Breaking Records!
By Karen Demaris, Director of Hunting Games

 This years’ Events Weekend was the place to be, the largest number ever remembered showed up to attend the seminars, banquet, indoor shoot, and bugling contest.  The vendors offered a wonderful variety of items; whether you were checking out the latest in archery and hunting equipment, choosing from a wonderful selection of framed art work & bronzes, adding wildlife t-shirts to your wardrobe, comparing taxidermist artwork for your next trophy, getting your horns scored or chatting with an OSP game officer, our weekend event is well on its way to being the place to be in March that know one will want to miss.  

Elk calling was a prime topic on Saturday with over 100 people attending Primos’ Western promotions manager, Jim Horn’s seminar on why elk come to the call.  Jered Green, taxidermist, showed a room full of hunters how to cape and take care of a trophy animal.  The open forum with the ODF&W and OSP are some of our most important seminars and many questions were floored in regards to our hunting rights and future. In addition to these informational events the indoor state championship was going strong with record numbers including 20 cub shooters!  The bugling contest had record participation and we look for it to grow even more next year.  

The banquet held over 175 attendees.  Our guest speaker Jim Horn shared some of his experiences and entertained us with some magnificent video presentations.  He reminded us how blessed we are to live in country where we can do what we do, and that we are all archers; traditional or compound, release or finger shooters, hunters or target.  And as sportsmen we all want the same thing - to enjoy our sport.  The auction, because of the efforts of Ty Stubblefield, had the opportunity for the first time to auction one of the ODF&W deer tags.  The excitement kept mounting as the bids kept rising……with the winning bid reaching $25,000.  OBH will receive ten percent of the sale price for hosting the sale, thank you Ty for making this happen. We also auctioned a South African Hunt, horseback trip, several prints, packs, bows, wine, archery equipment, books, taxidermy gift certificates and more.  And for those whose didn’t want to bid on an item there was tables full of raffle items.  

There are so many people that work to make this weekend possible and so many companies that support us. I would like to take this time and say thank you to each and every one of you.  And also thank the people who attend the competition, seminars and banquet, it was you who make this weekend a big success. Please check out the list of companies on the web site and when you have the opportunity let them know you appreciate their support of Oregon Bow Hunters.