Spent today at the Redmond, OR Sporstmans Show. Same general show ya'll saw in Puyallup or Portland. Just less people attend this one, so we typically get more time talking to the exhibitors which is nice. Couple of interesting notes from the show:
1) I finally pulled the trigger on my BC Canada moose hunt for my 50th birthday in rut hunt fall 2023. Decided to go with Nadina Outfitters in central BC. 1.4M acres licensed for 20 tags for the season. Been researching for years and talking to outfitters and landed on these guys. Hope it goes well.
2). ALP Generators. Spent alot of time talking with the owner of the small company. Propane generator. Similar dB as a Honda 2xxxx series. This was the 1kW model (runs at 850W), but he has the 2kW prototype out now for those with a larger RV AC unit. Great guy. I reviewed all the loads that I needed to power with it, and he even called his design engineer (on a Sunday) to talk to me about it while at his booth to make sure it would work for my needs. Cool guy. He took the generator outside the building, and powered it up for me and showed all the features/etc. On par with my current gas generator and doesn't kick off eco til you get over 320W load (my gas generator seems to kick off eco with most normal loads). Needless to say I bought one. These guys just closed a deal with Walmart, after recently getting a few big box stores signed on. Nice getting to do propane instead of gasoline for a small quiet generator. Will advise how mine works throughout this year.
3) Rokman packs. Out of Idaho. Maybe others know of them, but I haven't seen them before. Very cool design for a waterproof modular backpack system. Various options with the carbon fiber frame, a traditional large metal pack frame, load shelf, various pack bags, etc. Nice guys and did a great job of going through all the pack options. I didn't buy one today, but I'm a gear *censored* and probably will get one one day. I own to many backpacks for backpack hunting, but I'm certain I'll end up with one of these someday as well.
4) Maven Optics and Opsrey Scopes. Have heard of them, but first time I got a chance to look through any of these brands. Looks like decent quality. May have to do more research.
5) Tract Optics - I'd never heard of these guys before. They had some premium pricing on their scopes and binoculars. Need to do some more research. The glass quality looked pretty darn good. Not sure where the glass is built or the assembly is. But interesting optics worthy of more research.
Not many outfitters this year. I think every travel trailer and RV in Oregon was parked at the show this year.....so many campers/trailers/RVs. Normally there are some interesting new technologies I find at these shows, which is why I mentioned the few above. Didn't find too many other interesting gadgets/hunting tools/etc. this year. But I love this show as it's the same exhibitors but less traffic as Puyallup and Portland so you get more time talking to the exhibitors.
