Welcome back to "Fishing With Dad!"
It's been a very busy week of basketball games and fishing related activities. I spent a whole day with the crew of 'Winco's Custom Lures' in Souderton, Pa. yesterday. It was the second annual Calvary Church Outdoor Expo and the first year of my attendance.
This was a delightful outdoor show filled with displays, outdoor sales items, and seminars for the entire family! The best part about it was that it was "FREE!" Yes, that word "free" definitely draws a huge crowd and helps folks enjoy a day among outdoor enthusiasts. Calvary Church understands that young families, those hit by the economy, and senior citizens need to attend without paying an arm and leg for parking and entry costs.
I left Willow Street, Pa. around 7:30 a.m. and arrived at The Expo around 9:15 a.m. The traffic wand weather were perfect for the trip down to Souderton, Pa.
I entered the church's back door and met up with the Al Winco crew in the bathroom filling up a small display aquarium to show off several new jig heads and lures. It's the perfect way to explain through example how some of them respond while submerged in water... plus, the kids really loved to watch and carefully work the lures as they stopped by the booth.
Al had several key assistants helping him set up the sale's table. I had been in touch with him a few times over the past weeks and I know that he was putting a lot of time and effort into pouring plastics and jig heads in preparation for this major event.
Here is a pic of the 'Winco's Custom Lures' sales team of Al, Mike, Dave, and Howie. What a great and fun group of guys to spend the day hanging with.
Right next to the 'Winco's Custom Lures' display was the 'Eastern Pennsylvania Fishing Report" Crew of Tim, Bill, and Dave. They had a large selection of site T-shirts and stickers for sale to support their fantastic fishing site that promotes fishing in the Keystone State. It was nice meeting the many site members who passed on by the two tables and stopped to say hello. What a great bunch of guys!
There were a few other good friends running booths at the show, including Chris Gorsuch at 'The Backwoods Anglers' display. Here is Chris educating a valued customer on rigging jigs that were on sell at their stand.
The Outdoor Expo featured several key speakers and seminars by locals throughout the day. Babe Winkleman was the morning Keynote Speaker. Bill Murray from the Delaware Valley Outdoors spoke about "Fishing Lake Nockamixon." Our very own, Al Winco did a very informative seminar with Q&A on smallmouth angling. It was well attended by bronzeback affecionados who had plenty of questions to test Al's general knowledge of seasonal smallmouth behavior. Personally, I thought he did a fantastic job in handling them all even though his time on stage was cut rather short becasue Babe took an extra fifteen minutes in his morning presentation. That ate well into Al's time and caused him to condense an hour of seminar time into just 40 minutes.
Folks, I met so many new faces to old names yesterday that I'm not even going to try to name each and every one. But one thing is for sure, I appreciated your efforts to approach me say hello, plus all of your nice comments!! Please be aware that it means so much to me.
My trip home was quite unusual. For some reason, my GPS sent me in a totally different way than how I got there... LOL! Despite my best efforts to really get lost on the way home, I actually made it back to Willow Street, Pa. in about the same time it took me to get to Souderton, Pa. in the morning without all the traffic I met in the evening. Of course, I only took the NE Extension of I-476 on the way there ($1.00 toll) and the PA. Turnpike on the way home ($1.00 NE Ext. + $3.95 PA. Turnpike Toll = $4.95)... LOL! Oh well, I was so happy that each mistake and turn I missed was easily updated by the GPS and didn't cause me to make any turn about(s) the entire trip! :)
I would highly recommend this show to everyone in 2011. I especially enjoyed the food that was being cooked on site. I had an excellent pulled pork sandwich and cole slaw for lunch. The same outfit even had a variety of smoked beef sticks that I bought and brought home for the family.
Dad
