERY IS THE PRIORITY CONCERN

Editor: Recent commercial fishing by the native-owned tugs using Meaford Harbour as a base has resulted in many queries as to where local conservation clubs stand on the issue.
The Grey/Bruce Conservation Coaltion is an association of 22 conservation organizations that have an interest in the Lake Huron sports fishery.
As our coalition has stated in the past, we do not object to an Indian commercial fishery. We do object to any uncontrolled fishery, regardless of who is doing the fishing. We hold that the first concern with any fishery must be conservation of that fishery, for if there are not fish, there will be no fishery.
We agreed some time ago that we would maintain a low-key approach in order to help create a climate conducive to a negotiated fishing agreement. Now that such as agreement has been signed, we believe that the administration and control of this agreement must be between the Ministry of Natural Resources and the two Indian bands.
We will continue to consult with the MNR, in order that conservation and fair resource sharing are ensured. With that in mind, we encourage the parties concerned to adopt a firm and sensible program to honour the terms of this fisheries agreement.

Blake Smith  Grey/Bruce Conservation Coalition  Owen Sound

O F A H ZONE 'H' FORESTS AND WILDLIFE

Forests:

Grey County is developing a forest management plan. I have been asked to sit on an advisory committee and am prepared to represent the views of Anglers and Hunters regarding the use or misuse of County forests. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions bearing on the issues, I would welcome hearing from them.

Wildlife:

An old fashioned winter is upon us. Some of our wildlife that is at or beyond its northern range could be in trouble.

Turkey:

In a nutshell, turkeys lack the gut of a grouse. They do a poor job of digesting cellulose. They need carbohydrates. They can exist on buds and catkins for a short time, but as some point they will require nuts or seeds.
Also, turkeys lack the snowshoes of a grouse. The fluffy snow means that they have a very bad time walking and can't thrust themselves into the air for flight. This combined with the diet problems means that our turkeys could be in a bit of trouble.
Some dead birds have been found. Other birds appear to observers to be in very poor shape. It should be noted that two of the dead birds were killed by eating treated seed corn. Depending on where the birds are, some are doing quite well - standing corn - horse manure, etc.
At any rate MNR staff in Grey and Bruce are recommending feeding. Whole corn kept dry and above the snow would be the best choice. Apparently a handful of shell corn a day feeds one bird.
Sportsmen in the Club at the Meaford Tank Range have been using wire spools a feeders. They wrap 1" wire mesh around the spool and put in a loading and unloading gate. (Does this make it a single action?) and then load it with cob corn. They have been doing this for several years and say it works quite well. Also turkeys are reported to leave the feeding stations when natural food and breeding time come on. Until then, don't stop feeding.

Deer:

The winter severity index indicates a tough winter for deer. Personal observations around Owen Sound show well traveled runways. However, the deer will not leave the trails to go to food even though food is quite close. Their tiny hooves dictate that they sink and flounder through the snow. The energy expended by wallowing after food exceeds the benefit from low cal browse. It is a losing game to go after the food unless some stalwart SSA sportsmen don snowshoes or sit astride snowmobiles and tramp side trails from established runways to food patches. (Red Osier Dogwood is a preferred food). Soft days are the best days for tramping a trail. Deer really respond to this technique. So, find the yard, tramp the trail and repeat as often as required!
Direct feeding may become necessary or if protracted heavy winter conditions hold deer until their energy reserves are depleted, usually late
February or March.
If you are going to feed, use the right feed and keep it up until the deer leave the yard. Remember: The wrong feed can kill!
The M.N.R. publication "Guidelines for Winter Feeding of Deer in Ontario" gives a detailed description of feeding issues, methods, feed types etc.. It describes how you can kill by kindness when feeding alfalfa to starving deer. It describes the differences between supplementary and emergency feeding, all good stuff for anyone who thinks they might like to help deer through a bad winter. It recommends prepared deer pellets, whole corn and oats mixed, pure oats etc.. There will be a few copies of this paper at our club house for our February General Meeting. Also, copies can be obtained from M.N.R. by phoning 376 3860.
John Ford and I attended a January 8th South Bruce Peninsula Council meeting to help the Bruce Peninsula Sportsmen combat a petition to close a big piece of bush near Oliphant to hunting.
It seems one person wrote a letter to council, claiming that he had heard a gunshot during deer season. Now, he claims that to protect his family's lives, it will be necessary to prohibit the discharge of firearms. Talk about someone moving beside a barn and then complaining about the stink!
At any rate, the complainant was not there and had his submission delayed until June. We suspect that this is so he can bring in a great raft of his politically correct anti-hunting buddies for backup. We have to wait until spring to see how it turns out. Its a great piece of bush, lots of game, good hunting and its safe and we have to try to keep it open. The heat is on us. The antis' are moving in and want to shut us down. So, its up to all of us to fight for our continued right to enjoy our great hunting tradition. So Stand up, talk it up, keep our image bright and shiny and just maybe our descendants will have the opportunity to continue this grand sport.
Blake Smith, Chairperson  Wildlife Advisory Committee

Fish Advisory Committee

Well, I've taken on the SSA fisheries chair position again. Seems like an easy thing to do since no one else in the Club wants the job!
In the next few days I'll be contacting last years FAC committee members to see if they are again interested in taking on the task of handling the SSA's fisheries business. If you are interested in joining the FAC committee, please give me a call at 376-2369. As in the past years, I'd like to have between 6-8 SSA members on this Club fisheries committee.
Work in the SSA hatcheries is the main fisheries work being undertaken at the present time. The brown trout are now placed into rearing tanks and are starting to feed. The chinook are into their second increase of feed size and are really coming along nicely, and the rainbow trout are approaching the 3-5 inch mark, with the last of them being fin clipped.
You know, with all the news lately on the Native fishing issues in Meaford, one cannot help but wonder what will take place in the future. Will this new fishing agreement between Natives and the Province work, or will we need future court cases to settle the differences that remain ?
SSA members might be interested to know that elsewhere on the Great Lakes, court cases have settled these types of issues, most notably, in the U.S.A. This past November, a twenty year consent agreement over fishing in Treaty of 1836 waters of the Great Lakes; Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior, was ordered by Federal District Court. The agreement attempts to allocate the fishery fairly and equally, with sport anglers focusing primarily on such fish as salmon, steelhead, and brown trout, and tribal fishers directing their primary effort at such commercial fish as whitefish and bloater chubs.
The new agreement increases areas within the treaty waters where tribal boats may fish but decreases their impacts on the state-regulated sport fishery. This will be accomplished by eliminating more than 14 million feet of gill net and conversion of tribal operations to the use of trap nets, from which sport fish can be released alive. Closing commercial fishing during seasons or across areas that are most important to the state sport fishery, and committing to joint biological management and enforcement of the agreement.
Perhaps of greatest interest to our SSA members is the fact that Lake Huron anglers will receive the greatest benefit of what this agreement has to offer, as the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewas has taken a leadership role in converting a large portion of Lake Huron gill nets to trap nets. This conversion of gill nets in northern Lake Huron should equate to reductions in lake trout mortality from the current 80 to 90 percent levels to the 40 to 45 percent levels needed to accommodate successful reproduction, and additionally, thousands of sportfish species that will now be released alive. Also the Lake Huron tribal salmon fishery will be reduced significantly. The number of salmon the state stocks for tribal harvest will be cut in half and the state will be able to reallocate an additional 250,000 salmon for the sportfish harvest in Lake Huron. The harvest of walleye or perch in northern Lake Huron will remain possible for the tribes, but will be more restrictive than in past years. Fishing boats will now be restricted to taking no more than 15 pounds of walleye per day in areas of Lake Huron open to large-mesh gill nets. Any trap-net caught walleye would be released alive.
For more information on this agreement, see the Michigan United Conservation Clubs' Web site at www.mucc.org .
Hopefully in the months ahead our newly signed fishing agreement between our area Natives and the Province will turn out to be as equally successful.

Fred Geberdt, Chairperson  Fish Advisory Committee

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Wildlife Advisory___	Derby Committee___	Fish Advisory___
Derby P R Booth___	Shotguns___	Hatchery Duty___
Tree Planting___	Social Activities___	Derby Weigh-in___
Board of Directors___	Fishing___	Turkey Shoots___
Derby Fish-fry___	Trap Shooting___	Hand Guns___
Black Powder	Ticket Sales___	Archery___
Property Care___	Wildlife Enhancement_	Stream Work___
Fish Stocking___	Hunting___	Jr Activities___
Hi-Power Shoots___	Pitch-in___	Computer__
Fall Fair___	Telephone Committee__