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Something for everyone at show

COMMENTARY

Every February thousands of outdoors enthusiasts enter the Harrisburg Farm Show Complex to attend what is commonly referred to as the sportsman’s show.

For years the official title was the Eastern Sports & Outdoors Show. Once the National Rifle Association took over the event a few years ago, the name was changed to the Great American Outdoor Show.

Growing up only an hour from the show, I commonly attended with my family. I enjoyed walking through it for hours looking at the offerings from the vendors, outfitters and organizations. Once I became an outdoor writer I started to attend for work reasons.

While taking photos and talking to local and famous participants at the show during those work trips, I still manage to simply enjoy myself.

I started to collect wooden duck decoys from a man at the show, purchasing one each year. That collection includes a pair of wood ducks and mallards, along with a drake pintail and hooded merganser.

I decided to turn down the assignments and skipped the show the last few years due to vacations and my kids’ activities. In fact, I had not been to the show since it was taken over by the NRA.

That changed on the final day of the 2017 event. A family friend and outfitter from Montana had a booth at the show and I wanted to stop in and say hello, so I made it a point to make a trip to Harrisburg.

I hoped my son River would join me at the show, since he legitimately enjoys the outdoors. From fishing to trapping, the kindergartener wants to always tag along and I go out of way to accommodate him while teaching him the skills he will need to be a successful outdoorsman.

I also hoped the crowd would be of reasonable size since it was the final day of the show and it was raining, but the building was indeed packed. The amount of people did not hinder the experience in any way, but you had to navigate groups of people standing in bad locations that constantly blocked the flow of pedestrians.

The first stand that caught our attention was Keystone Sporting Arms. I purchased him a Crickett last fall, so he wanted to stop and see what other colors and styles they featured at their booth. Soon we had a camo case for his gun folded in my backpack as we continued to explore the show.

We checked out the Benelli stand and were impressed with their display of mounted old squaws. Next to the shotgun maker’s location we saw the guys from Wild West Guns that were featured on the Animal Planet show Wild West Alaska before leaving the gun area to my favorite hall.

The next hall we visited quickly became River’s favorite as well. We cruised through the aisles of the hunting outfitters area looking at hundreds of beautiful mounts. He especially loved the animals that you don’t normally associate with mounts when you’re a kid from Pennsylvania. He wanted his photo with an elephant and an unbelievable taxidermy piece of a lion attacking a kudu.

I was surprised when he commented on the different sizes of the animals.

“I didn’t think a bobcat was that small,” he said.

We also enjoyed the mounts in the fishing guide hall. He kept asking me where we could catch the species of fish he did not recognize and questioned if the sizes were accurate. It looks like I need to head back to Alaska so he can catch a big halibut.

Just as I had hoped, the show was quite educational for him. But the thing he found most intriguing was a demonstration on falconry. The presenter discussed his bird before eventually showing clips of golden eagles hunting in Asia. The big raptors took down deer, goats and wolves.

After the show I had to give a few answers to River’s falconry questions including “Yes you are allowed to do it in Pennsylvania” and “No, we cannot get a golden eagle.”

Before leaving we got to catch up with Kenny Low, who guided my family on a pack-in Montana fly trip through his K Lazy 3 Outfitters. The cowboy gave River a new hat, which put a smile on the youngsters face. I’m guessing we will be sending Kenny photos of River posing with trout wearing his new fishing hat this spring.

On the way out the door the little guy wanted to stop and look at some fishing items. Eventually we purchased two new reels for surf fishing on the Outer Banks this summer.

As we drove away we talked about his first experience at the Great American Outdoor Show and he sent some photos to his mother from my phone. We agreed we would make the event an annual thing since we got to do two of our favorite things — be with family and enjoy the outdoor sports.

***

Zach Knepp writes about the outdoors for The Sentinel.

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