New this year for ICAST-IFTD was "Super Tuesday". This included the first-ever On-the-Water Demo (OTWD), as well as a bass tournament, that took place at Lake Toho Marina in Kissimmee. There was also a golf tournament as well that morning. And later that evening a concert by country music star Eastin Corbin.
I arrived at Toho around 10am, just in time for the winners of the bass tournament to be announced. The winning team had one member easily recognized by his University of Tennessee cap. As someone told me, "I thought he only fished private ponds.". lolThere were dozens of exhibitor tents on the grounds, and several paddlecraft companies on the shoreline (and several boat companies at the marina). I came to ICAST with the plan of concentrating strictly to exhibitors with products related to fly fishing or kayak fishing, or which fly anglers or puddlers might have interest. Even so, it took all of four hours to check everything out. Well except for the new Wilderness Systems ATAK, which I ended up having to test out later. The crowd at the Wildy area was pretty thick until 1:00pm, and just as I though I might get a chance to paddle this boat, an advancing thunderstorm announced it's presence with a loud boom. It wasn't quite closing time (2pm), but everybody packed up in a hurry!
OTWD was a great idea and a big success according to several vendors. It especially was for two unheralded kayak companies that made a major splash with their new offerings. One of them won "Overall Best of Show". Many of the booths found potential customers that might've never seen them on the exhibition floor.
Rather than give a chronological detail of the products I saw and reviewed, I'll summarize them all into categories, with one post for each category. Stay tuned!
