2026 Meetings Reports

8/10/26 FCS Meeting and Fish Fry

fifteen participants had a good time at Randy and Chris Rowley’s home.  The meeting featured red snapper (donated by Dusty Hunt) and catfish, two kinds of hush puppies, onion rings, French fries, chips, queso, brownies, and potato salad, coleslaw, and beans (made and donated by Ron Prince).  Randy led a discussion on upcoming events (see our Calendar for details), and presented his devotional One Mistake.

Two fishing lure door prizes were awarded.  Jim McGee won a Berkley Slobbernocker bladed jig (chatterbait) in Cole Slaw color and Russ Gibbs won a Berkley Money Badger squarebill crankbait in Ghost Sexy Shad color, both donated by FCS.  Larry Stafford made available several hunting videos, books, and a stool to anyone who wanted them.  Thanks to Larry for those donations, Dusty for donating the fish, and to Ron for making and donated the potato salad, coleslaw, and beans.

6/23/26 FCS Meeting and Shrimp Boil

Fourteen participants had a good time at Wayne Weilnau’s home.  The meeting featured a shrimp boil (shrimp, beef sausage, corn-on-the-cobs, and red and yellow potatoes), deer sausage, cheese, fried bananas (courtesy of Binh Chu), cornbread, and chocolate brownies.

Zach Tumlinson was presented the 2025 award for the longest saltwater fish – a 38? bonnethead shark (tying Colton Roehrig (38” long bull redfish), Daryl Shipper (38” long bull redfish), and Roy Zengerle (38″ long bull redfish).  (Zach was unable to attend the 4/29/26 FCS Family Celebration Banquet and receive the award there.)  Zach was presented with a certificate and an FCS tumbler.

Randy led a discussion on upcoming events (see our Calendar for details) and presented his devotional In a Hole.

Three door prizes were awarded.  They were won by Kevin McConnell (a Strike King KVD 5XD Crankbait), Binh (a Strike King KVD Elite Squarebill Crankbait in The Real Gill color), and Burl Fulenwider (a bullfrog in frog color).  Both Strike King lures were donated by FCS.  Thanks to Raul Pena for donating the bullfrog.

4/16/26 FCS Meeting and Steak Dinner

Eleven participants had a good time at Flint and Annette DeShazo’s home.  The meeting featured New York Strip steaks, corn-on-the-cob, red potatoes, Texas garlic toast, cheese and crackers and chips and artichoke dip appetizers (courtesy of the DeShazo’s), strawberry cheesecake (courtesy of the DeShazo’s), unsweet tea, and soft drinks.  Randy Rowley led a discussion on upcoming events (see our Calendar for details), and presented his devotional Stepping Out.  They watched an episode of the first DVD of Fishing with Roland Martin.

Two door prizes were awarded.  They included a Berkley Choppo Saltwater propeller topwater lure (donated by FCS and won by Daryl Shipper, but given to Larry Stafford) and a Berkley Money Badger 7.25 crankbait (donated by FCS and won by Flint DeShazo).  Randy also donated a popper lure and presented it to Tom McGonagill, who correctly answered the trivia question, “In what year did the Club adopt it’s present name?”  (It was in 1991.)

2/25/26 FCS Officers Meeting

Seven officers met at the CR Surf and Turf restaurant in Cedar Park.  The following items were discussed:

1. Events, Membership, and Finances Comparison for the past five years.  See the 2/11/26 Officers Events and Membership Report.  Randy Rowley noted regarding events that our banquet, sporting clays shoot, sporting clays tournament, dove hunts, and chartered freshwater fishing trip attendance was up significantly.  Our guided upland bird hunts and guided duck hunts attendance was down significantly, probably due to inflation.  Our self-guided/chartered blasts and casts (duck hunts and fishing trips) attendance was down significantly because the coastal blast and cast was changed to just a bay fishing trip, due to a lack of ducks.  Randy noted regarding new members and supporting members that in 2021 and 2022 we had a large number of people join the Club due to the requirement that Bartlett season dove lease members be FCS members.  Not as many people joined the lease in 2023 and especially in 2024, as Brett Harbers raised his lease price significantly and the hunting was poor except on opening day.  Brett no longer leased his property in 2025.
2. Ways to attract younger participants and members.

Past discussions:

• • 03/08/23 Officers Meeting (discussion on how to increase attendance).
    • Trying Meetup events was recommended and implemented, as many young people (especially) use the app to meet new people, learn new things, find support, get out of their comfort zones, and pursue their passions together. Ultimately, our Meetups were discontinued, as they were mainly attended by the Rowley’s.
  • 2/24/20 Officers Meeting – no new ideas were presented.
  • 1/21/16 Officers Meeting. It was noted that:
    • Many younger adults have less time, as they have started to raise their families, and less disposable income as they have just started their careers, usually at lower-paying positions. Or to put it another way, they don’t have the time or money to participate in very many hunting, fishing, or shooting activities.
    • Many younger adults, due to the urbanization of America and the break-up of the nuclear family, have never been exposed to the outdoors. Many do not have the equipment and do not know where to start.  Some think that if they go do something new they will embarrass themselves.
    • Many younger adults do not have the patience that hunting and fishing require. They are used to instant information, instant communication, instant food, and instant entertainment.  They can kill thirty 10-point bucks in an hour playing X-box.  They don’t see the attraction of sitting out in the mud waiting for ducks to show up or sitting in a box blind waiting for Bambi.
    • Many younger adults are intimidated in going to events where most of the participants are old enough to be their parents and where they do not know anyone.
    • Randy suspects that for every hunter/shooter in a church congregation there is probably an anti-hunter/anti-gun person. These people often complain loudly to their pastors if they get wind that a pro-hunting/pro-gun organization wants to do a promotion or co-sponsor an event with their church.  This happened at Great Hills Baptist Church.  About five years ago we partnered with the church’s Men’s Ministry to host a Youth 5-stand and Skeet Shoot.  Randy created a flyer and the pastor agreed to publish it on the church website and highlight it during the announcement section of the worship service.  His secretary, who by her statements to Randy was anti-gun, did her best to drag her feet in putting the announcement together (even though Randy supplied her with a flyer weeks earlier).  The result was a one-week announcement instead of the planned three to four weeks.  Therefore, we must expect at least minor opposition when we seek to announce events that cater to young adults in churches.

Randy noted the following history and facts:

• • FCS has a promotional display.  He frequently manned a table with the display and brochures on it before and after the worship service at his church.  He also keep a sign-up sheet for our email distribution list.  By and large, the people who visited the table and signed up to be on the d-list were middle-aged people.
  • He maintained FCS brochures at McBride’s Guns, Archery Country, Capitol City Trap & Skeet Club, etc.  A lot of times when I’d put brochures at other places he suspected they were just thrown away, as they didn’t stay there for long.
  • We’ve done promotions at Cabela’s, Sportsmen’s Warehouse, the TPWD EXPO (twice), the Fellowship Church (in Liberty Hill) EXPO (twice), and an Outdoor EXPO at the Painted horse Pavilion in Buda.  With the exception of when we have given away free hunts, a box of fishing flies, etc. we did not attract very many prospects at these promotions.  We attracted far more prospects at the promotions that we’ve done at churches (we’ve done them at four churches – Great Hills Baptist, Hyde Park Baptist, First Baptist Pflugerville, and Fellowship Church).  But, again, the prospects that we have attracted were largely middle-aged people.

The officers concluded at that time that it was not a significant problem.  Officer recommendations included:

1. 1. Give more attention to our Facebook page.  (Randy has done this.)
   2. Create a YouTube channel.  (Not done.)
   3. Participate in the Georgetown parade.  (Not done.)
   4. Institute a mentor program.  (Done to a degree during certain events.)
   5. Revisit whether we should get a 501(c)(3).  (We have discussed this several times since then and concluded that this is not needed.)

Randy noted that all FCS members are 10 years older since we had the above meeting and that the average member’s age is around 60.  If we do not attract more younger members we will eventually disband as the vast majority of members will physically be no longer able to participate in hunting, fishing, and sports shooting or will be deceased.  The officers presented the following ideas:

1. 1. Most FCS members have grown kids.  Those seem like our best opportunity to get younger members.  Poll the members to get that data – Do you have a son (or daughter) 18 yrs and older?  Do they like the outdoors?  Can we send them an invitation to join?  Randy will send out an email.
   2. As Instagram is popular among young adults, start making Instagram FCS posts.  None of the officers are versed in Instagram, so there will be a learning curve.
   3. Get involved with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers public lands, waters, and wildlife conservation efforts.
   4. Talk to youth pastors on how they are growing their youth groups and whether they would be interested in a free sporting clays shoot.  Kurt DeRuiter and Tim Zyla will explore this with pastors that they know.
   5. Look for ways to promote FCS to single moms with boys, especially.  Such mom’s are often ill equipped to take boys hunting, fishing, and shooting.
   6. See if Mark DeLoach is willing for a group of kids to fish his lake near Taylor, after improvements have been made.  Randy will explore this.
   7. Explore whether Moby Dick’s would be a good place to take a group of kids to fish.  Randy will contact Russ Gibbs.
   8. Designate a guest spot for certain FCS events.
   9. Explore whether we can man a table for Scheels grand opening.  Jonathan Fleming will explore this.

2/17/26 FCS Meeting and Gumbo Dinner

Ten participants had a good time at Randy and Chris Rowley’s home.  The meeting featured shrimp, chicken, and sausage gumbo and rice (made by Chris), queso (made by Randy), chips, and brownies.  Randy led a discussion on upcoming events (see our Calendar for details), and presented his devotional Soaked to the Skin.

Thanks to Jim McGee for donating an FCS polo shirt as a door prize.  Also given away was a Bass Mooch Stove Top dog walker topwater lure, donated by FCS.