Puget Sound club gets top award

The Puget Sound Flyfishers have been given the Federation of Fly Fishers McKenzie Award as the 2008 club of the year.

The 139-member club, founded in 1956, was honored in large part for “its long history of education, conservation, restoration and community service,” said Al Bessette, club president.

“For a while we were almost a political action committee,” said Morry Kenton, the sole surviving charter member, who worked to get the international commercial fishing boundary moved from 3 miles to 25 miles offshore.

“The reason it’s a successful club, there’s a lot of fishermen who care about the outdoors. It’s a drive some people have.”

Club members worked 20 years to get state officials to recognize the value of sea-run cutthroat and protect them from overharvest.

The club proudly participates in programs such as Healing Waters, which teaches injured veterans how to tie flies and fly fish, and Casting for Recovery, which supports women who had breast cancer surgery.

“Last year we donated $12,000 from our club for things like this,” Bessette said. “It’s a wonderful group.”

Tacoma News Tribune

WILDLIFE

Too many turkeys

While urbanized mule deer are being trapped and killed in Helena, Mont., citizens in Philomath, Ore., are up in arms about wild turkeys.

The city is looking into trapping or killing them.

“(Councilors) want to take definitive action to help folks,” said City Manager Randy Kugler. “The council still, very clearly, is not taking a kill permit off the table. They just want to ease into this.”

Trapping or killing would require a permit from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

About 20 of the big birds hang out in west Philomath, scratching or tearing up landscaping and roofs, leaving calling cards on lawns and decks and making noise during the early morning, fish and wildlife officials say.

Charlene Hendricks says the birds wiped out garden strawberries and made a play for her blueberries.

“I had to chase them off my property twice a day,” she said. “We see them every morning and every night.”

She said she found the first one or two interesting but now considers them pests.

Nancy Taylor, an ODFW wildlife biologist, said trapping the birds would be only a temporary fix, and that they would return.

Associated Press

OUTLOOK

Best fishing times

Lunar tables from the U.S. Naval Observatory. Be fishing at least one hour before and one hour after peak times. Applies to all time zones.

(* indicates best days.)

Through Dec. 21

Today

1:40 a.m., 2:10 p.m.

Monday

2:45 a.m., 3:10 p.m.

Tuesday

3:40 a.m., 4:05 p.m.

Wednesday

4:30 a.m., 4:50 p.m.

* Thursday

5:15 a.m., 5:35 p.m.

* Friday

6 a.m., 6:20 p.m.

* Saturday

6:45 a.m., 7:05 p.m.

Next Sunday

7:30 a.m., 7:50 p.m.