Every year there is something to look forward to after the Holidays.  Something to fill that dead boring time until Spring comes and what better way to do that than with the Fishing Shows.  Seeing everyone and introducing all the latest tackle is a lot of fun, but there is a lot of preparation that goes into making a show happen.  The biggest challenge is figuring out how to display tackle in 50-80 feet of booth space and it requires that preparation starts weeks in advance.  Most every day until show time starts, you'll find Matt or one of us in the basement of the store loading "boards"; peg boards fabricated with legs and a tri-pod on the back so they stand on their own.  Each board holds a hundred or more items allowing over 2,000 different crankbaits, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, plastics, hooks, weights etc to be easily loaded and transported to our destination.  Shrink wrap is used to secure everything and keep items from falling off the pegs during the ride.  Add in rod racks holding around 700 different model rods and three reel cases filled with all the latest models, then kick in some shirts, hats and other misc. items and you now have yourself a show!

Everything gets loaded into a 26 ft trailer and a few pick-up trucks and we are rolling.  Once we get there we carefully navigate to where our booth will get set up.  Boards are unloaded and lined up,  Shrink wrap is removed, lighting installed, signs hung, and registers prepared for a few days of intensive sales.  This loading, unloading and set-up takes an entire day with help from 10-15 of our pro-staff and other volunteers.  Sure it is a lot of work, but It is something that Mike and George and the gang at SFT have been doing for 18 years and they wouldn't want it any other way!

We just set up for Bass Expo and Boat Show in Timonium MD and the doors are opening in about 30 minutes as I write this.  Check out our entire schedule and we hope to see you at one of our shows soon!