Events

FFA Members are cordially invited to our Holiday Cocktail Party & Potluck.

Bring an entree, appetizer, side dish, or dessert to share, and celebrate the season with an evening of food, friends, and festive fun! It is also BYOB!

Guest speaker for January 7, 2020 is Mike Laptew. Mike Laptew is know as the "Diving Fisherman". Mike has been diving for over half a century, and fishing since shortly after his first steps. A one-time competitive spearfisherman, he lay down his gun 21 years ago, and has shot fish exclusively with a camera over the intervening two-plus decades. He admits how lucky he’s been to shape a career around his driving passion.

Mike’s footage may be found in the International Game Fishing Association (IGFA) Museum in Dania Beach, FL, as well as at aquariums and universities nationwide. Laptew has contributed underwater footage of sailfish, striped bass, fluke, bluefish, and roosterfish—among many other key gamefish—to such televised programs as National Geographic’s Wild Chronicles and Strange Days on Planet Earth; Days of a Sportsman, Saltwater Sportsman, Walker’s Cay Chronicles, Out There, Fishing New England, along with numerous documentaries and PBS productions. His writing and photography have been featured in an array of national and regional fishing magazines including Field & Stream, Saltwater Sportsman, Gray’s Sporting Journal, The Redbone Journal, On The Water, Offshore/ Northeast Boating, Center Console Angler and The Fisherman Magazine.

Smelt Camp – A Coastal Maine Tradition. They appear each winter, up and down the coast of Maine. Smelt camps, commercial enterprises, places where winter-weary Mainers go to catch some tasty smelt and share in a communal experience the likes of which exists nowhere else.

A smelt camp consists of any number of small shacks, or ice-fishing houses. These often feature benches, pre-cut holes, pre-rigged fishing lines, electric lights and even a small woodstove for heat. Thus, even on those sub-zero nights (which is when most folks go to smelt camp), sports can sit inside a smelt shack in sweaters or even shirtsleeves.

These camps are designed to accommodate various numbers of anglers and the cost of renting one varies according to whether the camp is a 4-person, 6-person, and so on, unit. In most instances, shacks are rented out for the duration of a tide, either incoming or outgoing. This works well, since smelt move in and out of tidal rivers with the tide.

Speaker: Chuck Martinsen - Deputy Director & Shellfish Constable from Marine & Environmental Services of Falmouth

Background: The mission of the Marine and Environmental Services Department is to:

• Provide for the protection, preservation, enhancement and healthy ecological function of the towns natural resources
• Provide services intended to protect the safety of people and vessels who use our woodlands, waterways and waterside facilities
• Preserve, protect and enhance our shellfish and finfish populations
• Provide professional and responsive domestic and wildlife animal services

Falmouth's shellfish propagation efforts would not be possible without the continued support on many volunteers! If you are interested in volunteering with town shellfish project please contact Christina Lovely at christina.lovely@falmouthma.gov.

For more information about shellfishing in Falmouth contact Marine & Environmental Services, Shellfish Division at 508-495-2550 x13.

Topic: Discussion on the Shellfish & Biological Services Division - The Shellfish Division is responsible for the propagation and management of shellfisheries and herring runs in the Town of Falmouth.