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VOLUME 25 NO. 3 March 2006
NOTE THE DATE CHANGE!! The original speaker for our March meeting was called for Jury Duty and could not attend our March meeting. Jack Dougherty has been able to get John Hlynialuk to come and speak to us about what we can see in our evening skies. This should prove to be a very informative topic, so plan to attend. SPECIAL NOTES! If you haven ’ t renewed your membership for 2006, this will be your last newsletter. Belated Happy Birthday to Os McArthur Time seems to fly and sometimes we miss milestones in the club's history. Os McArthur, a charter and life member of the SSA celebrated his 95th birthday earlier in February. Please consider sending him a belated birthday card with a little note as he is not able to get out to club functions very easily any more. His address is:
All the best Os from your fellow members of the SSA! Cabelas Trip: Dundee, Mich . Sat Mar 25 and Sun Mar 26, 2006 Leave: Owen Sound Revolver Club at 8am on Sat morning arrive mid afternoon. Cabelas open till 9pm. Stay at large Holiday Inn next door. Sun shopping from 10am to 3-4pm. Special Times for your Convenience We have chosen two nights to hand out keys and accept club memberships for those members who are unable to attend club meetings due to work commitments. I will be at the Clubhouse on Monday, March 13 and Tuesday, March 14 from 7:00 pm until 10:00 pm. I will be able to exchange your key for a new one, sell you a key and accept your 2006 membership (fees are unchanged from 2005) on those dates. Only 2006 paid up members can get a new gate key and the locks are changed on April 1, 2006. Keys are also available at club meetings. Don ’ t be afraid to bring coffee with you, I take mine black! Return any sold OFAH Lottery tickets to get in on the early bird draw . J Ford Update on the committee listings that were in the Feb newsletter . Bill Beamish, SSA Shooting Sports Coordinator advises the following members will be responsible for the ranges and activities for 2006 noted below: Skeet Range coordinators: Dan Laxton and Doug Heydon Social Committee Please mark your Calendar The SSA Social Committee Chair, Carol Barfoot has advised of the following dates for 2006.
Further details relating to each of these events will be provided in future newsletters. Carol Barfoot, Chairperson THE PRESIDENTS CORNER On February 9, 2006 the Ontario government released the “ New Fishing Regulations Proposed for 2007 ” and only allowed 60 days for public comment. The Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay announced they are streamlining the regulations and simplifying the large list of exceptions which were difficult for anglers to know and follow. He also said “ We are creating more fishing opportunities by extending seasons or removing unnecessary season closures where there aren ’ t sustainability issues to native fish populations. ” The proposed regulation changes are part of the ministry ’ s new ecological framework for recreational fisheries management in Ontario announced last year. This includes managing fisheries on a zone by zone rather than on an individual lake basis and reducing the number of fishing divisions to 20 zones from the current 37. The ministry has also set out recommended seasons, creel and size limits for all regulated sport fish species for 2007 in the new zones. These are very extensive changes in our Ontario fishing regulations and we at S.S.A. and O.F.A.H. are urging all anglers to be heard on the proposed regulations that will come into effect January 1, 2007. We are recommending that anglers should visit the Ministry of Natural Resources website or follow the links from www.ofah.org, and determine how the changes will affect conservation and recreational opportunities in their favourite fishing locations. It ’ s important that anglers of all ages tell the Ministry of Natural Resources how they feel about the proposed fishing regulations and share those comments with the O.F.A.H. Bill Douglas, President Report On Meeting with the Minister Report on February 17 2006 meeting between Honourable David Ramsey, Natural Resources Minister/Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and select Media The first question I asked the minister was why the public has been denied a look at the new five year agreement between the MNR and the two local reserves here on the Lake Huron shoreline. That's the Cape Croker and Saugeen bands of course. Furthermore, why had a request by LHFC President Jim Beange to see a copy the agreement through the Freedom of Information Act been denied? The Minister checked with one of his staff and confirmed that the FOI act request had indeed been denied and since appealed by Jim Beange. The appeal is pending. To fill in a little background, local angling clubs and other stakeholders were promised that they would be allowed some input before the five year agreement was signed. At a meeting held at the Sydenham Sportsmen's Association last spring and attended by media reps, local politicians and representatives from South Western Ontario angling organizations gathered to meet with MNR staff members, some shocking news was admitted by the MNR staff. This information was that the agreement had already been signed and that the people who prepared lengthy policy statements and traveled there had wasted their time. Minister Ramsey said that the agreement shouldn't be considered public property as it was a constitutional issue. He went on to state that if we wanted to know what was in the agreement, all we had to do was look in the last agreement where at the end, ten issues had not been resolved by the previous government but had been promised to be addressed when negotiating the new one. Since, stated the minister, he had inherited these issues, his staff addressed them in discussions of the new agreement with native bands and reached a resolution. The statement then from other media reps attending was: Since the statement left the public with no information on how the issues were resolved, just that the two parties had reached an agreement, the information was useless. When I asked once again why sports anglers and other stakeholders were not allowed to express their concerns, the Minister replied that the MNR were well aware of the concerns and opinions of sports anglers and needed no further input. More to follow. Grant in Bruce County NATIVE AFFAIRS We still have not heard what is in the Indian commercial fishing agreement. The government said that there were items in the agreement that could compromise the government's ability to manage the fishery. Think about it, what does this mean? The government did promise to give us a condensed "reader's digest" summary, but we don't even have that. Jim Beange of the Lake Huron Fishing Club went after a copy of the agreement under Freedom of Information and has been turned down twice. The OFAH is making an all-out effort to get some information for us and will supply it to us if and when they manage to acquire it. A major issue right now is the Indian gillnets that have been set right near shore at the Craigleith rock shelves, a highly-productive rainbow trout fishing area. If this keeps up, it has the potential to destroy the rainbow trout runs on the Beaver, Silver and Pretty rivers. Rainbow spawning runs follow near-shore routes and are extremely vulnerable to gillnets. The MNR has been advised of this and say that the Indians were fishing legally according to the agreement. At the time of writing, it is unknown if the problem still exists. If it comes up again, we sportsmen should raise unholy hell. Blake Smith . Fisheries Advisory Committee The recent storms hasn‘t slowed down our hatchery operations or our volunteers. We are fortunate with our hatchery to have a source of naturally flowing water so the power shut downs has little disruption except for interrupting the electronic feeders. The rainbow trout ranging in size from 2 to 5 inches are looking very good. About 21,000 were stocked out to Harrison Park in January which gives the left overs more swimming room. The chinooks are keeping our volunteers busy cleaning the troughs and picking out the dead stock. The Chinook have a funny way of lying on the bottom of the troughs as if dead until you disturb them when they start to swim off. At this stage in there development they are pretty much the same size around 1 inch. The browns, a little over half an inch, seem to be coming on strong and will need a little more room soon. Mike Prevost F.A.C Chairman FORESTS -WILDLIFE -WETLANDS On February l6th, your correspondent saw more than 40 robins north of Leith. They were associated with a very large flock of starlings. Both starlings and robins are opportunistic feeders and there is a fair crop of fruit-bearing sumac and buckthorn still available. This should hold the robins until more food is available in warmer weather. So, in spite of the cold, stormy weather, signs of spring are here. Our recent big snowstorms, with high winds and deep fluffy snow, have been hard on the turkeys -they can't walk in it or take off from it. Any periodic thaws will help by putting icy skin topside that would allow them to walk. The easy winter up until recently should have left them with enough energy reserves to come through all right. The recent heavy snows in February have had a very definite effect on deer movement. Your correspondent has revisited areas where there were heavy signs of deer crossing public roads. Now the evidence shows that deer movement has virtually stopped. If you wish to help the deer, use snowshoes or snowmobiles to pack trails from the coniferous areas to food species such as dogwood. Should reporting on the cormorant issue come from the wildlife committee or the fisheries committee? I don't suppose it really matters, so here goes with a rather significant piece of information taken from the Western Manitoulin Recorder. The united fish and game clubs of Manitoulin obtained Dr. John Casselman's cormorant/fishery information under the Freedom of Information Act. Casselman's report showed conclusively that cormorant numbers are having a very significant effect on near-shore fish populations in Georgian Bay. So, the secrecy has been blown wide open. Now we will find out whether or not McGuinty's government will listen to fishermen and rural Ontario, or will instead cater to the bleeding heart, vote-rich megalopolis south of Highway 7. We should be thinking about inviting Dr. Casselman to address the fishermen, outfitters and politicians in our area. The Forests-Wildlife-Wetlands committee had a meeting recently. We reviewed the past year's activities and agreed to our upcoming 2006 projects. The new projects have been submitted to MNR for funding under CFWIP. We will be asking members for volunteer time -planting, fencing, watering, mulching, staking, as well as our kids' activities. We look forward to another productive year of conservation-related activities. The Toronto Star recently ran a map of southern Ontario, showing the number of legal firearms per district. The areas around Orillia had more guns registered than anywhere else 47 per 100 households. Counties such as Hastings, Niagara, Simcoe, Oxford and Wellington were "veritably bristling with guns". Lots of registered guns, but these areas did not show many gun-related problems. Now comes the kicker -the heart of Toronto that is having all the problems with shooters has two or less guns registered per l00 households. Lots of shooting -but almost no guns registered. Is something wrong here? The provincial Liberals and the City of Toronto are staunch defenders of registration of all guns, when their problem is with handguns that the criminals will never, never register. Of course, it is the hope of McGuinty and Miller that they will appear to be doing something in order to fool the public into thinking that something will actually be accomplished. The downside of the Star's map is that it will identify areas of high legal ownership. This will be of immense benefit to thieves who wish to work in areas where they know there are lots of guns. Of course, this would only be of use to gun thieves who have not yet hacked or bought their way into the computerized registration system or obtained information from storekeepers, registers that must be filled out when ammunition is purchased. Yes indeed, something is very wrong with the whole system. On the upside, there are news reports that MP Gary Breitkreuz will work with the Justice Minister and the Public Security Minister "to figure out how to kill the long gun registry". We can only hope. Blake Smith, Chairperson Forests, Wildlife and Wetlands Advisory Committee.
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© 2001, Sydenham Sportsmen's Association |