Downtown Bass Anglers of Durham Region

Happy New Year to all, I hope that 2011 will be very healthy and prosperous for everyone!

First of all I would like to welcome Greg Yurkoski to the club and also to welcome back past members Carey Miller and Mike Gray, its great to see the club membership growing.

I would like to thank last years executive, Mike Graham, Greg King and Greg Siblock for their hard work and their dedication to the club, you all contributed in making 2010 one of the clubs best years.

I would like to thank Glenn Meek and Mike Santoro for taking on new roles on the club executive and hopefully with fresh ideas and input from all the members we can make 2011 an even better year.

I would like to congratulate Jay Martin on another dominating performance in winning the AOY title for the 3rd time in 6 years.

I would also like to thank Al Bolduc for the use of his BBQ at the club tournaments and for all the time he spent barbequing after most of the tournaments. I would also like to thank Jana Crawford for her help with Wil Wegman's presentation and for the slide show at the December meeting. I also want to thank Buck Tytler for listening to me ramble at times after a few meetings to get things off my chest, and for his help with other aspects with the club. Most of all I would just like to say thank you to each and every member who has stuck with the club through a very difficult time last winter, to those who have come back into the club after a few years of absence and to all the new members who have joined over the past year. I hope you enjoyed the club and I am looking forward to another great year

Now for a brief recap: I think we had some amazing speakers at the club this past year, Brad Arnott, Greg Roth from BlueWater Optics, Mike and Mary Nabulsi from Bass Magnet Lures, John Noel and Derek Strub from Hummingbird and Minn Kota, Rob Webster, Tom Chopin from Koppers Live Target Lures, Bob Stirling, Mark Kulik and Carey Miller from St. Croix Rods, Steven Jenkins and Josh Westerink, Wil Wegman, Rocky Crawford and Ed Danyluk with Carey Miller from Optima Batteries. Carey was very instrument in acquiring the Ardent reels for the club, the free St. Croix Mojo rods for our raffles, the batteries, jacket and boat cleaning products for the club and for the AOY. A great big thank you should go out to all members who supported the club by purchasing raffle tickets for the rods and the 50/50 draws which in part allowed us to provide the food at the December meeting, purchase coolers, a BBQ, and a proper scale for next years tournaments.

2011 is looking very promising as well with 23 new and past members already signed up and hopefully we can retain most or all of 2010's membership. We are hosting a family ice-fishing day on January 9th ( 32 people attending at last count), a tackle swap on January 23rd with at least 12 tables rented so far, a free booth at the Spring Fishing Show from Feb.18th to the 21st, I have had initial talks with Dave Chong about Bass Talk 2011 to be held on March 5 ( speakers should be announced shortly), a Shimano night at our January 10th meeting with a Shimano Crucial rod to be raffled off at the next 5 meetings. Mike and Mary are coming back at the March meeting and we are currently working on a presentation about the various weeds in our lakes and how they all affect fishing patterns. I have also finally started to figure out how to update the website and have made many changes in the past few days and will start updating member profiles one at a time starting next week. I have posted all the pictures that I have so if anyone has pictures to add please send them to me. I am looking for ideas for future speakers or topics at this years meetings so if there is a topic you would like discussed or a speaker that you would like to hear please let me know.

In closing I would like to say thank you for all the help that I have received over the past year from so many members as I had no idea what I was getting into, it has been a real eye-opener for me and I have met allot of new friends and learned allot(who says you can't teach an old dog something new). Thanks to Mark Frey and Jay Martin for believing in me enough to turn over the reigns and allow me to become president of this club it is been a privilege to be a part of such a great group of people.

Sincerely,

Chris

Awesome job guys! This club just gets better every year!

Hope to see you on the water soon.

Tight Lines,

Mark.

Mark Frey at January 23, 2011 at 6:59 PM

Awesome job guys! This club just gets better every year!

Hope to see you on the water soon.

Tight Lines,

Mark.

Good stuff with the work Chris!