Club Members

11/8/23

Hello fellow members,

What a fantastic summer we’ve had here in San Diego. Fishing was absolutely amazing and the weather seemed to cooperate. All of the tournaments were a blast and the turnouts a big plus! BUT we aren’t done yet, as we still have one more Tournament left to go…next up is our famous Rock Cod Round-Up which is always a super fun end of the year blow out and Fish Taco Fiesta! And with that said, we are excited to announce that we are going to add another tournament to our schedule for 2024! This will be a Bay Bass type tournament. Be sure to keep a look out for more details next year. Lastly, I would like to thank all of our Tournament participants this year. This is a huge part of our revenue and with our corresponding raffles during each event it is really important to have great participation to support the club, so THANK YOU all!  In addition, our sponsors are incredibly important to us so let's all acknowledge our extremely valuable sponsors by buying their products and using their services whenever you can. Hope to see you all at the Rock Cod Round-Up!
 
I would like to welcome some new members and returning old faces to our family fishing community: Robb Lane, Joelle Fetcho, Harrison Langford, Lee Leclerc, Matt Williamson, Robert Schroth, Brock Walsh, Erik Kopp, Katie Kosich, Dennis Pennell, Ben Murphey and Steve Gardella…Thanks for joining and supporting the club!
 
Down here at the club we are working on some end of the year maintenance. We are changing out the dock cart wheels, replacing hoses, fixing dock cleats, and we have purchased another huge chest freezer for our bagged ice. If you want to join the Ice program you can sign up with Wendy in the office. In addition, we are installing shade sails over the back patio to provide a nice area to relax. Talking about our maintenance projects reminds me that we also still have some spots left on our maintenance raffle to win a LEXA -WN 400H w/ 65LB Braid with a Phoenix Black Diamond PSX-907 9’. Only $10 per spot…we are hoping to fill all the spots and pull the winning number before the new year!!  We are also ordering some winter time swag, including flannels, hoodies, beanies and lots of new hats. Next time you are around the clubhouse come in and do a little shopping.  We love getting great photos of our members (especially juniors) to display and post on our website and bulletin board so send in those pics.

During our monthly board meetings, we have been working extremely hard to narrow down tournament and miscellaneous event dates, such as open house, sundowners, swap meets and kids fishing tournaments that will be released soon, so stay tuned. On one unfortunate note that most San Diegans know and are experiencing is the increased inflation across the board. Almost every Yacht Club, Marina, and storage facility is raising membership dues and slip fees. Rent, insurance, gas & electric, trash, and water have all gone up. Even our shirts, embroidery, and credit card charges are up. The Marlin Club has rolled through its share of punches over 94 years. Obviously, to keep our head above water we need to raise our dues and boat sticker fees. This was a very long and mathematically intense meeting with the Board of Directors. We came up with the following absolute minimal increases we could implement for 2024.  Membership renewals will be increasing by $25 and the Boat Decal will increase to $300 per year (basically $25/month paid annually). It has been over four years since the membership dues have increased, we sincerely hope you understand and please know that our Board of Directors are all dues paying members as well so this decision did not come easily As far as Tournament entry fees go that will be assessed closer to the event time and varies by tournament. I cannot thank you enough in advance for understanding our situation.

We are such a proud family-based fishing community and our presence in Shelter Island will be timeless, especially as we cruise closer to our Centennial year. Every volunteer board member and officer feels the passion as much as I to keep us going. Besides this small hurdle I am so excited for the upcoming holiday season and then a new year with brand new events at the club. Please keep an eye on your emails, our website and social media for time and dates!

Tight lines,
Jon Wilson, President