Meeting Minutes 11/18/2016

All,

Our Nov meeting was held at Sonoita Steakout 17 Nov from 6:30 – 9:00.  Our new audio visual equipment worked well ensuring all could see and hear well.

Gambels and scaled quail have been somewhat scarce but some have had decent success.  Mearns opens 2 Dec and will likely be decent.

I provided a status of our financials.

Dave Brown provided an update on banquet planning.  Our banquet will be 4 Feb at the Sonoita fairgrounds.  He is working with Steve to pick a menu and caterer.  We are leaning towards prime rib.  He will be looking for help to line up donations and sponsors.

Tom Sullivan provided an update on our water for wildlife project.  A total of 30 fence partitions were assembled and welded this week for installation in Dec on Sands Ranch Conservation property.  Thanks to Mike Lyons for his help.  Tom will need help from 3-5 people 6, 7 & 8 Dec installing these panels.  Contact him at 970.846.1268 if you can help.

Nick is working to put our youth hunt together and will give a presentation at our Dec meeting.  Youth hunt is planned 4 Mar.

Ron Walp is leading our highway cleanup scheduled 30 Nov at 9:00.  Meet at the Hog Canyon entrance off Hiway 82.  Wear long sleeves and bring gloves.  Should take 2 hours or less.  Contact Ron at 623.680.9724.  This work is intended to build a better relationship with neighbors going into Hog Canyon to keep access open.

We are about half way through our gun raffle at Sportsman Warehouse where we have had many opportunities to engage potential new members.  The gun raffle will complete prior to our banquet.  We will be at Sportsman 17, 18 and 19 Nov with future dates TBD.

Randy Babb was our guest speaker from AZGFD.  He is a biologist and the author of  Hunting Arizona’s Small Game.  He presented a very interesting update on the Masked Bobwhite Quail in Arizona and Sonora.

If you have not done so, recommend you take a look at our updated website at www.saquailforever.com .  We are working to keep it current.  If you go to the bottom right of the home page you can sign up for email notifications to the blog which will give you an update when something has changed.  It is not a spam engine and you can allows opt out later if you don’t like it.  We are also more active on Facebook, take the time to friend us if you use Facebook.

Please drop me a line or give me a call if you have ideas or want to help.  Give me your ideas on future guest speakers that can talk hunting, dogs, land access or other subjects you believe other members would enjoy.