2012 Trade Shows

For weeks, our staff has been gearing up for two outdoors trade shows. After much anticipation, we loaded up early Friday morning for our first show in Birmingham, AL. I was really looking forward to this show for a lot of reasons. It was hyped up to be a very big show, and it was also a new one for us. We arrived around noon and spent an hour setting up our station before we grabbed a late lunch before the opening of the show’s first evening.

To my surprise, there were quite a few big name hunters there. Lee and Tiffany Lakosky were definitely the main attraction. They have a popular hunting show on The Outdoor Channel called “The Crush with Lee and Tiffany.” It was nice to get to meet them and visit with about how they started out in the outdoors industry. Also in attendance was Glenn Guist from the hit show “Swamp People.” I’m pretty sure he never wore shoes the entire time he was there. I watched in amazement as he walked around downtown Birmingham without shoes, smoking Marlboro cigarettes. It was truly a sight to see.

We were at the Birmingham trade show for three days and had the privilege of talking to hundreds of people. It was the biggest show that I have ever been to. They had anything and everything for hunting and fishing that you could ever want or want to learn about. It was estimated that about 40,000 people came through the show in those three days, and I would not be surprised if it was even more than that.

We spoke to a lot of good people and had a great time making new friends and talking duck hunting. In our booth we previewed a slide show on my computer and a video of our holes playing on a flat screen TV (that is now up on the front page of the website) for everybody to come by and look at. We also had our calls and did some calling to aggravate the booths around us and hopefully call in some fellow duck hunters.

Another big name at this show was Bill Dance, a legendary fisherman. I remember growing up and watching his shows as a kid. He taught people a lot of new and different techniques about the sport of fishing. One of the coolest things we got to see is one of the booths had a capuchin monkey. The monkey would go around and get quarters and dollars for “Good Luck.” I wish I knew how many thousands of dollars that monkey collected because I did not see many people pass up that opportunity to get “Good Luck” from a monkey.

There were a variety of booths at the show, ranging from exotic hunts to offshore fishing trips to local deer and turkey hunts. They had something for everyone. The boys and I really enjoyed this show and are looking forward to attending it next year.

The second show we attended was in Jackson, Mississippi. It was nice to have a local show and see some good friends and familiar faces. It was like playing a home game for us. The Jackson show wasn’t as big as the Birmingham show, but it was definitely still a lot of fun. We had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people, which is always enjoyable for us. Another highlight was seeing all the big deer killed throughout Mississippi this past season.

During the three day show, we got to try a lot of good food – something we are very fond of. There were several deer processing place, known for doing excellent work, which were within smelling distance of our booth. Probably the best thing I sampled was green onion deer sausage.

Like last year, there were a lot of call companies in attendance. I got the chance to quack on several nice ones but came back to our good friends at Houndstooth Game Calls when it came time for me to purchase a call. I ended up buying a beautiful wooden, double-reed call that was made of cedar wood with a nice rich tone. I had never heard of a duck call made of that type of wood before, and it gives me a little touch of home when I blow on it.

Both of the trade shows that we attended this year were big successes. We had a great time and are looking forward to next year.