The Springfield Sportsman's Show has a bit of everything!

If you can't get out fishing, perhaps the next best thing is a fishing and hunting expo. I drove up to the Springfield Sportsman's Show today at the Big E grounds to browse some new gear, see a few friends, and perhaps scout out some interesting fishing locations for the upcoming season. I missed last week's show at Hartford, so I was really anxious to get out and do something related to fishing.

No sooner did I walk in the door than I was saying hello to Capt. Greg Dubrule and Matt from Blackhawk Sportfishing. Once again Greg had a prime booth location, and he's pretty good at setting the Blackhawk II on some prime fishing spots as well. I look forward to running some of his happy hour and night trips for shots at 50lb. stripers.



The Springfield show has a bit of everything, with hunting and fishing guides from across the US and exotic locations as far away as South Africa. My focus is a bit more local and regional, which was well represented by guides, shops and manufacturers. The upstate New York and Lake Ontario was well represented with probably a dozen or more guide and charter outfits, and a few booths down from the Blackhawk was Capt. Ron Littlejohn of Double Trouble Charters. I've never fished with Ron, but he's an Altmar local whom I've met a few times while enjoying a post fishing beer or two at the Salmon River Outfitters Tavern.

Another booth that grabbed my attention was Catfish Creek Camp located between Oswego and Pulaski on the mouth of Catfish Creek just off Lake Ontario. Their protected docks and nice selection of cabins make it a great location to run my boat from Oswego north towards Clark Point without having to pull it out of the water every day.

Since my move north, I've become more and more obsessed with targeting the CT River pike, and had some success with fish up to the 40"+ range, but I've found myself looking to venture farther north to fish both big pike and a fish I've never targeted, musky. After talking with "Musky" Joe Netti, I'm ready to head up to the Ottawa River and take a shot at some trophy musky. I just need to find 2-3 other anglers, and convince my wife.

I'm always on the lookout for some new stuff to fish, or just great deals on old reliables. I loaded up on my favorite striper jigs from George Kellar of Jigs, Rigs and Stuff. I love his jigs because they are made with heavy Mustad hooks and he doesn't skimp on the bucktail skirts. These things can hold up for striper after striper without falling apart.



Another cool vendor was Lee and her Worm Bar. Now, my kids love to go to the candy factory and fill a bag with gummy worms and other assorted junk that's sold by the pound. Why wouldn't fisherman be the same with a worm bar? I bought a jumbo bag of 5" Yum Houdini Shad and a bag of assorted senko type worms, including some monster 7" watermellon worms to weed out the dinks. She also gave me a couple of big 9" Shads to try, and said she can get these in any color.





The last product I brought home to try out is the Skippy Fish. I fish tons of Zoom Flukes and similar baits (as you could see from the bulk shad bodies), and this is a variation of that type of soft plastic. Now, you may have seen Lou Consoli advertising his Skippy Fish in one of those "As Seen on TV" infomercials and be thinking "right." I talked with Lou for a while, and he took me over to a swim tank to show me his lure. The action was impressive, far more so than the Zoom Fluke. He also talked about the ZF tendency to roll, creating line twist, which is certainly a reality. He claims that the body shape of these largely eliminate this problem. Anyway, they looked convincing in the tank, so I have a few packs to try out when the stripers chase herring up the rivers.

Far too much to cover in this post alone, but you can see the list of upcoming shows on my earlier post "Get out and go to a fishin' show!"