It was great to meet everyone and put faces with names! I'll add my thanks as well to those of you who did an excellent job of organizing the social gatherings.  I'll be looking for many (if not all!) of you this summer up north. Happy paddling!

Thanks to everyone for doing all the planning for the get-togethers. It was great to see and talk to everyone at the Saturday supper.

I did not not drive back up to the show for Old Salt and Wally13's program because I don't fish but from what I hear maybe they would have changed that.

I am from Illinois where even the dead vote twice so I had no qualms about giving their presentation the highest marks.

MuleLars wrote on Mar 10^th, 2014 at 1:23pm:


I was wondering if maybe we should just plan to grab the bag lunches and eat at the show. Of course, the hard part would be finding an open table to accommodate the group. I thought the show was packed on Saturday!

Ditto on everyone else's comments - great to see all of you this weekend. Thanks to ML & KF for coordinating events, and thanks to paw for the tour / pub crawl downtown on Friday after the show!  up

Ranger

Plus one on all of the comments. It was another excellent Copia weekend  up

Thanks to all who came out to the various events (and to be clear, Kingfisher gets all of the propers for setting up Gray's!) We can regather our thoughts as it gets closer next year, but I agree with OS that we should consider eliminating the formal lunch on Saturday and concentrate on getting folks to dinner. We can always do lunch if we want to, but with the timing of speakers, etc, it seems hard to pull it off.

And finally, I'll echo how much of a success the presentation was yesterday! OS and Wally13 did a great job. So if I don't nail the lunkers up there this year, I guess it will be operator error 

Now lets get this ice melted and get out on the water!!

Also, it was great to see everyone at the various get-togethers.  Big  up up up to Kingfisher and MuleLars for organizing and reserving spaces for us at Erin's (Friday night), the Coliseum (Saturday lunch), and Gray's Tied House (Saturday night)!

Spartan2 wrote on Mar 10^th, 2014 at 11:32am:


That is high praise indeed!

I also thought the presentation was excellent.  It's quite possible I'm slightly biased, but based on the lack of people exiting 10 minutes into the presentation (a 'Copia tradition), I would say it was well received by all in attendance.

Old Salt and Wally13 did a fantastic job yesterday with their presentation.  I have a doctor's appointment this morning and once I return I will get my photos ready to put on the site.

It was a top-notch event and we were really glad to be there for their excellent show!!  Obviously there was a great deal of thought and preparation that went into it. 

I told Old Salt it almost made ME want to go out and buy fishing gear!   

Congratulations Old Salt and Wally 13 along with everyone who helped you guys pull it off. It sounds like you did a great job and helped some people learn how to have the fishing trip of their life.

Also, thank you to all who attended the dinner Saturday evening. Having 23 people attend assures that we will continue this tradition.

Jimbo, we could not have been given a better introduction than the one you gave us today. We were given instant credibility with you sharing that story about Charlie. I'm so glad that he was able to catch that laker.
If we are asked to return to do presentations, we will be honored to do so. Those who saw us should visit (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) .

We also want to thank a few other QJ folks. Magic paddler ran the video for us, which we hope to post online soon. Denton doc helped us solve some technical issues, which helped everything flow smoothly. MuleLars made himself available to solve any tech issues if they came up. We're glad he wasn't needed. Spartan 2 came to do some photography. We all know how talented she is with a camera in her hands. Look for her photos soon. Snow dog was a late add to our team. He served as crash test dummy as he endured our rehearsal hours at the Roachstar Inn when he could have been at Copia. His advice helped to put the edge on the ax. We have quite a talented team at QJ.

While I'm at it, we had a fantastic gathering at our annual Saturday night gig at Gray's. I think there were about 23 of us which was double what was expected. It was just like an old voyageurs rendezvous. Many stories were shared and plans were made. It looks likely that we will drop the Saturday lunch to encourage attendance at the dinner. Thanks to Kingfisher and Dede for setting this up.

Thanks to Wally 13 for taking a huge risk by being seen in public with old salt.

It was my considerable privilege today to be asked to introduce Wally13 and Old Salt for their CanoeCopia presentation, "How to Plan a Fishing-Oriented Canoe Trip."  Frankly, I still can't get over just how good their presentation was!  The guys did a phenomenal job providing attendees with loads of invaluable trip-planning tips and solid resource information that the crowd could walk away with. 

They didn't give the crowd fish , they taught them HOW to plan to fish... where to start & how to do-it-yourself. 

They pointed to all the websites, magazines and resources that one could ever conceivably need in order to plan a trip of a lifetime.  Despite all the years I have been at it, I found out there was a load I didn't know... so I was taking notes along with most of everybody else!  An especially nice touch was their choice to liberally sprinkle fabulous big fish pics between each slide of learning points. 

This program was exactly the sort of presentation I hope to see when I attend Copia.  In fact, it was among the finest I have EVER seen at the show.  I will be absolutely shocked if they are not asked to return to do it all again next year.  Our Rutabaga host came up to me after the program raving about the excellence of their program.   The fine ovation the guys received when they finished was very well deserved.

Wally13 and Old Salt not only did good today, they absolutely nailed it. 

I look forward to seeing how these two fellas are going to top this performance next year.  What a truly EXCELLENT job!

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Jimbo