Reporting From IFTD

by Fire Girl Jess on July 17, 2014

The Orvis booth in full-on work mode, IFTD 2014.

The Orvis booth in full-on work mode, IFTD 2014.

I could grow to like Florida. I’m reporting from an outside patio… dusk is falling, I can hear live music from somewhere on the hotel compound, and it’s humid and warm and lovely. Big, puffy gulf clouds puff over the horizon and pink sunlight tints the skyline.

Somehow it’s a kind of weird, zen fit for a fishing industry gathering.

While I haven’t ventured much into ICAST land (conventional fishing still puzzles me, and I can’t throw a spinning rod to save my life, except as potentially a javelin), IFTD has proven to be a productive event for the week. It’s an idea-gathering ground of marketing mojo, press prowess, and pow-wow goodness with industry folk. Talk about a way to reenergize the writing at the day job.

I’ve been working the show strictly in an Orvis capacity, and so have not been wearing my freelance hat, nor have I been toting around the camera kit. I feel rather naked without; my shoulder feels pretty damn empty without a camera strap hugging on, and my fingers itch for the well-worn grip of the Canon.

That said, it’s been awesome to work the Orvis booth, meet some of our dealers, and talk with folk from all sides of the industry. Orvis introduced some pretty rockin’ new product for 2015, and after months spent on naming and marketing for these products, it’s pretty exciting to hear to public’s thoughts.

So, with minimal reporting, here are a few iPhone photos from the show.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to talk. I finally met, face-to-face, a lot of folks I’ve worked with over the years, once more proving there is nothing that replaces a good, old-fashioned hand shake and face time. Looking forward to catching all you guys again in the coming months.

A plethora of rather sobering news coming from around the world today—I took a phone call from a friend with boots on the ground in the Gaza Strip this morning—served as a good reminder to many present that, at the end of the day, it’s only fishing. We work in a pretty awesome industry, filled with some incredible people (met even more today), but the real world never fails to remind us of the sport’s place in the big scene of things.

So here’s to those good days on the water.

The IFTD casting pond.

The IFTD casting pond.

The latest and greatest: Orvis Recon!

The latest from Orvis for 2015: the Recon.

Tags: Fishing

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