|
|
Hi
and Welcome to our Club’s web-site. My name is Drew Smith and thanks for
checking out our home on the world wide web. The club has many moving parts and
seems to grow each year. We think we have a great thing going and look forward
to many more years. I have been hunting Delaware and Maryland for 35 years. I
started with my father in Port Penn and hunted virtually everywhere in the State
of Delaware. With the boom in the goose population on the Eastern Shore and the
liberalized limits, I added Maryland. I was fortunate to hunt places like: Still
Pond, Betterton, Chestertown and Centreville. I had several leases through the
nineties but the prices of leases limited my hunting to small groups of friends
where we controlled only one farm. This afforded us a few good days and a few
bad ones and certainly not the depth and variety of hunting that Delmar offers.
Worse, our little groups were over if the farm ever changed hands. The idea of a
large pool of farms minimizes this risk. Wanting to expand my waterfowl hunting
opportunities, I was a member of another club. Through that experience I
confirmed that the club concept is a very valid way to combat the rising cost of
leasing farms. A club also, expands the number of places available to hunt and
perhaps best of all, a club provides opportunities to meet some like minded
individuals that enjoy the same things I do, WATERFOWL HUNTING.
We
have had some great years in the past and looking forward to many more. My goal
in this club is to have access to great properties and have a good time.
Waterfowl hunting is often a group sport and nothing is better than to share it.
Some of the key points behind the formation of this club are:
Finances: I will not make any money with this club. We will operate with
completely open books. Signed leases, membership revenues and all club expenses
are available for review. I will prepare statement at the end of the year for
all to review. If there is any excess, it will be reimbursed equally among the
club members with the financial statement at the end of the year.
Open door policy: Everyone that knows me will agree that I am approachable. When
we have an issue, I promise to address it immediately in a mature, thoughtful
manner. I will actively seek all opinions and use my best judgment to resolve
any conflicts. I want to make major decisions in a joint manner. While it is not
possible to vote on every issue, I will listen to everyone's opinion. I also
actively solicit member’s opinions and modify the club accordingly.
Daily Club Management: I have a job and it is not running a club. Everyone will
be treated as an adult and I will assume that every member has an interest in
the clubs success. I will not be monitoring everyone’s use on a daily basis and
I will assume that everyone is following the rules until proven wrong. Penalties
for breaking rules are proportionate to the severity and intent.
Equal Access: Every member will have equal access to all of the hunting
properties. There will be no favorites in the club. The best way to do this is
to provide a full and complete description of each property, in writing before
the season starts. We will use this site to log-in for hunts. Thus, I will not
get calls everyday and all of the other members will know where everyone is
hunting on a real-time basis. Jointly, we will devise a method to share the
premier locations with all the members to ensure access is fair.
Work
Days: Our time is valuable and the work days will be productive. Plans will be
made in advance and the proper, quality tools and materials will be provided in
advance. While we will work hard it should also be enjoyable. I will ask many of
you to help me make it fun. We all have different skill levels and talents. I
will try my best to match everyone with an appropriate task on the group days. I
will also provide a list of tasks that can be completed at anytime by an
individual as well as tasks that can be done off-site.
Club Size: The club will be large. I am going to limit the size to a number that
is manageable, yet large enough to pool our resources effectively in order to
lease a large number of properties. Advertising will not be necessary;
therefore, most of the website will not be available to the public. I believe
the web and frequent meetings will foster teamwork rather than competition. The
social aspects of the club should not be minimized and there will always be
someone available to join you on a hunt.
Self-Service: There are no guided hunts in this club. I expect this site to
assist the membership in self-assigning themselves in smaller groups. While it
is possible to do solo hunts, I am not going to encourage this on a regular
basis because to manage our properties for quality hunts, it is often necessary
to “rest” a field or blind.
Facilities & Equipment: The barn, shop, club house and apartments are key parts
of the club. The equipment and decoys are top quality. We must take care of it
so that it is available for many years.
A Final Note: This type of club is not for everyone. We will work together so we
may all share some great waterfowl hunting experiences. It is not likely that
any member will hunt the best blind by themselves for the entire season. It's a
club, get to know the other members and have fun.
We offer: Delaware Duck Hunting, Delaware Canada Goose Hunting, Delaware Snow
Goose Hunting, Delaware Waterfowl Hunting, Delaware Deer Hunting, Delaware Dove
Hunting, Maryland Duck Hunting, Maryland Canada Goose Hunting, Maryland
Waterfowl Hunting, Maryland Whitetail Deer Hunting, and Maryland Sika Deer
Hunting.
The 2006-2007 Season Summary
We really pulled one off this season. WOW, what a year. I can’t say enough about
the quality of the current group of members. I have made some great friends that
will last a very long time. I am very happy the club leased new farms because we
never would have got some many great new people in the club. For our second year
we did a lot of things right. I think we at the right size now and I will only
trade up farms rather than add lot’s of new locations.
What can I say about dove hunting this year everyone had plenty of great hunts.
Members were telling me that they had never seen anything like that in our area
in the last 20 years. In the first three days of the dove season our members
took 1,400 doves. That is not a typo. Our secret was preparation and lots of
hard work before the season started. We will consolidate seven smaller sunflower
fields into three of the very best locations while keeping the same total acres
planted.
We hosted the Delaware State Calling Contest for the second year. Attendance was
over 400 and we had multiple vendors for the first time. Prizes were larger and
we expanded our facilities. We had several club events including a Summer BBQ,
DU Volunteer Day, Spring Dinner Meeting at the Chestertown Elks, Season Kick-off
BBQ and other smaller events.
We were fortunate to have a prime field in sweet corn this year and we had
several good resident goose hunts. Again on the opener, we took over 50 geese in
the rain. We did very few snow goose hunts during the Canada season. A few
members put smaller ones on, but the hunting was tough.
Our raised mallards were a great success and again were taken all season long.
Diver duck hunting was fair in spite of the weather. Overall, duck hunting was
average due to the warm weather. Several of the new properties were great
including Cambridge and Madison. We had some outstanding hunts on the ponds and
a few good field hunts for ducks. One pond was responsible for over 400 ducks
taken.
Many more trophy bucks were taken this year. QDM is really beginning to yield
results. We also took a large number of does. We had several hunters take
multiple deer. Best of all, everyone that hunted regularly, did well. Our deer
plots did very well and the increased efforts will be paying dividends for many
years to come. We hung over 100 stands and expect to expand this amount next
year. We used a ratio of 2.25 deer hunting sections for each member that seemed
reasonable and worked well.
Canada goose hunted was excellent for most of the season. While there were a few
bad days, we continued to rotating our fields. We expanded the number of big
rigs from one to three. When we had weather, we had geese.
The lodge was busy, yet fun on the busy days. We acquired more decoys to go
along with the increase in members. We continued to expand our facilities and
equipment purchases including a few new trailers. We built another impoundment
and plan to build several more in the off—season. We build several new blinds
and dug new pits.
We ended up the season planting all of our own impoundments, dove fields and
deer food plots. Everything came up well and the extra effort ensured it would
be ready when the season opened. We ended tilling almost 120 acres and the plan
for the next season is 200 acres.
Thanks to everyone for the hard work and I am looking forward to our upcoming
spring work days when we start to get ready for the next season.
Take Care and see you next year,
Drew Smith
President
DelMar Waterfowl Club
Copyright 2007 DelMar Waterfowl Club,
All Rights Reserved.
Info: 302-528-1203 or
info@delmarwaterfowl.com
