The Delmar Waterfowl Club-- Delaware and Maryland Waterfowl Hunting, Duck Hunting, Canada Goose Hunting, Snow Goose Hunting, Whitetail and Sika Deer Hunting, and Dove Hunting.

Now taking deposits for the 2012-2013 seasons!

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.

2008-2009 Season Summary

What a fun year! No too many big changes. As in years past we added some
farms and gave up some farms.

Great opener this year and a lot of fun with members pitching in for the
lunch. We expanded the number of dove fields this year and had a lot of
good hunts. In the first three days of the dove season we harvested
2,600 doves. We spent a great deal of time working on these farms and
made a serious upgrade in the equipment. Bobby made a huge impact and
the members did not have to shoulder all the work associated with
planting.

We hosted the Delaware State Calling Contest for the third year and
broke the event into two days. Attendance was over 550 and we had
multiple vendors for the first time. We had a nice retriever event and
had Delmarva Dock Dogs hold a regional event during the festival.
Members had a great time watching all of the different events and
participating in many. We had several club events including a Summer
Crab Boil and our meetings were separated this year for waterfowl and
deer.

We were fortunate to have a several fields in sweet corn this year and
we had many more good resident goose hunts. Lot's more snow goose hunts
this year. With the extended season and liberal laws permitting e-caller
we saw more interest and a much larger harvest.

We did not attempt to raise ducks this year to focus on wild ducks and
habitat projects. Diver duck hunting was fair in spite of the weather.
Overall, duck hunting was better this than last due to the cold weather.
This will always be our area of focus. The Milton Blinds were a nice
addition as was the blind on the Langford River.

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 120 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.
The balance between the states was more slated to Delaware which we will
have to work on in the future. We strive to keep the cost down and
Maryland has historically been more expensive.

Canada goose hunted was excellent for most of the season. While there
were a few bad days, we continued to rotating our fields. We big rig in
Delaware was a huge success.

The lodge was busy, yet fun on the busy days. We built more decoys
(especially for the big rigs) and continued to expand our facilities and
equipment purchases including another new trailer.

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 215 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

The 2007-2008 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.