QDMA Seminar held at Cabela’s was very Informative.
The Connecticut River Valley Branch of the Quality Deer Management Association held a seminar at the Cabela’s store in East Hartford last night. The seminar was about “Deer Management in Connecticut” and a “Introduction to Food Plots”.
The night started off with a chance to purchase raffle tickets for a shotgun, ladder stand and numerous smaller items such as rattle bags,scent away for your cloths and video’s plus more. Cabela’s was gracious enough to supply coffee and snacks which was very nice of them.
The seminar started off with the President of the Connecticut River Valley Branch Mr. Ron Reeves a very nice and warm welcome to approximately 70 people who attended, me included.
Then Mr. Howard Kilpatrick who is a Wildlife Biologist for the Department of Environmental Protection for the state of Connecticut. He spoke about the deer management part and that was very informative, He also spoke briefly of changes and/or possible changes for the future. Just as an example of what he touched on which was surprising to me the number of deer in Connecticut taken from a air survey was approximately 63,000 in Connecticut but, realistically that number is doubled because of mis counting and skipping over deer that were not seen so you could be looking at a more closer figure of 120,000 +/- in Connecticut. It is pretty amazing what the average person does not know about statistics like that.
The second half which was about Food Plots was delivered by Mr. Matt Ross who is the New England/Canada Regional Director for the QDMA. Matt is a licensed Forester and also a Wildlife Biologist. He gave a very nice and also very informative basis for Food Plots and how to get one started. There was so much to that topic that he could only touch basics but it was enough to get the point across.
After at the end they held the raffle which I think went very well partly because I had the winning raffle ticket for the shotgun. I honestly was very surprised because I never win anything. It was a very nice prize and will do me well. My take on this seminar is that it was worth taking the night off from work to go. Whitetail Deer and Deer Hunting mean a whole lot to me and the only way to carry that on and protect it for our children is to do what the QDMA is trying to do. I very much believe in what they do and even though I don’t own a lot of land there is still a lot I can do as a Deer Manager to help and maintain the deer herds for future generations to come.
I want to thank Ron Reeves, Matt Ross, Howard Kilpatrick and all the others who worked at the seminar for putting on a very nice and informative seminar and I look forward to many more.
Sounds like a great night and congrats on winning the shotgun. I never win anything either so I’m extremely jealous.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Arthur, you could not imagine how surprised I was. A brand new Mossberg 535 ATS slug gun. The seminar was very informative to say the least. It was work using one of my holidays to take the night off from work.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:49 pm