Christmas parties and fisheries meetings

Christmas is just a little over a week away. The usual invitations to various holiday parties have been in place for a few weeks now. I was invited to two different gatherings and managed to make one. There might be a third invitation coming but that remains to be seen.

The party I missed was held in Talkeetna and was sponsored by the Upper Susitna Shooters Association. This was their annual gathering to thank their volunteer range safety officers (RSOs) for the times they spent during 2023 operating the shooting range and maintaining the grounds and range equipment. Because of other situations I needed to deal with this past summer, I never made the trip to the range for either shooting or RSO work. Since I hadn’t made any contributions to the range operations, I didn’t think I needed to be thanked.

The event was scheduled for a Saturday afternoon. That particular Saturday saw snowy and inclement weather with associated nasty road conditions. I opted to stay home because I wasn’t wanting to drive over one hundred miles round trip on questionable roads and, after the festivities, come home driving in the dark.

I’m not a huge fan of driving after dark anymore. As I get older and don’t have the need to drive after dark, I’m finding that, unless I really have to, I’d rather avoid doing so. As the area highways are being upgraded with more traffic lanes and lighting, I’m finding being able to see well to drive at night is getting easier, but it’s still not something I relish doing.

The party that I attended was held at Keith and Mary Mathais’ house here in Big Lake. Mary is president and Keith is secretary/treasurer of the Mt. McKinley Mountain Men muzzleloading club. I only live maybe six miles from the Mathais home and, even though the weather was poor with snow that evening, I figured I could manage a twelve-mile round trip.

The Mathais’ have hosted this annual event for several years now. Mary puts a lot of effort into preparing a dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, two types of salads, Jello, pies, cookies, and ice cream. She is a fabulous cook, and everything was perfect. As usual, I ate too much!

After the meal was completed, Mary officiated over a short monthly club meeting and then the fun began. Folks had brought items they no longer needed or were using and donated them to the club. An auction was held, and the money raised goes to help pay insurance and other associated club costs.

I had brought a nice knife to donate. After placing it on the auction table, I had second thoughts and decided I really didn’t want to let go of the knife. It cost me a few bucks bidding to get the knife back, but I did. The club also benefited from my “donation” as well.

The auction items were varied. There were ax heads, tomahawks, round balls for cap-n-ball revolvers, a framed picture, a few other folding knives, an air-soft rifle, a pellet rifle, some patching and gun cleaning material, and other assorted items. I ended up buying my knife, a small pocketknife, a rigid plastic gun case, and an older wooden box.

I had spotted the wooden box when looking over the items on the auction table. As it turned out, the box was full of fly-tying equipment and materials. The person who had donated it had wanted to get into fly-tying, but after tying one fly, decided he would rather pursue other activities. The box is an “antique” wooden fishing tackle box which is no longer made. It had seen better days but is still quite serviceable.

I already had some fly-tying equipment and materials and had dabbled a little in tying flies. While I was primarily interested in the box, I figured using the fly-tying materials would only add to passing time in these slow winter months, and who knows, I might even catch a fish or two next summer using the flies I tie this winter.

The meeting the fish and wildlife commission had with ADF&G fisheries biologists last week went fairly well. The meeting started out a little rough with sport fishing guides taking Fish and Game to task for the poor fishery returns the Valley has seen over the past several years.

There was a lot of frustration vented by the guides, but I hope they realized that ADF&G has only so much control over biology.