Farmer’s and Sportsmen’s Club offers conservation, recreation

One of the best things about summers in Northeast Ohio is the abundance of festivals. Unless, that is, you’re one of the people trying to put on one of the abundance of festivals.

That’s where the Orrville Farmer’s and Sportsmen’s Club ran into trouble while looking to bring back its strawberry festival after a lengthy hiatus. Originally scheduled for Saturday, June 29, the event was cancelled due to a crowded local calendar, according to club spokesman Kevin Hess.

“We’ll move on to the next event,” Hess said. “We kind of look at what everybody is doing. This event we thought nobody else was doing anything at that time.”

The unexpected deterrent came when those in charge of Canal Fulton’s annual Canal Days, a huge event in Stark County less than 5 miles from the Farmer’s and Sportsman’s Club, decided to change their dates.

Canal Days is among the bigger annual events of its type. The vendor- and ride-heavy festival was typically held after the Fourth of July but this year shifted up a week or two and is running June 27-29.

“Canal Fulton is doing their Canal Days and there are a lot of other strawberry festivals going on, too,” Hess said.

That is certainly the case, with strawberry festivals dotting the Ohio landscape over the next few weeks. Those include local festivals including those in Rittman, Bolivar, London and Norwalk, among many others in the region.

“We wanted to make sure they were locally sourced strawberries,” Hess said of the planned renewal his club’s festival. “That was another issue.”

Canal Days, though, proved the deciding factor. The local summer festival schedule is fairly bare in the immediate area, which may have played a role in Canal Days being moved. With July 4 falling on a Thursday this year, many areas have weekend-long celebrations, including Orrville.

Upcoming for the club is its wild game dinner in September.

Hess said another fishing derby or two for kids may be added, along with a veterans fishing derby and a fall fishing tournament for members. The club also hosts a breakfast every second Saturday of each month.

So its members will have plenty of things going on to keep themselves busy in addition to their normal camping and fishing. He added that plans are for the strawberry festival to resume next year, once a more suitable date is chosen.

Also going on now at the club are a pair of raffles. They include one for a BKC Fishing Kayak. Tickets are available up until July 31 or until all are sold. They can be purchased for $25. The kayak is a BKC PK12 angler, a 12-footer that includes a trolling motor. It is valued at $1,300. The drawing will be posted live on Facebook.

A second raffle is taking place with tickets going for $30 and includes 10 different guns as prizes. Descriptions of the various pieces are available on the club’s website. Winners can opt to receive $450 in cash. Winners must pass a background check to receive any of the guns, which can be picked up at Manchester Firearms.

The drawing will take place Aug. 10 at the club’s monthly breakfast. You do not need to be present to win.

As for the strawberry festival, Hess said the goal was to bring it back after the long break to get the club doing more events the way it di years ago, a move to help stimulate more inter-generational activity.

“Back in the day, and we’re talking decades ago, we would do events like that,” he said. “The younger people, the generations of people who did it before, they used to do stuff like that. We’re trying to get back to being a family-oriented club. There for a while, there wasn’t a whole lot going on out there like that.

“We’re making it more kid- and family-friendly. We want to start doing more things like that, like the strawberry festival. We’ll do a fall festival after the wild game dinner.”

Hess said the club is based on conservation, youth education and just family in general. Members pay $50 per year. For that they can fish year-round in the club’s 7-acre lake and camp throughout the summer.

Hess said the club’s lake is well-stocked with bass, bluegill, perch and several other types of fish. He said the club stocks according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ program, receiving grants from the ODNR as part of the club’s conservation efforts.

“Typically the stocking takes place a week prior to our kids derbies in May,” he said. “We’re looking to do more of those, too.

“We also have a certified hunter safety member involved who puts on a hunter safety class once or twice a year for kids and adults.”

Established in 1941, the Farmer’s and Sportsmen’s Club is a nonprofit organization located at 18473 Shifferly Road in North Lawrence on the eastern edge of Wayne County. The club is dedicated to the advancement of outdoor education, conservation and recreation.

For information, see orrvillesportsmens.com or visit the club’s Facebook page.