Past meeting's Notes

From OKFC Wiki

[edit] May 2009 Meeting

We had a very special event and opportunity to take action to preserve and restore our resources. Greg Harrison of the CCA and who is also a club member came with Tara to tell us a bit about the oyster population in the Mosquito Lagoon and teach us how to build oyster mats. These mats are being placed in the Mosquito Lagoon and will enable live oysters to develop and restore the population. It was a great event, and we constructed a total of 50 mats, which is more than double what the CCA usually expects from such an event. We had an amazing amount of productivity. Thanks so much to everyone who participated.

What did you all think of the activity? Would you like to do it again? If you didn't get to attend but plan to attend meetings in the future, is this something you would like to do? Any other suggestions or ideas? My thought is that next time we'll push tables together in pairs so more club members can sit together to talk while we work.

[edit] April 2009 Meeting

No notes available

[edit] Febuary 2009 Meeting

We had a fantastic turnout at our meeting this past Tuesday at Gander Mountain with 38 people attending. Rod Price with the Friends of the Wekiva spoke about their organization and you can learn more at www.friendsofwekiva.org. We will be exhibiting and demonstrating at their upcoming Wekiva Riverfest on Saturday, March 7th from 10 am – 4 pm, so please volunteer to participate at our table. If you are interested please let me know via e-mail or respond on the appropriate thread on our forum.

We also discussed the upcoming rod building class at Mud Hole Tackle in Winter Springs. Final date is to be determined and we need a minimum of 10 people participating to confirm this event. Respond on the appropriate thread on our forum if you are interested.

We also spoke about the Tournament fund raiser for Ed Saccucci which is currently underway. It’s not too late to participate since the tournament ends February 15th. You can find information on this link, so please participate in this very good cause. http://tightlineskayaking.com/news/tournament.html

Lastly we spoke about a camping trip scheduled for Saturday, February 28th. Check our forum under the appropriate section and you’ll see the details, please post if you’re interested in attending. The campsite will be on a spoil island in the Mosquito Lagoon and about a 1 mile paddle from Riverbreeze Park.

[edit] January 2009 Meeting

Here’s a summary of our great meeting on Tuesday, January 13th at Mosquito Creek Outdoors in Apopka. First of all a very special thank you to Mosquito Creek Outdoors that stayed open late to host us. We were all impressed by the great array of food and beverages that they provided and appreciated hearing about a store that caters to our needs.

Captain Tom Van Horn also stepped into the kayak testing pool to demonstrate tactics for stalking and casting to fish, and this was quite informative for most club members. We can look forward to more hands-on types of demos in the future.

After Captain Tom’s demo we took time for everyone to formally introduce themselves so that we could associate a forum name with the person. Mike also spoke about his discussions with Mud Hole Rod Tackle so I will be coordinating a meeting with them in the future and if participation is sufficient they will host a custom rod building class for us. Please check out our forum for the details for this. A special thank you goes out to Mike for taking the initiative to contact Mud Hole and then coordinating with me. If you have suggestions for a guest speaker please let me know so I can include them in our schedule

Eric also spoke to us about the upcoming 4th annual Wekiva Riverfest which will be Saturday, March 7th from10:00 am to 4:00 pm. We look forward to exhibiting at that event and could use volunteers to help with our table. A special thank you to Eric for sharing this information and representing our club.

We adjourned the formal meeting at about 8:00 pm so members could talk and share knowledge during the second hour as well as shop Mosquito Creek with our 10% club discount. You can also count on a more interactive meeting format over this year because we can accomplish so much communication through our forum. We had a total of 33 attendees as this meeting so our participation and membership continues to grow. Thank you for your involvement to continue our success.

Please check out our forum for the details of all of these updates off of our main website at www.orlandokayakfishingclub.com and check for great information about the club on the website.

The fish in the Mosquito Lagoon asked the club to postpone our outing until next Saturday, January 24th because they said they would be too cold and not interested in eating this weekend. The native trout and redfish promised they would be active, prominent, and willing to participate next weekend so we agreed to accommodate their schedule. Launch will be at the Beacon 42 ramp.

[edit] November 2008 Meeting

A quick recap of our meeting last night at Bass Pro shops: The staff spoke to us about a number of new products including rods with a shorter handle that are made specifically for Kayaks. Be sure to check out our website to order your official kayak club shirt, and details on the pricing and delivery options are at http://www.orlandokayakfishingclub.com/. You can get them in time for Christmas!

We will be having our next outing this Friday, November 14th at the Beacon 42 ramp in the Merritt Island National Wildlife refuge in the evening to enjoy the shuttle launch and some night time fishing. This is very likely the last night shuttle launch ever so we hope to get a group picture. Details are on our website, and certainly check the forum for last minute updates and to post any questions. Note that due to the refuge closure you will need to enter from the north side.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, December 2nd at Bass Pro Shops again. Please visit the forum to post your feedback on the last meeting and location.

We will be having our Christmas pot-luck party on Tuesday, December 16th starting at 7 pm. Fee will be $8/person to pay for the facilities and you will also need to bring your own dish to share. Please check the forum for details and location on this as well.

Lastly I apologize to the new members who have been waiting for your account to become active on our forum. For some reason they were pending but I have activated them, so please feel welcome to access the forum and e-mail me if you have any other problems.

[edit] September 2008 Meeting

Capt Tom van Horn www.irl-fishing.com/ was our guest speaker on this evening of Wednesday the 3rd of September 2008. Tom Started by sharing with us that he has started up a local chapter of the Coastal Angler magazine www.camirl.com/. He brought a vision of expanding the knowledge of area fishermen thru articles that would have a careful catch & release culture of all the species. Many of the articles found in the magazine are written by true fishing guides and not professional journalist and reflect more of a love of what they do than commercial ventures that are available. This is grassroots journalism.

After that intro, Capt. Tom got into some great insights about different spots around the lagoons at this time of the year as well as some suggestions of different lures & retrieval techniques that would work well based on the fact that the mullet run is here & should last until the start of October. Look to hook into all sorts of species in the IRL, Ponce inlet and Sebastian as the feeding frenzy begins.

He also shared with us some tactics to deal with the grass that is all over the place at this time of the year. As the photo-period changes (Less light per day) the grasses began to die & break off. Great suggestions to know where to find the fish hiding to ambush prey.

That is the real treat when attending these meetings, the tips, stories & experiences of a guide such as Capt Tom come out. These are tidbits that I can’t even share here on the web…that would be like divulging your favorite hidden spot.

After that, Kirk began to go thru this month’s agenda. We handed out the OKFC stickers to the members that bought them on-line and began to sell the remaining stickers. With the sticker sales so far, the club now has enough seed money to move forward with the set-up costs on the embroidered Fishing Shirts. Thank you to all who contributed so far, so stick them on your yak or the back of your truck and represent your group proudly, the Orlando Kayak fishing club!

Next up was the cross club outing in Tampa. Bill haywood (aka Heywood) who is also part of our club was originally a mentor for Kirk to form OKFC. Bill and Kirk are proposing an outing at either /Ft. Desoto/ or /Simmons Park/. The poll is open on our forum for the location We will try to provide some additional info on the web site in the weeks to come on Camping/lodging info for the area. We all also putting together a plan of carpooling many of the members together to save on gas. Here’s Bill’ direct post:

/The date I had in mind was Sept 27 and the place was Simmons Park. For those that like to camp, we can get a group spot right next to the water and at a cheap price, practically free. If I tell the Park Ranger we have two clubs coming and we will do some fishing line clean-up, we get the spots really, really cheap. (This all depends on availability, lots of Boy Scout activity) Simmons Park is large enough for us to spread out and fish either the flats or up inside the park. The draw back is there are not a lot of hotel choices to pick from in this area. I think the closest nice hotel might be out in Sun City Center.//

The other idea was Fort Desoto. Good fishing, kind of crowded on the weekends, more hotel choices, less camping. The camping spots fill in really quickly; I think you have to make them a year in advance. It’s a bit further to drive as well. There will also be a tournament going on that day in that area.

We have a good tide that day at Simmons, Low at 7:30 am of .85 High at 1:40 pm of 2.20 Low at 8:17 pm of .53 Solunars Maj 10:25 am Maj 10:48 pm/

The poll was also open for the outing on the 13th. Taking into consideration the votes on the poll itself, we did a show of hands for those members at the meeting and almost unanimously Eddy’s creek to Whale tail won. View that at this time of the year winds are most likely come from the North-east Kirk felt that as an alternative we keep river breeze as a site B location as there are many island to shelter us from the winds with shallow passages that don’t permit the Flats boats to get in.

Since the agenda was completed we opened it up to general discussion and Stan had brought in many old lures that he sold garage sale style for a buck or two.