A comment shared after the Classic

Rick put this up on another board he frequents that is small and he has friends on. We thought we would drop it on here for you. Well, we made it home late Tuesday from Houston. Round trip loop through Selma and Tuscaloosa on the way to deliver the Eyra to Alabama and visit some quality dealers. We did Bowden, Brech and Hide-A-Way stops along the way. It was a long 2 months grinding down to the Classic with new models, show set up, on water demo and media supporting it all taking a lot of effort and a tremendous amount of time. It started becoming media in January with the mailer and a BASS Times advertisement that has the Experience in the top left corner.We had a great event and the only one of you I spoke to knowing it was Paul Sonnier. Yes, Pauli saw your ticket in the box while sorting through the drawing participants, no you didnt win!The demo rides went great at Wolfies and we had about 400 people take a ride in a BCB, with friends and family along. Wolfies had a Great time and if they go back to Houston we are going to stretch on another event there. We never had a chance at a demo situation around other Classics with a place close.We have a huge market around Conroe and a Wednesday night event on Conroe will have 60-80 boats with about 30-50 being a Bass Cat. We had a lot to protect there and a lot to gain. It was a #1 market for us, within 4 hours of Houston, almost 15 times over our history. So we made an aggressive stance in what is basically our own backyard.We caught a little flack for being close to the takeoff, though we reserved Wolfies over a year ago and before Bassmaster inked a contract on the Classic, while they were negotiating. We book Inland Discount Marine, a vacant lot and Wolfies. We also had banner rights on Papas though decided not to when Bassmaster moved into our backyard. that was abut frustrating and turned out to help everyone get more in site activity. Seems Bassmaster didnt read the advertisement they ran in their own publication.Those parking at Inland Discount Marine, Bass Cat had it rented so we picked up the $30 launch fee. Dave had Kolachkes for everyone that morning also and Kevin Short handed everyone a ticket and hat. We did anticipate more folks launching there and we were hesitant to publicize that for fear of overrunning the low volume parking lot. There wasnt much room we thought, though open space was plentiful as everyone was ducking the $30 launch fee.If you havent been to a Classic the event at the lake is like Grid said, takeoff and leave. The demo rides are lackluster in draw and we gave about 3x the demo rides with our focus than the sponsor companies did all together. Grid, you should have slipped over to Wolfies with us for breakfast. The had sausage and eggs and it was pretty good. we hope our focus changes the Classic in the future to have three venues, the Weighin, the Expo and now a gala event at the Lake. More with previous anglers, those not qualified Elite anglers signing autographs in an organized fashion and more.BASS was going out of LaToretta (1), then Waypoint Marina (2) and settled on Conroe Park (3) in late January. By then some of you guys already had your personal tickets to the dance from us. We did catch some grief for the location but BASS moved to our location, not the reverse. We had planned a stand alone event which is why we had those three huge spotlights at 4:30 AM to let everyone know where we were. 1.4 billion candle power in the sky… That looked like Bassmaster did it… Oh well!Overall the Lynx debut was a huge success and the new Pantera Classic got great traction also. We made a splash in Texas and we wanted to. The booth downtown was really packed and crowded from start to finish. Comments on the out of the box design were what we expected. We also know you will see several aspects of it on other brands in the future. The offset box lids where you dont have to move your rods to open a lid will definitely be one other brands will move to, if they can.Now comes reality, we are back at home settling in. Fishers of Men is in Louisiana for their National Championshp this weekend. We have two open houses in Texas. And we have to begin prepping final tweaks for production with the new Pantera Classic first. In about 60 days we hope to have the Lynx done for production.I wish time had been more friendly to visit, though at a Classic I go from one handshake to another, especially when we do a new model rollout, let alone Two (2). Then we had more going on as I started at the lake that first morning at 5:00 AM. By Sunday I wasnt there till 6:00 AM once the rhythms were established.I wish I had gotten to meet more of you personally in Houston and reality is time is short for me to visit much. Though we did have a great event and the Classic has now been in Texas. Something weve wanted for a long time. There were no record breaking number like we expected, though it was very good.Who knows, maybe we get a sequel and anglers in Texas know what it is now. So many Texas fishermen had no idea since it was almost 40 years ago on Texoma and that was nothing compared to what it is today. They just treated it like another tournament and not the affair that it is.Good Fishin,Rick