I know what you are thinking, and yes, the title of this blog lacks any hint of humility. In my defense, I put forth the following quote from Arthur Schopenhauer, a renowned German philosopher: "With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy."

Yes, I know, I still appear to be sitting upon a throne of conceit, but I will endeavor to prove our booth's worthiness of such high minded words of praise. I submit the following picture as exhibit A.

I count at least twelve people standing around one boat, the Hobie Pro Angler 12, and listening to one of our local pros, Joe Underwood. This picture gets to the very essence of why the ARC booth rocked.

We had six local fishing pros: Mark Lozier of Native Watercraft & 1st Landing Kayak Fishing Services & Double L Show on Kayak Fishing Radio, Chad Hoover of Wilderness Systems & Kayak Bass Fishing, Aaron Dryden of Wilderness Systems & Kayak Fishing Adventures, Jay Brooks of Wilderness Systems & Virginia Kayak Fisherman, Chuck Wrenn of Hobie Fishing Kayaks & Froggin 4 Bass, and Joe Underwood of Hobie Fishing Kayak & Hooked Up. We had Luther Ciphers from Yak Attack, Chuck Morris from Confluence Watersports, Dinver McClure from Pyranha & Feelfree, plus Tina and Jim Shank from Heroes on the Water Central Chapter. We also had a ton of kayaks, gear and some Appomattox River Company staff.

Whew, it's exhausting listing all the radness in our booth. So, you see, the reason our booth was the best was a result of the excellent folks we had manning it. All the pretty kayaks helped too.

Vic, ARC-Hampton manager, and Chad Hoover discussing the merits of the Wilderness Systems Advanced High Seat Ride 115 and the new Phase 3 AirPro seat on the Wilderness System Tarpon 100 kayak with an interested angler. In the background the Jackson Cuda 12 kayak, Wilderness Systems Tarpon 120 kayak and the Ocean Kayak UltraTrident 4.3 are featured.

Chuck Wrenn discussing the outfitting of his Hobie Mirage Revolution 13. We like the HOW/ARC fishing jersey! I think we need to see another shot of that.

Tina Shank models that sweet fishing top at the HOW table. It was good to see a lot of traffic stopping at the Heroes on the Water table. The more people are exposed to this great organization the better.

We also brought along the Native Watercraft Slayer 12, the Feelfree Moken 12.5 Angler and the Wilderness System Ride 135 w/ Advanced High Seat.

Some folks checking out the Feelfree Moken 14 Angler kayak.

Chuck and Dinver blurred out amongst a forest of Yak Attack Visicarbon poles, Panfish Camera poles and GoPros. It is important to be seen and to be seen doing it.

Brian Vande Sande, from ARC-Farmville, still standing after multiple days in the trenches. Most of the folks in the ARC booth hung tough for a couple of days.

Appomattox River Company also sponsored two seminars at the expo:

The 1st seminar on Friday featured Mark Lozier talking about Kayak Fishing for Inshore Species. Thanks to Mark for throwing down some knowledge.

The 2nd Seminar featured (l to r) Jay, Chuck, Vic, Joe, Aaron and Chad sharing stories and tips. It was a very entertaining discussion, full of great anecdotes. Thanks to all the  guys.

How about a couple more shots of the booth?  We also had a Native Watercraft Versa Angler Board, a Jackson Coosa Kayak and a Feelfree Moken 10 Lite Angler kayak in our booth.

Thank You to everyone involved and to everyone that stopped in. It was a successful show. We had a booth filled with quality products and quality people. We blasted through our Yak Attack gear and emptied our stash of business cards. Our booth was definitely one of the most engaging of the show. I may be biased in my assertion that we had the best booth, but I was not alone in that assessment. As Steve Vehorn so aptly stated on our Facebook page, " Best booth at the show - kayak fishing is no longer the best kept secret in fishing."

**I'll post all the pictures from the show on our Facebook page tomorrow in our Winter album.