You’d think it would be impossible for the first of the frost-spangled months spelled with ber-rrr to sneak up on sportsmen, particularly hunters. Yet September does, year after year. That won’t be the case, however, when in three days the calendar turns to the ninth month of 2004. The reason being that sportsmen statewide and beyond have their sights set on Sept. 18, the date of the Bear-Campaign Banquet aimed at defeating the referendum to ban bear trapping, bear baiting, and hunting bears with hounds.

Sponsored by the Maine Fish and Wildlife Conservation Council, otherwise known as the bear-campaign coalition, the fund-raiser banquet will be held at the Augusta Civic Center. The fee for reserving a seat at the magnum event – by far the biggest and most important sportsmen’s rally ever organized in this state – is $100. Allowing that the remaining tickets will sell fast now that autumn is in the air, people planning to be among the 1,000 or more expected to attend the banquet shouldn’t delay putting their checks in the mail. Tickets can be ordered via the form provided in the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine’s monthly magazine or by calling the coalition office: 1-888-837-4426.

Starting time for the well-planned soiree is 4 p.m. A cash bar and hors d’oeuvres featuring bear-meat salami will be followed by an ambrosial all-you-can-eat buffet dinner beginning at 6:30. The drawing of door prizes and raffle items will add to the dining pleasure of all present; not to mention the silent auction offering 200 pieces of valuable merchandise, which closes at 7:30. Computer printouts of the winning bids will be distributed. At 8:30 or thereabouts, auctioneer Ed Leary will open the bidding on the first of 40 outstanding contributions comprising the live auction. Included are guided hunts, a bronze sculpture of a bear, a custom-made cedar-and-canvas canoe, original paintings, limited-edition prints, firearms, and an unusual taxidermy display featuring three bears enjoying a woodland pool and waterfall.

Considering its importance in providing financial munitions to fight and defeat the ballot initiative, the banquet is essentially a call to arms. In that context, it can be said that the purchase of each ticket is a shot critical to countering the impending assault of pro-referendum media advertisements paid for by national anti-hunting organizations. Simply put, television time is expensive. But TV ads that provide the public – particularly southern Maine’s large population of nonhunters – with factual information regarding bear hunting and bear management are paramount to defeating the referendum. Otherwise, its frontal attack on Maine’s hunting heritage will succeed and the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will be deprived of its only effective method of controlling the state’s increasing black bear population.

Not surprisingly, it has been said that the banquet’s $100 ticket fee is steep. In responding to that let me say I don’t count $100 as small change. Like most of us who have reached the age where we can’t blow out all the candles on our birthday cakes, I remember times when I hunted hard to scare up 100 bucks needed to register the wreck I was driving or to take the dog to the vet. Nowadays, though, I’m as guilty as the next guy in purchasing hunting and fishing equipment that I actually don’t need. So I ask you, how much skinning and scraping would it actually take to peel the price of a banquet ticket from your budget?

I can start by admitting that I don’t really need another dozen Canada goose field decoys to go with the dozens I have. Come to think of it, I really don’t need the discussion that would follow the inevitable question, “You’re not buying more decoys are you?” Likewise, why buy a custom-made duck call selling to the tune of $125 when you know it won’t turn any more flocks than your necklace of instruments turned out by Olt and Faulk. And do you really need new raingear or just think you do? Accordingly, why buy new waders or hip boots at $100 or more each when a gob of Goop will make either pair as good as new? And let’s face it, that clutched-and-geared, multiple-retrieve, star-drag reel you’ve been eyeballing at the sports shop won’t catch any more stripers or blues than the spinning reel you’ve been using for years. Besides, if you buy it, you’ll have to buy a rod for it.

So think about it: Considering what’s at stake in this blatantly anti-hunting, anti-trapping, anti-Maine referendum, none of us can afford not to support the Bear-Campaign Banquet. Not for the sake of $100 that we’d spend on something of far less value and importance. Look at it this way: When the referendum is defeated, you’ll be able to say you put your money where your mouth is in defending your hunting heritage. Not to mention participating in a sportsmen’s rally the likes of which has never been seen in this state, or for that matter, in New England. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Make no mistake about it, Sport, if we don’t pay now we’ll pay a bigger price later – and we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.

Tom Hennessey’s columns and artwork can be accessed on the BDN Internet page at www.bangornews.com. Tom’s e-mail address is: thennessey@bangordailynews.net. Website is: www.tomhennessey.com.