2024 National Pheasant Fest in Sioux Fall, who is going?

If you seen a guy jump out of a brand new black glistening suburban wearing $$$ Italian loafers and hanging out at the booth of high buck hunting lodges or fancy sub-gauge European break-action top shelf guns, then you saw Goosemaster, you just didn't know it.
Seeing that would have been worth the price of admission alone. Bonus points if his cousin was driving.
 
I would agree that the vendors were quite busy, and it appeared to me that there were more "for sale" items at this Fest than at any of the 4 other events we've attended. We bought a new vest, new dog vest, and Irish Setter 8" " Wingshooter" boots (quite a special on those). I admit to being absolutely astounded at some of the prices asked for hunting boots, clothing, premium dog food etc. You'd think some of that stuff is made of gold...
As alluded to earlier in this thread, one of the very best things about this particular show is the people we met--quite by accident, we bumped into a retired veterinarian from east central South Dakota that we have hunted with in the past, and he enthusiastically invited my son and I back again this Fall, saying he has good numbers of wild birds on private land. And we were fortunate enough to see a member of the Pheasants Forever staff, who we had hunted with last Fall; he also asked that we keep in touch and if possible we might put together another hunt this October.
And finally, we were surprised to meet a member of our own NW Indiana community, who had brought his German dog (Drathaar"?) to the show to help man his breed organization's show booth. A Friday night dinner with my wife at Minerva's kept her happy. Good show--very well attended and apparently successful.
 
I would agree that the vendors were quite busy, and it appeared to me that there were more "for sale" items at this Fest than at any of the 4 other events we've attended. We bought a new vest, new dog vest, and Irish Setter 8" " Wingshooter" boots (quite a special on those). I admit to being absolutely astounded at some of the prices asked for hunting boots, clothing, premium dog food etc. You'd think some of that stuff is made of gold...
As alluded to earlier in this thread, one of the very best things about this particular show is the people we met--quite by accident, we bumped into a retired veterinarian from east central South Dakota that we have hunted with in the past, and he enthusiastically invited my son and I back again this Fall, saying he has good numbers of wild birds on private land. And we were fortunate enough to see a member of the Pheasants Forever staff, who we had hunted with last Fall; he also asked that we keep in touch and if possible we might put together another hunt this October.
And finally, we were surprised to meet a member of our own NW Indiana community, who had brought his German dog (Drathaar"?) to the show to help man his breed organization's show booth. A Friday night dinner with my wife at Minerva's kept her happy. Good show--very well attended and apparently successful.
You had a great show.
One of my friends was flabbergasted at the price of the "wing" vests.
 
I asked the fellas at the Small Munsterlanders and all denied being on UPH forum....never knew beside small and large, there are also the original munsterlanders. That part of the venue was just packed with people. It seemed that vendors that brought inventory and selling their product were very busy.
What time were you there Remy? My "shift" at our booth started at 2 yesterday and I was there today from 9 to 3. Must have missed ya!
 
I didn't get a chance to look at as much as I would have liked since I was manning our breed clubs booth most of the time I was there. No Browning shotguns were for sale at the show which was probably a good thing otherwise I would have likely came home with a new shotgun that I don't really need but would like to have haha I talked to the guy at the Browning booth about 3 different times as I couldn't help myself from going back and looking at that gun.
 
It was close to noon when we were in that area. It was packed in that arena where most of the dog breeds were. I saw they thought they had a record attendance for the event this year.
 
My friend commented he was surprised about the lack of items for sale.
This is exactly what I noticed when I went to it last year in Minneapolis. I went there (free admission) with the intent of buying things and there honestly just wasn't that much stuff there being sold.
 
I went on Saturday afternoon with my dad, met up with A5. It was an alright time. Some grabass, but that was expected. Had a nice discussion with the guys from Fish and Wildlife. Two of the WPA's I hunted this fall had the grassland dug up for farming and that's exactly what is going to happen. I guess about a decade ago, FWS started allowing farming on the WPA's if burning, grazing and mowing weren't quite doing the trick, as far as getting the grass to grow better and cutting down on weeds. Which I'm okay with. The guy said, I think, that it's a three year period that it will be farmed. Anyway, it was worth the trip to SF.
 
I went on Saturday afternoon with my dad, met up with A5. It was an alright time. Some grabass, but that was expected. Had a nice discussion with the guys from Fish and Wildlife. Two of the WPA's I hunted this fall had the grassland dug up for farming and that's exactly what is going to happen. I guess about a decade ago, FWS started allowing farming on the WPA's if burning, grazing and mowing weren't quite doing the trick, as far as getting the grass to grow better and cutting down on weeds. Which I'm okay with. The guy said, I think, that it's a three year period that it will be farmed. Anyway, it was worth the trip to SF.
 
We went loved the turtles . Got a chance to see some pudelpointer studs am looking at. I saw uncle Buck we talked about dogs of the past , Buck looked good. Had a great time there loved it krj
 
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