May 30, 2003: After a whirlwind 442 mile drive the length of the State of Mississippi, I arrived in Memphis, TN with my friend Webfoot for the 2003 Duck’s Unlimited “Great Outdoors Festival.” Having grown up an hour south of Memphis, I always feel like I have come home when I can smell a Topps Barbeque before I can see it! If you think of barbeque as a religion, then Memphis is its Holy Land. As usual for me, the weather was perfect until I pulled into the parking lot. Luckily, the rain stopped about the time the gates opened, and the weather remained pleasant but muggy for the rest of my time in Memphis.

The Great Outdoors Festival is a hands-on opportunity to view and play with the latest hunting, fishing, and archery equipment. The event is held on the sprawling grounds of the Agricenter International in the Shelby Farms area of Memphis. Here you can test paddle a kayak, shoot the latest in high tech archery equipment, shoot the latest duck and goose guns, or drive the newest 4 x 4’s and 4 wheelers from the biggest names in the business. It is billed by DU as the largest festival of its kind in the world. The number of vendors was down this year compared to previous years, perhaps due to the economy. Having looked forward to seeing Tom Zink and Tim Grounds, I was disappointed that they did not have booths this year. It appeared to me the number of visitors was way down as well, although that may have been caused by the early rain.

Despite the reduced number of vendors this year, there were lots of helpful experts in a lot of fields on hand to give advice and show off products. In particular, the Franchi representatives were very friendly, and I commend anyone going to the next Festival to visit the Franchi exhibit and look at their hunting and target shotguns. The various dog food vendors were also very helpful, passing out samples and giving advice on which formulas were best for off season dog maintenance. I learned a lot from the Eukaneuba booth in particular.

Good Dogs:

It was particularly refreshing to see many of the visitors at the festival bringing their dogs to the event. Everyone likes to see a wiggly, sniffy and happy dog out walking its human. At least I sure do! The number of Chessies at the festival was surprising to me. I guess that I saw more Chesapeake Bay Retrievers on Friday than I have seen in the rest of my life combined. Perhaps we just don’t see as many here on the Gulf Coast due to the climate. The “hunting dog village” at the Festival had a lot of activity. There were dog training seminars by Mike Stewart of Wildrose Kennels that were very informative, and lots of breeders showing off their puppies and started dogs. Also, some of the local Hunting Retriever Clubs put on demonstrations of what a fine tuned hunting dog can really do if given the right training attention. All things considered, a day spent hanging around with duck dogs is a darn fine day, no matter what else happens. I enjoyed that aspect of the festival very much.

Interesting People:

While at the festival I had the chance to sit and eat lunch with Marion McCollum, the owner of Mack’s Prairie Wings in Stuttgart, Arkansas. Mack’s is known to waterfowl hunters everywhere for their catalogs and offering one of the most extensive lines of waterfowl equipment in America. At lunch, McCollum related that Mack’s has “bent over backwards” to make sure that the on-line ordering from their website functions properly this year, and that the phone lines will not be overloaded as happened last year. I was also surprised to learn that Mack’s has been getting repeated request for replacement reeds for the no longer produced Olt “D2” duck call. The P.S. Olt company is no longer in business. Mack’s has sold out of their supply of Olt reeds, and have begun looking for other sources for these reeds now. This is a testament to the popularity of the modified “D2’s” that have been “cut down” by generations of hunters in Arkansas. It was a treat to meet Marion McCollum, given the number of times I have taken my Christmas money to Mack’s to spend it on “grown up toys.”

GulfCoast & David Gaston

I was privileged to spend a little while talking with David Gaston and Ron Pharr at the Gaston Custom Calls booth. David and Ron are two of the nicest guys in the world, andtheir “new” timber call was one of the “buzz” items at the Festival this year. There were people present who drove to Memphis just to be able to blow this call. Ron also showed me the new Gaston “competition” call based on the “Straight Barrel” call they introduced last year. It looks and sounds like a real winner. At least one contestant has already earned a spot in the World’s Championship with the new Gaston competition call. Listening to David Gaston pick up any random call and “blow the duck out of it” makes me realize that I need lessons.

John Devney of Delta Waterfowl was at the Festival in the Mossy Oak tent signing up new members for Delta. I blew my entire “hat budget” for the year at the Delta booth on new “Delta” caps for hunting season. John is a straight shooting guy and a pleasure to talk with about Delta’s programs. Delta is really pushing to strengthen its membership base in the south in order to do even more research to benefit the ducks. I encourage everyone who is not a member of Delta Waterfowl to join today.

Finally, it is always nice to be noticed. I was introduced to Tate Wood of Drake Waterfowl Systems late Friday afternoon. He was familiar with the WaterfowlReview.com field test of the Drake “Classic Waterfowl Shirt” and really appreciated the comments. They are even considering some of the minor changes I suggested. Imagine that, someone in the industry took our brand spanking new website seriously! That made the trip to Memphis worthwhile all by itself.

Neat Stuff:

There is simply too much water fowl hunting stuff available from vendors at the festival to begin to list it all here. However, there were several “buzz” items that people were talking about that are worth mentioning.

In the decoy department, the “must see” item was the Wing Magic decoy from Price Outdoor Innovations in Ada, Oklahoma. I never realized there were duck hunters in Oklahoma, but you learn something new every day. The Wing Magic is a decoy shell that sits on a section of conduit. A jerk string connects the hunter to a pair of wings that sit in the edge of the water and splash. The effect is quite striking. The decoy can be seen online at Wing Magic.

The MoMarsh “fat boy” marsh boat Momarsh was the talk of everyone who saw it. It is a fiberglass “sneak boat” type water craft with a very low profile and a weight of only 75 pounds. I doubt the boat would draw more than a couple of inches fully loaded. It appears that it would be a fine shallow water boat. Covered with the boat blind offered by MoMarsh and their proprietary bundles of “marsh grass,” this boat looks like nothing in particular. Which is exactly how you want a duck boat to look, right?