{"id":3210,"date":"2026-04-13T11:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/?p=3210"},"modified":"2026-04-13T11:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:42:29","slug":"2026-banquet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/?p=3210","title":{"rendered":"2026 Banquet"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a beautiful day to have a banquet at a great setting. \u00a0Firefly Woods hosted the banquet overlooking a calm but flooded Leesville Lake on a day full of sunshine. \u00a0We thank Kortney and Chad for providing a great venue and setup for our banquet. \u00a0We also thank David White for handling check in, Phil Ringenbach for managing our Main Event ticket sales and Kevin Proffitt for helping with parking. \u00a0This was our 65th annual Awards Banquet. \u00a0From some quick internet research, we appear to be the second oldest muskie club in the United States being founded in 1961. \u00a0Only the Muskellunge Club of Wisconsin is older being founded in 1953. \u00a0We had 75 members and guests join the celebration and were treated to a fine dinner of hamburgers and hotdogs, with sides \u00a0through the support of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District and cookies and brownies brought by the members. \u00a0 Thanks go out to Cash and Chad for their cooking chops. \u00a0Our guests included John Navarro, Curt Wagner and Kyle Leachman from the ODNR and Craig Butler from the MWCD. \u00a0John Navarro gave insights into upcoming changes in the MAL as well as an exciting project to introduce muskies into the most recently named scenic river in Ohio, the Raccoon tributary of the Ohio river. \u00a0Fry will be introduced over a number of years and monitored to see if the population can become a naturally sustained fishery. \u00a0Kyle Leachman provided fascinating insights on the complex process of raising muskies in a hatchery and the ODNR’s drive to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their hatchery operations. \u00a0Craig Butler provided a historical insight into the watershed as well as thoughts on the future development especially around the recreational use of the watershed lakes.<\/p>\n

We thanked Keith Stayer for becoming our most recent Life member.<\/p>\n

Derek Halas then presented our awards for 2025.<\/p>\n

Kevin Proffitt received the Joe Blackwell Mr. Muskie award.<\/p>\n

Shelly Leglise the Woman of the Year award.<\/p>\n

Charles Clendenin the H. E. Pooch Curry award.<\/p>\n

Erika Bonebrake the Queen Royalty award.<\/p>\n

Addison Davies the Matthew Smith Memorial Award for Junior girls.<\/p>\n

Cooper Marshall the Matthew Smith Memorial Award for Junior boys.<\/p>\n

The Fifty Inch Award recipients were Charles Clendenin, David Noel and John Welch.<\/p>\n

Derek Halas was presented the Award for 2025 Overall Tournament Winner.<\/p>\n

The 10 or more Release awards and Dunmire awards were presented as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dan Welch accepted the Fifty Inch award for his father John Welch. \u00a0On behalf of the club we mourn the loss of John but know how happy he was to catch his first 50″ muskie.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The final picture is of Derek with his Angler of the Year award. \u00a0He accomplished this feat while fishing out of a kayak in our events. \u00a0Derek is obviously a quality fisherman.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We thank all for attending and look forward to our next event, May Madness. \u00a0Until then tight lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a beautiful day to have a banquet at a great setting. \u00a0Firefly Woods hosted the banquet overlooking a calm but flooded Leesville Lake on a day full of sunshine. \u00a0We thank Kortney and Chad for providing a great venue and setup for our banquet. \u00a0We also thank David White for handling check in, Phil Ringenbach for managing our Main<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88890,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outings","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88890"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3211,"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions\/3211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohmci.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}