Sportshow!

[Shorelunch]

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.

I agree 100%. "Fishing personalities" and their cronies in the booth huddle and won't even acknowledge customers. Very poor salesmanship and marketing. With all of the money vendors invest in their booths and travel expenses, you'd think they would mandate sales and education first and talk'ing with their "fishing elite" piers second.

There are sales reps that are the exception, but it seems that many just want to be part of the "cronies" than actually work the show.

[Deitz Dittrich]

While I will not defend the "Vendors" I can maybe shed some insight. As a person who works these shows myself.

Many of these guys work back to back to back to back to back 12 + hour days at these events. This show is one of the last of probably a 2 month run for them. When working I try to do my very best to give anyone I can my full attention, but many times I am working with multiple customers. I dont know everything.. New product are coming out constantly, trying to keep up isn't easy. Many staff members have full time regular jobs.

Lastly, and again, not an excuse. But many times during a day, you field complaints, from customers who are down right rude. When you had nothing to do with the problem in the first place. Again, I realize when working you represent the product, and I do my best to deal with the problem, but its not easy.

I'm sorry to those who did not have a good expierience with a staff or vendor member.

[esoxrocks01]

I came home from the show with a new 7 ft. heavy Jig-A-Whopper baitcasting rod for muskies. Bought it for 25 dollars. What a steal! Also got some walleye jigs, a livetarget field mouse, and two muskie lures to kick off the new year. I also caught two brown trout out of the trout pond for the first time. Muskie fishing will be a lot easier now!

[jmg]

Went to the show yesterday with my brother. Had a great time. Yes, there were some reps who were less than knowledgable and not very friendly, but there were also those who were really good at what they were doing or supposed to be doing. Kind of like going shopping anywhere these days. I can appreciate what Deitz said about the venders, since I worked at the same or similar venue in St. Louis when I was in college back in the early '70s and I think at that time, it ran 10 days. Really got old by the last couple days, trying to keep up the enthusiasm in answering the same questions over and over. But, we tried our best.

Got some great info from Gary Parsons and had a nice visit with Ted Capra. Bought some things I needed and a few things I didn't so all in all, a great day. Didn't go to LULU's, though.

[ThunderLund78]

Yeah,

Half the reason for the lack of parking was the Lulu Lemon thing. I find it ironic that my wife thinks I'm crazy for fighting the crowds all day just to look at boats/equipment/vacations I can't afford to buy. And then I see literally thousands of women standing in line for hours and getting ecstatic to the point of screaming, just to get their hands on some designer sweatpants.

But I did find something in my price range that fulfilled a need (one that I didn't even know I had!). I walked out of there with my very own FRYING SAUCER! Already put it through a test run in my driveway with the neighbor and a couple of beers. So far, so AWESOME!

[jay88]

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.

the only one that had the new chips was reeds everyone else won't be getting them till next week at the earliest I was told I got the new minnesota and Wisconsin chip for 100 a piece

[delcecchi]

I may have seen one like that on the water. Turns out the Premier family has a place somewhere on the west end of Vermilion, and I saw this really tricked out pontoon parked at Moosebird's dock one day.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Anybody else drooling over the awesome DJI Pantom quadra copter with the GoPro camera? I really want one. Maybe someday. I know these will only get better over time.

[Nathansdad]

Found a good deal on a Lowrance HDS 9 Gen2 touch. Can't wait for open water!

[BartmanMN]

I may have seen one like that on the water. Turns out the Premier family has a place somewhere on the west end of Vermilion, and I saw this really tricked out pontoon parked at Moosebird's dock one day.

I assumed that was them when I saw it on the big V as well. Twin 250's on it (if I recall) with the full bar in back. Very impressive.