14th Annual
Michigan Duck Hunters Association
Saginaw Bay Waterfowl Festival

August 1 & 2, 2009
Saturday 10AM-6PM & Sunday 9AM-4PM
Bay City State Recreation Area
Additional information is available by visiting the events section of our forums located here.

 

Other news: Outdoorama booth a huge success
Written by members of the Webfoot Internet Chapter of MDHA

The Webfoot Chapter of MDHA arranged and sponsored a booth at the Outdoorama show in Novi, Michigan in late February. Thanks to everybody who stopped by and said hello. It's good to be able to put faces with screen names, and just to meet people who are waterfowl enthusiasts.

The goal for the weekend was to get kids involved, or at least interested, in waterfowl and wetland preservation. It appears that we reached that goal, as we sent 60 wood duck boxes home over the course of the weekend - most of them with the kids who built them at the show. The kids really loved building the boxes. Unfortunately, we had many more kids wanting to build a box than we had materials to build them. In fact, we ran out of wood three times! Kudos go to Webfoot Chapter President, Brandon Yuchasz, and newly-elected Secretary, Brad Van Dike, who spent the evenings after the show cutting up boards for the next day’s construction projects. Between them, they cleaned out three Home Depot stores of 1"x10"s!!! It's dedication like that for the sake of the next generation of hunters that gives us hope for the future of duck hunting. If just half of the boxes built at the show get put out correctly, and half of those get occupied, and half of those have successful hatches, we'll have more wood ducks around this fall. More importantly, we saw a TON of kids who were interested in learning about waterfowl, and their parents who were willing to take the time to ask about how they should properly put out and care for their boxes. Hopefully this involvement and curiosity will translate down the road into new waterfowl hunters, or at least into people who support wetland preservation and waterfowl habitat.

The Webfoot Chapter sponsored the booth, but had AWESOME support from other chapters. Special thanks to Brad Van Dike and his wife, Monica, and Brandon Yuchasz and his wife, Laura, for putting this all together and making sure the booth was well planned out and well staffed. As President of the Webfoot chapter, Brandon took on much of the organizing responsibilities, showing that he certainly is not afraid to take on a project and do the work himself. And let’s not forget the work that Laura did. Laura has the patience of a saint. And their kids Michael and Maddy, who were a big help, deserve thanks too. I think we might have built an extra 15 wood duck boxes because of their efforts!!!! You guys are great! Thanks to Doug Gradin from the Webfoot Chapter for all of your help with setup, teardown, and all the work in between. You took a ton of the burden off others shoulders. Thanks also to your daughters, who were a big help too. Webfoot Vice President, Don Gilmore, and his wife, Carol, were also a huge help in keeping the booth staffed. Thanks to Neil Duffey for his efforts and donations. Unfortunately, we were not able to sign up a lifetime member from his work, but your donation will not go to waste. To the individuals of the Bluewater Chapter…Gary Stellmach, Ken Ball, Ken Martin and family… Thanks for everything. Ken and Gary manned the booth at times and helped kids build a LOT of boxes. And Ken proved that if you blew a duck or goose call at the show you could actually get PEOPLE to decoy right in! Who knew? The Bluewater Chapter also provided an MDHA banner for us, and a nice taxidermy mount of a hen woodie inside a nesting box with a drake up on top (see picture), as well as hats and stickers which were a hit, and were sold out well before the show ended. By the way, the majority of new members that we signed up were for the Blue Water Chapter, so your efforts paid off for your chapter as well. MDHA Duck Stamp Program Coordinator, Mike Driver, also lent his help and moral support at the booth. Thanks to Mike for bringing in the stamps, handling the memberships, taking care of the banner, and keeping people interested. There were several other Webfooters who we’re definitely not forgetting who helped as well. Thanks to all who helped out, and my apologies for not naming each and every one of you. Let's do it again next year!!!