Outdoors

Tyler Friends of the NRA will hold its annual banquet and auction beginning at 5:30 p.m. tonight at the Lone Star Events Center, 4036 Farm-to-Market 2767 (Old Kilgore Highway).

Tickets for the banquet are $40 per person and are available at the door.

This year's event will include a live and silent auction, drawings and games for guns and a number of other items. Between 40 and 50 guns will be available.

Last year's banquet attracted about 350 and netted approximately $27,000. Net proceeds from the event and others in North Texas provides funding for youth activities, law enforcement agencies and helps underwrite an NRA national gun safety program. The North Texas region dispersed $150,000 to underwrite 39 grants last year.

The Friends of the NRA banquets have been awarded an A-plus rating from Charity Navigator, which charts the amount of money charitable organizations spend on programs versus salaries and other internal spending.

For more information on tickets call Kami Sissions at 903-539-5088 or Tommy Easterling at 903-330-4901.

Working in conjunction with Ducks Unlimited, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has made significant improvements to the Alazan Bayou Wildlife Management Area in southern Nacogdoches County.

"We've had a busy 24 months at Alazan," said Bill Adams, TPWD's Pineywoods Ecosystem Project leader. "We've got the wetlands units functioning pretty much as they were designed to. But it's been a big job."

Beginning in the summer of 2006, TPWD staff managed aerial applications of herbicide to kill out woody encroachments in the wetlands units and roller-chopped the smaller trees and underbrush. Finally, in October 2007, using bulldozers, they piled and burned the debris.

"With the area cleared, we were better able to observe how the impoundments were functioning. This helped us determine which water control structures should be extended or repaired" Adams said. "These repairs really enhanced our water holding capabilities in the units."

The Alazan Bayou WMA held water from November 2007 through April 2008 and supported a large variety of waterfowl, wading birds and shore birds.

"We may not be completely ready by teal season," Adams said. "But, once the North Zone duck season opens this fall, we'll offer both waterfowl and waterfowl hunters more opportunities than ever before in the wetlands at Alazan Bayou WMA."