I took some time and went down to the
Greater Philadelphia Outdoor Sportshow this afternoon. It was the first year of this show, although there have been somewhat similar shows in Valley Forge and Fort Washington in years past.
I will say something - the organizers did very good job filling the expo hall with vendors. The place was packed with representatives of all kinds of stuff - equipment manufacturers & retailers, outfitters, lodges, charters, outdoors clubs...you name it. There was probably a bit of debate on who the headliner was...Bassmaster champ
Kevin VanDam signed autographs on Friday night, but I think the true star was
Brody the Bear.
Despite all of the stuff there, there wasn't a whole lot that interested me too much. A lot of it was hunting (which I don't do), and a lot of the fishing tackle on display or for sale was either bass or saltwater. There was some lighter freshwater gear, but most of it was "garden variety," in otherwords nothing notable to a gear-head like me.
Two booths I did stop by were
Wild Water Fly Fishing (based out of NY) and
Kennebec Lure Company (based out of ME).
Wild Water Fly Fishing was offering some pretty inexpensive fly rods that without casting them, at least seemed to be pretty nice quality for the price. One rod in particular called the
Wild Country caught my eye. It's a short (5'-6") 4-piece 3-weight that I thought might be nice for some of the brushy creeks I fish. Didn't buy one, but am storing that in the back of my mind perhaps for a later date.
Kennebec Lure Company was really one of the only manufacturers of spoons & spinners that I noticed.
The spinners seemed solid, and looked like they'd catch fish. Of course, I didn't get any wet, but thought they were nice regardless. Was talking to a gentleman there (don't recall his name), and he mentioned they also offer free shipping on any web orders over $20, so he wasn't in full in-your-face salesman mode, which was also nice.
My trout club, the
Stony Creek Anglers also had a booth there. We were lucky to be near Brody the Bear, so foot traffic was really brisk for the few hours I hung out in the booth. Most people that stopped by were already familiar with the club and our
annual tournament, but I did help give out some maps and fliers to the folks that weren't. Heck, I even sold a couple of SCA t-shirts & patches, which if you didn't make it to the show, you can find right
HERE.
(Hint Hint)
Last year's clean up had the largest turnout ever as 172 volunteers filled a 20 yard dumpster to the brim! Some large items removed included a piano, 2 sofas, 4 bikes, 1 wagon, 40 tires and a sizable pile of scrap metal!
Chemo is over, and her hair is already starting to grow back! We've already booked a week long vacation in March to "do Disney" for Lilly's birthday, K.C. & I both joined a gym, Lilly is finally going to get potty trained, the awful wallpaper in the front of our house is coming down this weekend (pictured at left, one of my Valentine's Day gifts to K.C., and BTW that picture was taken before we bought the house, that creepy cat on the wall is NOT ours), and I actually started attending Stony Creek Anglers meetings.
I don't feel that bad about it though, it was nice to get away from the hustle & bustle of holiday retail for a change and just enjoy the sounds of the riffles breaking around my waders. Plus I did take some (poor) pictures of some Golden Rainbow Trout. Some tough glare so all you can really make out is the silhouettes. Some people call them Palominos, but they actually are golden rainbows. There were two of them kinda hanging out with each other the whole time - where ever the big one went - the little one followed. It was kind of fun just watching them for a little bit even though I wasn't doing much fishing. Also took a quick movie below.
