Without the Phippsburg Sportsmen’s Association, “There’d be a lot more bored kids around in Phippsburg,” observes Arnold Rice, who teaches hunter safety, archery and is a certified range officer for the club.
It’s a fair guess that there might be a lot of bored adults, too.
Even though activities sponsored by the club, which was named the Sportsmen’s Club of the Year in 2002 by the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, are aimed at the kids — the safety clinics, fishing derbies, field day and Pinewood Derby, for example — many adults participate. And the adults make it all happen. A core group of about 20 people spend most of their spare time involved in club activities; numerous others help out on a regular basis.
The club’s most heavily attended events are the first Saturday of the month breakfasts, (a huge feed with eggs, pancakes, corned beef hash, bacon, sausage, homemade donuts and beans), third Saturday bean and casserole suppers, and the February Ice Fishing Derby. About 300 people regularly attend the meals and over 650 people participated in the Derby, which was run as part of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s (IFW) “Get Hooked on Fishing, Not Drugs” program. Ninety-six businesses in Phippsburg and surrounding towns sponsored the event. Fishermen, who ranged in age from four to about 84, brought in several different kinds of fish, including a rare type of pickerel caught by 10-year-old Sara Rice. Every kid went home with a prize.
While talking about club sponsored activities at the clubhouse on Route 109 in Phippsburg just past Winnegance, Doug Alexander, a member since he was 10 and president for six years, stresses that the organization’s primary mission is to educate youth about hunting safety and respect for landowner property. To accomplish this, each season brings a new round of safety courses, including hunter, bow, ATV, boating and snowmobiling, clinics, and contests like the five stand shoots, turkey and 3-D archery shoots to allow members to hone their skills. When scheduling events, particularly the shoots, Alexander says the club consults with abutting property owners, and it has been working with the town Land Trust and ATV club to protect town hiking trails. “We want to be good neighbors,” he says.
The club, which boasts three teenage state champion trap shooters, gives additional help to the area’s youth with support for Project Graduation, scholarships for kids to attend the week-long conservation camp run by IFW, family camping trips to Sebago Lake, ATV rodeos organized with Winnegance Wheelers, sponsorship of the local cub scout troop, campouts at the club and a Bike Rodeo Safety Day. There are 75 youth members in the 350 total membership.
In September, the club also held a forum to allow both sides of this fall’s bear referendum question to state their views and answer questions from the public. It runs wilderness first aid courses, cribbage tournaments, a firemen’s muster and a turkey calling contest — something, in other words, for just about everyone.
The club began with a single purpose: to obtain young pheasants from the state to stock for hunting throughout Phippsburg. Myron Wyman recalls that in 1954 he read a column in a state publication that gave a deadline for Maine sportsmen’s clubs to put in their orders for pheasants if they wanted to raise any that season. “I talked about it with my cousins,” he says, “and we decided to get a club started.” In 1955, they organized the club and applied for the pheasants. Later, he says, they got the state to stock some of the ponds in town with brook trout.
At first the club rented meeting space. With an increase in membership and activities, which soon included camping trips, turkey shoots and hunter safety courses, members decided to build their own clubhouse. “In the early days, a lot of lobster fishermen were involved,” says Dana Hagerthy, who was part of the original group. “They donated lobsters and we put on lobster stew suppers and bingo games to raise money for the clubhouse. In about three years, we paid for the building and all the equipment.”
During the late 70s and 80s, club activities and membership fell off, and for a while, hunter safety courses were run with the Bath Recreation Department. In the late 90s the clubhouse was attacked a group of eco-terrorists, who severely damaged the building and attempted to blow it up. Townspeople and outdoorsmen from surrounding areas rallied, and club membership escalated. The clubhouse was rebuilt, and activities sponsored by the club have been expanding ever since.
Over and over again, as Alexander talks about club activities, he tells about volunteers who work to make it all happen and the unending donations by local businesses. “There have been so many instances when we’ve been in a bind (like when the well froze) and town business people have come and gotten things going,” he says.
In the late 70s, Mary Nickerson and Gail Read, then president and now director of the club’s Entertainment Committee, pushed to reinstate monthly dinners to raise money, this time with beans, casseroles and pies. Ever since, Read has prepared 28 pounds of beans and six pies for the suppers; Nickerson makes 200 biscuits and numerous pies. A host of other women volunteers cook for the meals, which, along with the breakfasts, are organized by Debi Wallace, head of the Kitchen Committee.
Over the past few years, working in conjunction with Betty Lewis, Youth Activities Coordinator at IFW, the club developed its wide assortment of activities. (Lewis retired last year to move to another state and was awarded a life membership by the club to honor her dedicated support.) About 30 volunteer instructors obtained certification by completing courses offered by IFW and serving one-year apprenticeships with a certified instructor.
Instructors include Reggie Read, a Master Maine guide who with his wife, Gail, has been a mainstay in the club since the 70s. Now, like several other members, the Reads have three generations of their family involved in club activities. Reggie Read, who is IFW Safety Coordinator for Lincoln and Sagadahoc Counties, teaches hunter safety, and, along with his son, James, is a state champion moose and turkey caller.
Sagadahoc County Deputy Sheriff Pete Lamarre, who Alexander says “lives for bow hunting,” developed the increasingly popular 3-D bow hunting course. His various bow hunting activities are more frequently being attended by women, who also, Alexander says, are showing more interest in fishing and other clinics. He adds that if Lamarre picks up a kid for a first ATV safety violation, the kid has the option of completing the club’s safety course instead of receiving a summons. “There’s been only one repeat offender,” he says.
In addition to working on numerous other club events and serving as Director of Conservation, Roland Bisson, owner of the Phippsburg Center Store, organizes the Pinewood Derby, a spin-off of a state and national derby run by the Boy Scouts. “I got the idea from working with the Cub Scouts,” he says, “and expanded it for anyone who wants to buy a car.” He schedules the club derby after the scouts’ event. It is held the first or second Sunday in June and has separate classes for adults and children. Participants can practice and fine-tune their cars during trials early in the day of the race.
The club hosted its first Youth Field Day this summer, with help from IFW. It offered 50 participants an introduction to fly fishing, kayaking, shooting a BB rifle, archery and tracking. Arnold Rice, who grew up hunting and fishing in Woolwich and northern Maine with his father, schooled the kids on tracking and the furs of various types of animals in Phippsburg. This event took place at Rice Pond, a spring-fed pond dug on property the club owns behind the meeting house. The club named it for Rice in appreciation for all the time he gave to the project.
With so much going on at the club, there’s no reason for anyone to be bored in Phippsburg — youth or adult. There’s all of the above and new adventures to come: a salt-water fishing clinic, an upland game seminar with dogs, deer seminars and a bear hunting class. And, there’s the unique opportunity to join a Moose Calling Clinic with Reggie Read, whom Alexander says he’s seen “call a moose in the woods right up in front of you.”
“I’m amazed every time I drive by and see the different things the club is putting on,” says Hagerthy. “It really pleases me. We worked hard to pay for the clubhouse, and then it fell into disuse for a number of years. I’m happy to see what this new group is doing.”
For further information, see www.psassoc.org or call 442-8220. The club breakfast is held from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. first Sunday of the month; the supper is held the third Saturday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.