Sportshow!

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Show starts Wednesday. I'm going Saturday along with the masses. I'm going to buy a conversion kit to convert my newly purchased used V2 55 to an ipilot unit.

[jay88]

I'm going Friday gotta find new toys for the boat

[LegattoAD]

I'm going on Wednesday and Sunday. Will be looking at kayaks, picking up another casting rod, a water skimmer for my 597CI unit, and restocking the typical staple items.

[JP Z]

For those planning to attend the NW Sportshow if you go to their HSOforum and admission. If you preorder your ticket by 3/25 you can get $2 off per ticket.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

For those planning to attend the NW Sportshow if you go to their HSOforum and admission. If you preorder your ticket by 3/25 you can get $2 off per ticket.

I would rather pay full price then deal with canceling the required magazine subscription.

[JP Z]

There is a part where you can say no to the magazine and they give you a $7 rebate I think it is? Or either way there is a way to say no thanks to the mag.

[bucketmouth64]

We'll be there on Sunday. Been a couple years since being there. Looking to see if I can find a good deal on a humminbird.

[esoxrocks01]

I'm going today, since it's the only day I have free. I'll be too busy with work to go the other 4 days. I'm going to geek out at all of the fishing lures, and listen to fishing seminars from Ron Schara and Gary Roach and the one covering fishing in BWCA. The last one will help me figure out how to fish Trout Lake neat my cabin, since it's in BWCA territory.

[MikeG3Boat]

Anyone going to the lowrance seminar that you pay extra for?

I'm more of a humminbird guy but thought I would give it a try.

[Vlasin]

Went to the show last night.

Picked up Lowrance Elite 7HDI and i-Pilot. Uncle Joe had the best deal at $1000 - Elite7 $625 and i-Pilot $375. My friend Reed was the next at $1025....others said they simply couldn't beat 1k.

Plus free lake chip from Lowrance booth after purchase.

[harvey lee]

Going Saturday, am going to meet up with Barry "Woody" Woods of Woody's resort on Rainy Lake as he is being inducted into the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.

Should be a fun day, with a ton of people.

[farggingicehole]

For those interested, I found this on another site. 105FM "The ticket" will be broadcasting form the Alumacraft booth Saturday from noon til 3pm

These people will be on hand to say "HI" or ask question etc.

HSO Angling – Aaron Wiebe: Wednesday / Thursday / Friday

Shelikestofish.com – Ashley Rae – Friday / Saturday

The Sportsman’s Journal – Butch Furtman – Thursday – Saturday

Babe Winkleman’s Good Fishing – Babe Winkelman – Friday – Saturday

Jon Thelen - Professional Angler / TV host / writer

Tackle Terry Tuma – Terry Tuma - Hall of Fame angler - Outdoor writer / educator

Eric Haataja – Bigfish 365 - TV host / guide / - Saturday – Sunday

Bennie Spies - Gun it with Benny Spies Friday and Saturday

[38bill]

I went yesterday and was only able to cross off one thing on my "to buy" list. Had to pay full list price but at least I have it. Didn't seem to me that much hardware was actually on sale (except some electronics). Don't know how the rods and reels were priced. Couldn't even find the newest Minnesota Lakemaster Hummingbird chip. I did enjoy the $150,000 pontoon boat that was sale price at something over $100,000.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Went today and it took almost 30 minutes to get to the ticket booth. Crazy! They were way under staffed for selling tickets.

[Savage Brewer]

Heck it took me an hour just to find parking on Friday, all the ramps were full.

Some Mary Kay thing, dance competition, some other "stuff" and some yoga clothes warehouse sale oh and the sports show all at the same time...

It was ridiculous

Like any typical show. No real big deals that I could find.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

I saved $50 on the ipilot conversion kit. Can't wait to use it this year.

[DTro]

yeah parking sucked on Fri. I was surprised by the number of reps/staff that were more interested in talking to each other than to us. We walked away from 2 booths because of that.

Lots of things to see, but yep a show is a show is a show. It was a nice dose of medication for cabin fever, the $10 jack/coke stings a bit though.

I find it amazing that the boat I'm looking for probably will cost less than the show savings on this boat...

[dog1]

My first house cost half of what that boat does.

[pushbutton]

Yeah, but you get 500 dollars worth of Ranger Wear. My first house was a third.......

[harvey lee]

I looked at some LUND's and found some that I thought was reasonable priced for a few new boat's. No issues with the reps but I know some of them so they would come and chat anyways.

I had no intentions of considering a new purchase but I saw 1 boat that really interested me and the price was quite a bit less than what I thought it would run. Granted it had no electronic's on it, but I have those so no big deal there.

Went from no way on a new boat to now really considering it after I saw what my dollar's could buy.

Lot's of people yesterday. On the east end of the building they had seminar's on the how to's for the DIYer on lower units, fuels and maintaince, batteries and trolling motors.

I sat through 3 of them and it was well worth my time, no charge either.

Then, the main reason for going was I got to see my friend Woody get inducted into the Freshwater fishing Hall of Fame.

Also may have lined up a trip to Rainy for some late ice monster pike fishing next month.

Parking yeaterday at 1pm was pretty easy and I was glad I purchased our ticket's online as we did not have to wait in that long line they had there, that would have been at least 30 minutes to get a ticket.

[harvey lee]

There is a part where you can say no to the magazine and they give you a $7 rebate I think it is? Or either way there is a way to say no thanks to the mag.

I agree JPZ, it was easy to purchase online and the savings was fine but not having to stand in line to get in was the best part. Long lines when we arrived yesterday.

[ClownColor]

All vendors seem to be more interested in their phones then actual people.

And if you put sales people at your booths...make sure they know something about the product. Went to lowrance booth wanting insight but the guy had no clue how to use the features...so I think avionics will be my new lake chip.

[FisH_SLaYer24]

And if you put sales people at your booths...make sure they know something about the product.

I went to the Abu Garcia booth because my dad was looking to get a few bait casters. He saw how well my Revo STX last season and he was very intrigued so we went to the booth so I could show him some of the features of the different reels in the Revo lineup. Had the rep/salesperson in the booth trying to explain the reels to him, needless to say I've been a long time Shimano reel fisherman and I knew more about the Abu Garcia reels than said vendor...

[MikeG3Boat]

I like going to the show to see if I can find any new gadgets that actually work. I have found one last year it helps keep you boat anchored in one place during windy conditions it adds a stretch to the anchor line. It works great. This year I bought a tool to allow you to add a bobber stop without having to retie it was only $5. I got a very good deal from TBros on a Navionics map chip that will update my old chip.

I also did notice that some of the vendors are more interested in talking to one another than trying to entice potential customers, which is disappointing if you are trying to get information.

Let's hope that the weather today will somehow hang on an melt that ice so we can open water fish on opener.

[IceHawk]

Went Fri and have to agree parking was a complete nightmare! Did get a gd deal on a elite 7 and two fenwick elite tech walleye rods and also picked up the 5 $ bobber stop tool. Did notice alot of the pros were talking to each other rather than patrons. I did get to chit chat with some guys like Griz, Butch Furtman, Ted Takasaki and Tony roach. As Dtro I was shocked at some of the prices on some of the boats 50-70 thousand for a new walleye rig ouch. Found some gd deals on some Lund pro-guides but think Ill stay with the lund I have being its paid for. All in all good show with a few hangups but sure was nice to get into the open water mode after this winter.