Presidents Report – April

President’s Report
Firstly, I would like to welcome Sam Reynolds, Kieran Baverstock, Karl Drager, and Nick Carnovale as new members to our Club. Please let yourself be known to them and make them feel at home.

Next, it is good to hear that John Spagne is on the steady road to recovery.

On a sadder note, I would to advise all that there will be a memorial service for Gareth Humphris in Corryong at 11.00am on Saturday 11th April. Gareth passed away recently in China and is the son of Kath Humphris. Please try and make it to this memorial service to help Kath through these hard times.

It also should be noted that the Club now has a new drinks fridge, with the old fridge being sold through the efforts of Russell Hook and Des Walters. This new fridge is more efficient and more economical to run so should reduce our electricity costs.

We had two activities scheduled for March. The first being a trip to Geehi which was cancelled due to insufficient numbers. The other was our annual fly fishing course. We have 15 participants including two Club members. This turned out to be an overwhelming success with some of the students successfully catching fish at the Bowler Lane weekend. Thanks to all that helped with tuition, casting, cooking, etc, especially John Hawkins for organising and running the successful course. We may even gain a few new members for the Club.

With Autumn now upon us, stream flows should be reducing and the fishing improving but this may not be the case for the Mitta Mitta River as flows have recently been increased due to a new release of water from the Dartmouth Dam.

The Wodonga Wine Makers Guild will be our guests at our April General Meeting on Wednesday 1st April. The Guild will be giving a presentation on making various wines from flowers, fruits, berries, vegetables and herbs. They will also be bringing along some samples for tasting and it will be up to our Club to supply some smoked trout and smoked
trout pate, with cheese and biscuits, to go with the wines. It should be a great educational and fun night for all.

Our next event in April will be our Beef and Reef Night on Saturday 11th. This is usually a great social night with prawns as entree, roast beef as the main and followed by some sweets. We will need to know numbers to organise the catering for this event, so please put your names down on the board or let us know by contacting either John Hawkins on
0418 267 805 or myself on 0401 219 986.

We also have our Broken Sage Competition Trip to Khancoban on 18-19 April. Accommodation has been arranged in a house at Khancoban for the weekend but you will need to bring your own bedding, towel, toiletries and self cater for food and drink. More information will be provided by Bob Chick, the trip captain, at our April GM. The Broken
Sage Competition is a random draw teams event, with the team catching the most number of trout being the winners.
This is usually a catch and release fun event based on the anglers honesty. For a fish to be counted it must be over 250mm long and the angler needs to at least touch the fish. Don’t forget to put your name down on the board so you won’t miss out.

Coming up in May we have:
Russell Mason as our guest speaker at the General Meeting on the 6th, talking on his  top-end fishing trips and fishing.
Jim Baumgurtel visiting on Friday night 15th May, displaying and selling his fly fishing gear.
The joint Wangaratta Greenwells Trip on 23-24 May, staying at Russ Davie’s Kinder Cottage in Talbingo, and hopefully fishing the Eucumbene River spawning run.

We have also organised David Anderson as our guest speaker for this year’s Annual Dinner. David is an accomplished and published photographer and will give a presentation on how to capture your favourite fishing moments for prosperity.

Firm strikes, Jeff Baldock.