3-16 What’s Happening

RMEF fundraiser slated for April 3

Live and silent auctions, raffles and games will be among the attraction on Saturday, April 3, when the Yakima Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation holds its 22nd annual fundraising banquet at the Central Washington State Fairgrounds’ Modern Living Building.

Art, sculpture, home accents, jewelry, clothing and accessories will be among the items up for grabs, along with the outdoor goodies you’d expect — firearms, knives, optics and the like.

The popular event sells out every year, so prospective attendees should get their tickets early by calling Barb Towsley at 509-654-2291.

Prices are $70 for a single supporting ticket (includes one meal and one supporting membership) or $105 for a couple (two meals, one membership); sponsor and life-member tickets are also available. Doors open at 4:30 p.m., followed by a social hour (raffles, games, silent auction activities, drinks), dinner and live auction.

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YFFA meeting focuses on new fishing rules

Attendees at tonight’s 7 p.m. meeting of the Yakima Fly Fishers Association will be able to hear about rules changes for the 2010-11 fishing season from somebody knows them well — Enforcement Capt. Richard Mann of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Yakima-based Region 3 headquarters.

YFFA meetings are always held in the meeting room at Bert’s Pub, downstairs at Glenwood Square (5110 Tieton Drive, Yakima). Tonight’s meeting will also feature the club’s rod-and-reel raffle drawing.

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Thacker victorious in trap series finale

Perfect 25-shot rounds seemed to be what was necessary to come away a winner when the Yakima Valley Sportsmen’s trap club held its button trophy shootoff on Sunday, following the end of the 10-week Button Shoot.

Bob Scheffelmaier, Dale Klingele and Jim Turnbull each had a 25×25 round to tie in the men’s division, with Scheffelmaier coming out the winner after a lengthy shootoff. The same thing happened in the senior class, with 2009 winner Ken Smith winning a shootoff after tying Norm Baird and Dave Thacker with 25-hit rounds.

The junior trophies went to Shannon Boyle in the girls and, in the boys, to Jason Klingele for the second year. Renee Blankenship took the women’s division trophy.

All 42 season button winners lined up in the Annie Oakley (miss-and-you’re-out) competition to determine the club championship, and nearly 500 targets were shot before Dave Thacker of Ellensburg emerged as the winner.

The Yakima Valley Sportsmen’s annual Spring Yak, a registered Pacific International Trap Association shoot with 16-yard, handicap and doubles, is set for Saturday and Sunday.

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BIRD ALERT

A flock of almost 200 swans — including 180 tundra swans, the Valley’s most common here in the valley; four trumpeter swans, the continent’s largest waterfowl; and one mute swan, a native of northern and central Eurasia and recognizable for its orange bill and the black knob above it — were spotted along the Marion Drain Road near Toppenish this week. There were also four sandhill cranes, one of the two crane species that regularly occurs in the United States, and over 500 Canada geese with six cackling geese in the mix.

Raptor sightings this week included a golden eagle perched on a power pole east of Konnowac Pass on Nightingale Road and an adult peregrine falcon that’s been hanging around the Toppenish water tower, causing some to hope it will nest locally.

West Hills Cemetery had one russet-colored female pine grosbeak perched atop a spruce tree. Two chukars and a loggerhead shrike were spotted in the foothills along Brownstown Road and the first reports of tree swallows and an osprey came in from the Toppenish creek area.

Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963.

— Kerry L. Turley

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AROUND AND ABOUT

FLY-TYING HOW-TO, PART I: Award-winning Northern California fly-tyer Roy Powell, known for his innovative fly designs, will give both his testimony and a fly-tying demonstration at an 8 a.m. Saturday breakfast put on jointly by West Valley Men’s Ministries and the West Valley Fly Fishers at West Valley Church (at 72nd and Nob Hill). Anyone is welcome and the event is free (though you’re welcome to donate a buck or three for the breakfast).

FLY-TYING HOW-TO, PART II: Fly-tying expert and how-to fishing author Skip Morris will give a 31/2-hour workshop on tying flies for trout lakes (and how best to use them) at the Yakima River Fly Shop in Cle Elum on March 27 (a week from Saturday). Pre-registration is $35, or it’s $45 at the door. Space is limited. You can reserve a spot by calling 509-674-2144.

DESERT HIKES PRESENTATION: Hiking guidebook/outdoors photographer Alan Bauer will give a photographic presentation at 7 p.m. Sunday at Inklings Books on “Best Desert Hikes: Washington,” the Mountaineers Books guidebook he co-authored last year with Dan Nelson.

Bauer is also known for his Washington day-hiking series of books also published under the Mountaineers Book banner. Inklings is located in Chalet Mall off 56th and Summitview avenues in Yakima.

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ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ rugged Tuesday group will meet at 8 a.m. at the parking lot of the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart and carpool to the day’s adventure. Come prepared for anything (including changing weather conditions) and bring lunch and water.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies group will do a hike of the Cowiche Canyon uplands. For meeting time and place, call Mary Belzer at 509-966-7921.

SATURDAY: The Central Washington Chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society will host a native-plant hike of Snow Mountain Ranch, starting west of the ranch on state wildlife property where there’s a south-facing lithosol area, then following a path on which magenta-flowered lomatium columbianum should be in bloom.

Bring a lunch and water, and wear sturdy shoes. Meeting time and place will be at the south end of the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart parking lot at 9 a.m., but e-mail trip leader Trip Lisowski at lisowski@nwinfo.net beforehand if you can so he can get an idea of the head count.