D&R Sports Center Spring Fishing Show this Friday/Saturday

[djkimmel]

D&R Sports Center's 18th Annual Spring Fishing & Boating Show is this Friday, April 14, 9AM until 8PM, and Saturday April 15, 9AM until 6PM in Kalamazoo.

Guest speakers include Jon Bondy, Mark Zona, Kim Stricker, Shaw Grigsby, KVD and Bill Dance, along with Mark Romanack and Capt'n Dave Engel for the walleye and salmon/trout guys and gals. The entire deal is FREE.

CastingKids competition between 1PM and 3PM on Saturday. Practice starts at Noon.

Ton's of tackle and reps. I may be able to sneak over there for a while Saturday morning to look at some tackle and see some old friends. Just waiting to hear from cameraguy for a ride over.

[djkimmel]

I'll be there Saturday most of the morning from the looks of things. Hope to see some of you there.

[Roy Randolph]

Went to an open house and got the opportunity to meet and talk to KVD, Shaw Grigsby, Kim Stricker, Bill Dance and the man himself Mark Zona!

I also got to spend some time with Randy VanDam Kevin?s brother and the better of the two VanDam anglers! 

I had a blast these are some great guys and a major reason this is such a great sport. They made themselves available for all to talk to and I must say watching these guys they are pulled in hundreds of directions at the same time. While watching Kevin try to get from the seminar stag to the store office it took him close to an hour and this was less then 300 feet.

I give them all credit for dealing with this in such a grace and honor, we all figure we won?t take but a couple of minutes of their time but when you multiply that buy 100, 200 even a thousand it can be demanding.

See the photos from this here
http://www.fishingpixels.com/pictures.htm

[djkimmel]

Bill Dance had a long line of autograph seekers from the moment he sat down. The line was still there when I left.

Only got to say hi to Kevin and didn't get to talk to Shaw at all.

Kim Stricker remembered my name again - two times in a row (inside joke in case he reads this ). Kim is working on his 2nd DVD and says he has a great scene where he... well, I don't know what category this would fall under - topwater? sightfishing? worming? Anyway, he gets a bedding smallmouth to eat his finger (turns out they have a pretty substantial bite with alligator-like jaw pressure once they latch on to something. Sounds pretty funny.

Mark Zona told cameraguy and me, and some other autograph seekers a great story about a bay full of big bass he found at Santee-Cooper that nobody in the BASS event ever went into. He went in after his taping was done, and the last flight was done fishing, and wailed on big bass!!! He was real vague on the location of the bay!

He's doing great and really enjoying his TV time. He was real popular today.

Lots of great sales and prices on fishing tackle and all the good stuff that goes with it. I didn't get to listen to any seminars, but I think I talked to about 100 people.