On Friday, October 26th, 2018, members of the Bruce Peninsula Sportsmen’s Association (BPSA) successfully stocked 28,000 Brown Trout near Wiarton Marina in the clear waters of Colpoy’s Bay in South West Georgian Bay.
In total, we have stocked 120-thousand brown and rainbow trout this year. The brown trout were hatched and
reared at the BPSA Hatchery near Wiarton. The very dry summer of 2018 played havoc with the hatchery water supply. Thankfully a neighbouring club, the Sydenham Sportsmen’s Association (SSA) pitched in and took over raising our fish for the past couple of months until they were planted by BPSA volunteers.
Kudos go out to the SSA and to Jeff Hammill and his crew at the Wiarton Marina for providing a stocking site with hydro, during one of the marina’s busiest times of the year. This is just one example of great inter-club cooperation as well as the continued support of businesses like the Wiarton Marina. By stepping up for BPSA both organizations are helping promote conservation and a great renewable “put-and-take” sports fishery.
The BPSA stocking crew consisted of Al Sutter, Gord Smith, Murray Garniss, Ray Marklevitz, Kevin Harders, Dennis Morton and Al Hunter. Since the sixties this respected conservation group has stocked more than 4-million fish for our sports fishery. BPSA operates a state of the art fish hatchery which is part of the 40-hatchery Ontario Community Hatchery Program funded by the province and operated by the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. We boast the longest operating volunteer run community hatchery in Ontario.
The 250-member BPSA has an on-line presence with a BPSA site featuring newsletters, reports on club activities and club background information. We also have a Facebook page where we feature our club’s programs and events.
We have had some “troop movements” in recent weeks so we are looking for two volunteer webmasters to supervise content on both our Internet site and Facebook page. These volunteers would not have to know anything about fishing, fish stocking, hunting, firearms training, archery or conservation and preserving fish and wildlife. Our webmasters would be tech savvy, able to add and remove material provided by our club internet editor and communications people. They would be familiar with “WordPress”. If you think you would be able to fill one of these volunteer positions helping us with our BPSA site and Facebook page, please contact us at bpsportsmen@gmail.com . These volunteer positions would be suitable for students hoping to earn “community volunteer” time credits. Or perhaps someone recently retired who has a tech background.
Our next public event is on Saturday December 1st at 7pm when BPSA runs a float in the annual Wiarton Santa Clause Parade. In the past we have been successful winning awards for our well-lit Christmas floats featuring youngsters with an outdoors recreation theme. This Christmas parade is an annual event hosted by the Wiarton District Chamber of Commerce.
