55th Annual Awards Banquet

As we reflect on our 55𝒕𝒉 𝑨𝒏𝒏𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝑨𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝑩𝒂𝒏𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒕, celebrated last night. We are beyond humbled by the support of our community, members, guests and Donors! These events would not come together without the support of everyone!

We celebrated together with Live Auction Fun, Silent Auction bidding, amazing Wild Game menu (donated by local meat donors) with Exotic meats put together by the fantastic caterers 5150 Smokehouse & Catering. Our honored Guests, Mayor - Jeff Craddock and MLA - Andrew Boirtchenko.

Congratulations to our award winners in

Sportsmanship Award - Devon Glass

President’s Award - Brandon Schaber

It was great to see all generations come out for a fun night with the community! If you haven't already, head over to our website https://www.devonfishandgame.ca/become-a-member, pickup a membership in the online shop, and sign up for our newsletter to stay informed!

Auction donors who helped make this a night to remember

Stahl Peterbilt Inc.

Step Up Esthetics

Mary Kay Cosmetics

Ketek

Spencer Anderson

Bassani Transport

Devon IGA

Devon Golf & Country Club

Florida Pizza Steakhouse LTD

Edmonton Elks Football Club

Richard & Sharon Elhard

R&T Network Solutions

Mike Elhard

Ron Davison

Cabela's

Cycle Works Motorsports

Northwest Scuba

Black Ink Oilfield Mechanical Service & Sales

Devon Atb

Devon Fish And Game

CW Hill Photography

Prolux Lighting

Alberta Conservation Association

Heartland Electrical Services Ltd

Devon Boston Pizza

Devon Eye Clinic

T & D Products

Bee-Clean Building Maintenance

Creative Door Services Edmonton

Sweet Pea & Grace Boutique

BSC Heating & Cooling

Club 19 AG

Rocky Mountain Equipment

Webb's Machinery Ltd.

Brad Vanier & Melissa Vanier

Angie's Home Accents Inc.

Happy Howellers Dog Grooming

Shawn & Tracy O’Neil

Pozzys Bait & Tackle

Leduc UFA Farm & Ranch Supply Store

Source Industrial Bonnyville

Fountain Tire Leduc

Schaber Resources

Numzaan Safaris

Doug & Sharon Wickham

Ben & Ashley Howell

Town of Devon

Alberta Wildlife Federation

Len Thompson & Northern King Lures

Rhonda Nelsonon & Jim Stewart

2023 Recap

Fun Recap of what 2023 was about..

-Measure Day

-Annual Banquet & Awards Night

-Devon Firefighter Ice Recovery Training

-Trout Pond Clean Up

-Archery Shoot

-First Raffle -Live In Person Draw & BBQ

-Welcomed New Members

-General Meetings & Collaborations

-Awarded the Neville Lindsay award for our JNMTP revitalization project from the AFGA

Building the Community

On July 10, 2021, we held the official grand opening of the Co-op Community Dock at the Jim Nelson Memorial Trout Pond. The trout pond is the Club's flagship resource and it's something that we are extremely proud of.

More than a couple of decades ago the Club saw an opportunity to utilize a borrow pit left behind following the construction of Highway 60. The Club jumped at the chance to turn the pit into a certified trout pond for the community. The required funds were raised, and leasing requirements put into place to make way for the construction of the pond. This was a large undertaking and included the development of a number of infrastructure projects. The Club installed a parking lot for public use, picnic tables, an outhouse, a wheelchair accessible dock, and solar and wind power to support an aerator for the fish.

The pond was named after Jim Nelson, who was a long-time member and avid angler of the club. Upon his passing, Jim left the club a generous donation which the club utilized to develop the infrastructure for the pond, and it seemed very fitting to establish the pond in his name.

Over the years, the Club has continued to stock it twice a year with rainbow trout from a local hatchery and maintain the day use area and then aeration project to ensure the fish survive the winter. On top of this, the pond has become a favorite site to hold events and educational programs for our members and the community at large. Annually, we hold a Youth Fishing Derby to coincide with the Devon Days Celebrations. We also utilize the pond for conservation projects, such as the Duck Tube Program where we installed nesting tubes on the pond to keep nesting ducks safe from predators. 

After we sent out our grant applications, we received some very welcome responses from Zone 4 of the Alberta Fish & Game Association, as well as the Co-op Community Spaces program. They jumped at the chance to support the project and after some great discussions we became partners. The Club takes pride in working alongside members of our community to make it better and provide opportunity and education to its members, and these partnerships serve as a symbol of that pride. 

The pond has become a staple in the community, a place where members of the community come to teach their children and grandchildren how to fish, a place where I plan on teaching my own children how to fish. A resource like this can't be understated and the Club is very excited about the new installation and know that the new dock will continue to provide angling opportunities and access to the community truly for generations to come.

Having Our Say

Each year, the Alberta Fish & Game Association (AFGA) holds its conference and annual general meeting. This year, our club had enough members to send two voting delegates, and I was lucky enough to go. The first day of this conference, was Thursday February 21st. We got all registered and collected our sweet swag bags courtesy of the Calgary Fish & Game Association, and we headed in to the hall for the reports from the Environment Chair and the Programs Chair.

The environment report was very interesting with its focus on the Big Horn Proposal by the Provincial Government. It offered some valuable insight into the proposal and included a key perspective that it’s not all bad news. Biologists agree that the proposed land should be protected, but where the real issues lie is how to go about doing that (the main concern being increased tourism does not equal protection), and the poor performance of the government in their consultation efforts with the public. (Click here to see the AFGA’s official position on the Bighorn Proposal)

The programs report offered some great insight into the different programs offered by the AFGA, such as the Becoming an Outdoor Woman Program (BOW) which is a multi-day camp offered to all ages of women to introduce them to things such as archery, firearms, and chainsaw operation. The report also gave an update on the Narrow Lake Conservation Camp, a camp for youth members who are sponsored by each local club to attend. They learn skills such as Firearms Safety, Hunters Education, and Boating Safety, since they go canoeing pretty much every day. It provides a major boost to engaging our youth across the province. 

The first night was the mixer, and this year they went with a luau theme, so everyone got in the spirit, got decked out in flowered shirts and got “lei’d” by the Onoway club as we walked in the hall. Many of the clubs generously donated some amazing food, and no Lu Au would have been complete without an entire roasted pig, presented to the crowd on a stretcher and carried in by a couple of dudes in full costume – which is exactly what we got.

The evenings at conference are generally spent networking, something we did a ton of. Finding out what other clubs are doing, in my opinion, is the best part about conference. We got so many ideas to bring back to the club and met some awesome people who are doing some really great things for conservation in our province.

On Friday we were lucky enough to have a number of speakers from the Provincial Government give some insightful and informative presentations, although the general theme when it came to questions was that with the looming election, what they could tell us was limited. Despite this, we learned quite a bit about invasive species in the Province of Alberta, the ongoing projects to monitor them, and what we can all do to combat their spread.

Saturday, was arguably the most important day of Conference. After breakfast we filed into the hall to take our seats to get ready for the election of the new AFGA executive. After some speeches, elections were held and a new President and Vice President were installed.

Following elections, we reviewed the resolutions drafted by each of the clubs in Alberta for consideration by the voting delegates. These resolutions range from asking the provincial government to allow hunting on Sundays in certain WMUs, to the responsible use of OHVs, to the management of feral horse populations. We went through each resolution and delegates were provided the chance to speak for or against each one before ultimately each was voted in or voted down.

The reason this is so important is because it provides the members of the AFGA, the hunters and anglers in our Alberta, a collective voice that the government hears. The analogy that was used earlier in the conference, was by lighting a match and holding your hand over it. Definitely uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as when you light an entire book of matches. The parallel being drawn is so true, our voices are much louder when we speak together in one voice – something that is achieved for us through the AFGA.

That night at the President’s Ball, after the new Executive marched in to the live bagpipes, and after the new and past presidents did a shot of scotch together (as per tradition), and after the youth delegates led the room in the singing of our national anthem, we had a fantastic dinner, followed by example after example of extraordinary commitment to education and conservation as the awards were presented to the very deserving clubs and members across the province.

It’s astonishing how much love and passion the members of these organizations show year after year, many of them for their entire lives, and it’s extremely motivating for me when returning to my own club wanting to make a difference, like so many before me. It was truly an honor to attend this year’s conference on behalf of our great club, and our club is already drafting our own resolutions to defend at next year’s conference with the hopes of improving the experiences for hunters and anglers in Alberta.

I Don't Do Ups!

This year I was given the honour of representing the Devon Fish & Game Club at the Annual Alberta Fish & Game Conference in Edmonton. Aside from the fantastic food, the amazing opportunity to provide input on conservation activities in our province, and the incredibly educational speakers, the networking was top notch. My co-delegates and I met several people from across the province that were filled with knowledge about different animals and different areas, and different hunting and fishing experiences and we used the conference to soak up as much as we could.

We spent a large portion of our free time, speaking with other delegates just like us looking for ideas to improve their own clubs, and contribute to our amazing sport and to the conservation efforts in our province. One person in particular was Josh. We connected pretty quickly with Josh, although his strange Southern Alberta dialect initially threw us off. Once we were able to get past it, we learned that Josh was struggling with some of the same things we were, and had the same passions. And we also learned that the hunting options where we live, and those where Josh lives have a very particular difference that would provide an opportunity for us to strike a very special deal.

Josh shared with us that he has been fortunate enough to harvest a bull elk in his hunting grounds 5 years in a row. Something that without access to a large area of private land where we hunt, is extremely difficult. On the flip side, while they do exist, the number of large white tail deer in Josh’s home territory, is much smaller than those that we are used to. So we all decided to give each other the opportunity of a lifetime by agreeing to locally host each other in our own hunting camps in the upcoming season. In short, Josh would take us hunting for elk in his WMU, and we would take him hunting for whitetail in our WMU. The results were nothing short of stunning.

We met Josh in Claresholm after a four or five hour drive from our hometown (I wouldn’t know, my companions were hell bent on leaving at 3AM so I slept the whole way). We had left so early with the intent to get there with enough time to set up camp and go for an evening hunt, but the icy roads slowed us down. We convoyed with Josh into his chosen spot for camp and we set up our wall tents while we marveled at the amazing scenery and the mountains that surrounded us on all sides - all the while keeping a secondary eye peeled for our chosen prey.

It turned out, however, that the best way to find these animals, in this country, is to go up. Brandon, one of my fellow delegates and the current President of our club, who is a somewhat physically challenged due to his cushy oil patch job which requires him to sit in a truck most of the day - was adamant that he doesn’t do ups. He perpetually quoted some comedian who maintained that he doesn’t climb up, doesn’t do push ups, sit ups, pull ups - or any other thing of the sort. Despite his constant complaints, he dragged his butt up that hill every morning, and back up in the evening after lunch, every single day. Josh was committed to the endeavor of getting us a legal bull elk for our freezer, and we didn’t want to disappoint him either by taking the lazy route and hanging out in camp the whole time. So when Josh said up, up we went.

The entire hunt was spent hiking up steep hills for hours at a time, as Josh said many times “the shortest way up is straight up, and the shortest way down is straight down”. The days were grueling, and after some rough calculations it turned out we were hiking around 12kms per day, mostly uphill, and burning around 8000 calories each day. It was the most difficult and one of the most rewarding hunts I’ve ever experienced.

Josh didn’t disappoint either. We saw hundreds of animals over the course of our 9 day hunt of all varieties. We saw herds of mule deer up on the mountain from far away distances to merely 60 yards away. We watched white tail bucks in full rut chasing does. We saw bald eagles and hawks stalking their prey. We walked in the tracks of massive grizzly bears with paws bigger than my brother’s size 13 boots. We saw a cougar making his way across the mountain, always keeping an eye on us, and us both eyes on it. Bull moose, and trophy sheep, and over a hundred elk.

Unfortunately, as my dad always says, “they call it hunting, not shopping for a reason” and we did not end up finding a legal bull elk on this trip. However, the experience of hunting in a landscape that we otherwise never would have seen, much less hiked up and down for 9 days, was incredible. The friendship we made during this hunt will last a lifetime, and although we were not able to make the time to hold up our end of the bargain this year by taking him on a white tail hunt, we’re already making plans for next fall to host him at our hunting camp.

When I reflect on the whole experience, it’s hard to the ignore that none of this would have been possible without my participation in the Devon Fish & Game Club. I’ve never been more energized to contribute to my club and to the province as a whole, and if meeting like-minded people, with the same passion as you, and being able to share amazing experiences with those people is something that interests you, I’d highly recommend joining.