Raleigh Bass & Saltwater Show

I took the morning off to attend the Raleigh Bass & Saltwater Fishing Show with Rodney Powell and Sammy Mickel.  Nice event. Several well known custom rod builders were in attendance.

Scott Parsons from RodDancer/Fishsticks was on hand… but not to display his rod building products, Instead, he was demonstrating a new live bait tank he recently developed. Good looking unit.

Rod builder Steve Gardner was helping out in a local lure maker’s booth. I wish we could have talked more but every time I stopped by he was busy talking with customers.

Capt. Rick Bennett was exhibiting and reporting that sales of his rods and charters had been very good thus far.  John Ballard was also exhibiting and we talked about the recent passing of rod builder Jesse Buky for a few minutes.

Cashion Custom Rods had a full display of custom rods on hand. I found these to be of particular interest because all the rods featured the carbon-skinned, foam-core grips which were introduced to the rod making craft and industry by RodMaker Magazine back in 2007.

Also ran into Greensboro rod builder Don Hanner at the NC Kayak Fishing Club booth. He and all the above, say they’ll be on hand for the Expo in 6 weeks.

My money, however, was limited to a couple cases of Capt. Mariner’s Seafood Soups and Bisques. Good stuff. Really good stuff. The best on the market.

Tom Kirkman

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