Dates for sportsmen to remember

If you’ve noticed swamp maples tinting scarlet, sumacs smoldering along the edges of fields and spiders in your house, you know the first of the months ending with “ber-rrr” is only a week away. If that doesn’t remind you it’s time to start working your bird dog into shape, not to mention yourself, or that your duck decoys need new lines and swivels, surely the following announcements of upcoming autumn sportsmen’s banquets will.

The first to arrive came from the Mid-Maine Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation. After hatching in Rockland a year or so ago, the fledgling chapter is off the nest and flying with plans for its first Superfund Turkey Banquet on Thursday, Sept. 21. The gunning grounds for the fund-raising event is Rockland’s well-known Samoset Resort.

For sure, the banquet will contribute to the National Wild Turkey Restoration Project. However, the majority of the proceeds will support the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s program to restore wild turkeys to historical habitats throughout Maine and re-establish hunting seasons for the incredibly wary birds.

For a $40 ticket, single “toms” or “hens” can flock to the Samoset, beginning at 6 p.m., for an evening of refreshments, dinner, door prizes, raffle and auction items. Pairs can follow the same tracks for $60. Understand, though, the fees include one year’s membership in the National Wild Turkey Federation. Also, if you purchase a ticket before Sept. 21, you’ll receive $20 worth of free raffle tickets. Suffice it to say, chances are when you return to your roost you won’t be “skunked.”

Actually, the forthcoming banquet isn’t the Mid-Maine Chapter’s first attempt at scratching up money. Its Spring Raffle, that bagged the chapter nearly $1,200, was a success in every sense of the word. Considering that the raffle prizes included a shotgun, 25 pounds of lobster and a generous gift certificate from L.L. Bean, it was obvious the committees didn’t waste much time strutting, so to speak.

Besides the Mid-Maine Chapter, the NWTF has produced two other flocks in this neck of the woods. Namely, they are the State Chapter and the York County Beards and Spurs. From what I’ve heard, calls for new members are being answered steadily, and well they should be. Nowadays, through the conservation efforts of the NWTF, every state except Alaska has populations of the grand game birds.

For more information about the Mid-Maine Chapter of the NWTF, contact Bud Doughty, 594-7163, or Guy Lomabardo, 596-6534.

Drawing a bead on the same date, Sept. 21, for its annual banquet and auction is the Down East Chapter of Ducks Unlimited. It doesn’t seem possible, but this year’s soiree, which again will be held at the Bangor Motor Inn Conference Center on the Hogan Road, is the chapter’s 24th annual fund-raising event.

Needless to say, the plumages of “drakes” who established the chapter back in 1971 are showing gray. In fact, the drakes themselves aren’t quite as colorful as they were back then.

Greeting calls will welcome you to the social hour at 5:30 p.m. followed by feeding chatter at a buffet dinner an hour later. Judging from the auction items – for starters, shotguns, decoys, “fowl weather” gear, limited-edition prints – it’s safe to say there’ll be some limits bagged from that “evening flight.”

Tickets are $35 for singles, $50 for pairs. The prices include a year’s membership for singles, but for only one of a pair. To guarantee a place in the blind, get yours early at Van Raymond Outfitters, Daniel P. Duff Associates, Old Town Trading Post, Winterport Boot Shop. For further information contact Harold Gerow, 945-3545, Tom Duff, 989-6082, Steve Parker, 989-6492.

Since its inception in 1937, when waterfowl populations were wilting as a result of the “dust bowl ’30s,” DU raised more than $645 million for waterfowl-habitat conservation and enhancement projects throughout North America. In this country alone, more than 1,000 such projects have been completed. It’s estimated that the projects support more than 600 species of wildlife, including threatened and endangered species.

In both of these announcements, the message is clear: if not for conservation-minded hunters, many species of wildlife – including non-game species – would no longer exist in this country.