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Fly Fishing Retailer Show 2008the 2008 Fly Fishing Retailer Show - one of the biggest, best, fly fishing events to look forward to every year, was hosted in Denver Colorado this year! Was the show women friendly? Were there cool things there that you wouldn’t see anywhere else? Would I go again? A resounding – yes! Because it is a quintessential experience – all things fly-fishing in a concentrated dose. Want to meet fly-fishing royalty? Joan Wulff is here. Want to buy a violet reel? Nautilus makes them. Want to cast the length of the show floor on a casting pond as reflective as a mirror? Feel free.
The most obvious observation one could make about the event is that the primary function served is to get the fishing community together for some socializing and R&R. Many of the participants are professional guides and these folks are closing down a season of typically working 70 hour weeks with maybe 4 or 5 days off in the last 90. Some serious focus on catching up with old friends is in order – a kind of reunion.
The most women friendly vendors were Simms with their variety of clothing options and Oakley with their fashionable frames. Plus, Simms had a cool, vintage trailer in their booth and Oakley had leather couches, rock-n-roll, and free beer. Most women un-friendly? Frog’s Hair – Gamma Technologies. A shame too, because I like their product. I asked a couple of reasonable questions to the two guys in the booth and they gave me mono-syllabic answers and pretended to look through me. The coolest thing for me was actually an answer to prayer – literally. When I started this site I knew I wanted to eventually monetize and once I start making money I want to give back to a worthy cause. I thought that cause would be Alzheimer’s as my family is affected by the disease. But when I prayed about that, I kept seeing pink ribbons and knew I had to consider the Breast Cancer Foundation. I went to my key word list, (words that people search on when they search on fly-fishing), and buried in that list of words, oddly enough, was breast cancer! Then I had a dream about a fund-raiser pin and I sketched it out the next day. The image has been stuck in my brain and while I was walking through the show I spotted the booth that housed the good-hearted, civic-minded people who are going to make that pin and the subsequent donations to the Breast Cancer foundation a reality. How cool is that? Breast Cancer Foundation
Finished with Fly Fishing Retailer - take me Home |
