Grand Rapids Ultimate Sports Show

I found myself in a familiar place, representing Johnson Outdoors brands Minn Kota and Humminbird. The big change this year is that we were down a man. If you’ve been in the booth at any point in recent times it’s likely you’ve come across Mike Elkins. While I certainly don’t blame him for riding it out in Florida this year (he has earned it!) we all missed his personality at the show. It also meant I was going to spend all 4 days at the show this year.

However I was still going to try to sneak some fishing in. A favorable forecast sent me out to Lake Michigan before the show on Thursday with a mission to get a friend their first trout or salmon. I only had a couple rods in when we had our first brown on the line and in the boat. It was all bonus from here and we doubled up went from 1 to 3. It was quite a show landing 2 trout (one being a real nice one) with someone who was just figuring out what was going on and multiple lures tangled in the net. But we got it figured out and Andrew made the scoop getting 2 fish in the net at the same time. We picked up a couple more browns and then pushed out to snatch a Lake Trout. With limited time things really couldn’t have gone much better. It was off boat and off to the show for the rest of the weekend.

The best thing about the show is seeing so many friends. The only bummer is you don’t get a chance to talk to everyone you would like to even if you are all at the show for 4 days. One of the first things I noticed when I got to the booth was the new Quest motors in the Ulterra and Terrova. Just like the Ultrex Quest, these are beefed up compared to the brushed versions of the same motor. Not just the motor itself but especially the mount. I just added a Terrova to the duck boat over the winter and I am glad I went with the brushed version. I think I would have had trouble mounting the Quest Terrova to my 16 foot boat. Keep that in mind if you are in that 14-18 foot range about how much mounting real estate you might have on your boat. While the brushless Quest is a superior motor it might not work for everyone. A couple other things to note on Minn Kota Trolling motors is that all the models with advanced GPS (formerly iPilot or iPilot Link) are now compatible with your Humminbird units and there is no more confusion on which one to get. They also include all the cables you might need to link with a Helix, SOLIX, or APEX. It takes the guesswork out of what cables you need and if you want your trolling motor to communicate with your Humminbirds or not. One thing I did notice earlier this year when B.A.S.S. showed all the elite series pro’s boat wraps that there were quite a few pro’s running Ultrex Quest who weren’t sponsored by Minn Kota. If you get a chance to fish with that motor I think you’ll see why. Powerful, effecient, and just ridiculously smooth.

We don’t have anything new this year as far as graphs go. But we had Helix, SOLIX, and APEX on display. APEX was designed at first to be more of a Great Lakes/ocean type unit but with its faster processing speeds it is taking hold in the bass market as well. Our version of Forward Facing Sonar (MEGA Live) was also talked about quite a bit and I’m seeing a lot of interest from guys running multispecies rigs and deploying it on a pole vs the trolling motor like us bass guys do. I think I will go that route on my duck boat though since mounting it on a Terrova or Ulterra isn’t possible.

We’ve got one last show this year at D&R Sports on Easter Weekend (29th and 30th) and you can actually buy stuff from me at that one. We are just representing the brands at the Grand Rapids show but it is way more fun to see the excitement people have when they are going home with new units and trolling motors. Until then I’m going to try and get some fishing in and I really need to get the bass boat home and all set up. Still dreaming about the day I can have multiple rigs at my disposal at the same time. I’ve got a couple changes I’d like to make by running a dedicated electronics battery and I also am due to swap out my trailer bearings this season. Never a fun job but I feel like it is probably time to tackle that. It is fun getting all the rods and reels ready at least and we are far enough along at this point I’ll need more than a couple rods for an effective day of bass fishing.