Two local banquets highlight the weekend calendar for area sportsmen, and they’re both being held Saturday evening.
The first is the fifth annual Outdoorsmen With a Mission banquet, which will be held at Poplar Bluff’s First Baptist Church.
The doors will open at 5 p.m. for a social hour, followed by a barbecue and fish dinner and a live auction.
Lots of outdoor gear and related items will be available through various games, raffles and the auctions, including framed prints, a deer stand, fishing gear, ammunition, a cooler, handgun safe, fire pit and more.
Several guns also will be given away during the event, including a Ruger AR-15, Ruger American rifle in 6.5-Creedmoor caliber, Winchester SXP shotgun, a Heritage Rancher rifle, Ruger 10/22 rifle, a Carbon Express crossbow and more.
Tickets cost $15 per person and can be purchased by calling Aaron Aden at 573-429-3195.
Money raised during the event helps fund the organization’s annual youth deer hunt and programs for locals in need.
The other banquet Saturday evening is the Bluff City Mallards/Ducks Unlimited event, which will take place at the Black River Coliseum.
The doors will open at 5:30 p.m. for a social hour and silent auction, followed by a steak dinner by Karon Campbell’s Tasteful Creations and a live auction.
The Ducks Unlimited banquet package has a large variety of items, including framed prints and other home decor, hunting gear, decoys and more.
The shotgun of the year will be a Beretta A400 Xtreme Plus 12 gauge, while the pistol of the year will be a Beretta M9A3. The rifle of the year will be a Weatherby Vanguard First Lite in 6.6 Creedmoor caliber.
A large selection of other firearms also will be up for grabs.
Tickets to the banquet cost $40 for a single, $65 for a couple or $20 for a Greenwing (age 17 and under).
Two levels of sponsorships also are available.
A Bronze Sponsor Couple ticket costs $300, while a Silver Sponsor Couple tickets will run $600. Each comes with various benefits.
All tickets must be purchased in advance by going online to www.ducks.org/missouri. You can also call Jeremy Wethington at 573-718-8167 or Grant Collins at 573-718-9737, or stop by Integrated Therapy Services in Poplar Bluff.
If you’ve been fishing in the local rivers and small streams of the area, the black bass season in those waters will close Saturday.
The boundary for the “Ozark streams” regulation runs right through the area, so if you aren’t familiar with it, it would probably be wise to check the regulation booklet.
The black bass season will reopen May 23.
If you’re into the whole Missouri trout park thing, Sunday will be the opening day of trout season at the four parks (Montauk, Roaring River, Bennett Spring and Maramec Spring).
The price of the daily trout tag has increased this year and is now $4 for those age 16 and older or $3 for those younger than that.
Maramec Spring Park has a different setup, with a $5 per day trout tag for those age 16 and older.
The daily limit on trout at Montauk, Roaring River and Bennett Spring is four fish, while at the privately-owned, Maramec Spring Park, it is five fish.
Given the weekend opener, you should probably expect a lot of folks to show up to rub elbows with and to help keep your line tangled.
If you hunt and/or fish in Missouri, don’t forget Saturday is the last day to use your 2019 hunting and fishing licenses.
The only exception is the Light Goose Conservation Order permit, which is good through the end of April.
Most of the 2020 licenses and permits are available now, though when I tried to buy my spring turkey permits over the weekend, they weren’t offered yet. That’ll probably change when March rolls in. Also, deer permits usually become available for purchase in July.
The last remaining hunting season carried over from last year, the crow season, will close in Missouri on Tuesday.
That will leave snow geese and coyotes as the only legal game to hunt until the spring turkey season opens in April.
The Current River Longbeards chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation will host its annual hunting heritage banquet Thursday at Van Buren.
The event will be held at the Southern Missouri Baptist Assembly off Highway D and will kick off at 5:30 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased by calling Delbert Dewolf at 573-660-1114. The cost for a single ticket will be $45, and for a couple, it will be $55. JAKES tickets for youth cost $15, and sponsorships are available for $280.