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American Tackle was invited by Oliver Schwenke of the Big Game Shop in Berlin, to share a booth at the annual Ocean Angling Show in Magdeburg, Germany. Although the show is mainly targeted toward fishing in Norway for cod and giant halibut, you can find all the travel agencies specializing in exotic fishing trips there as well.
The Big Game Shop specializes in outfitting anglers traveling to exotic destinations throughout the world. They also have tight relationships with some of Europe's top anglers. Oliver has contracted Dan Paluch of American Tackle Europe to help design and produce a series of "high end" rods built with the best materials available...and that's exactly what we did!
At the show, he launched a new series of rods under the RIFFSAU name. The series includes Vertical Jigging and Popping rods as well as specialized boat rods designed for Norway. The rods are built with American Tackle's new BUSHIDO blanks, along with their Virtus Titanium Ring Lock guides. They're wrapped with Pro Wrap thread, the handles are glued with ProPaste, then the assembly is finished with ProKöte.
Dan Paluch set up a rod wrapping station in the booth in order to show the public the expertise that was put into each of these advanced rods. This was met with great success resulting in immediate rod sales for both days of the show and very strong residual sales in the weeks following. That's very impressive considering that only a concept/demo rod had been presented, not a finished product.
Anglers were able to test the action of the rods on a fishing simulator very similar to what American Tackle featured in its 2009 ICAST booth in Orlando, FL. It is programmed with tuna, GT, sailfish and halibut. The simulator not only allows the angler to feel the action of the blank, but the rod builder is able to customize the rod for the angler. For example, a tall guy with long arms requires a long butt section whereas a shorter person needs the reel seat a bit closer. The simulator was a big hit with the show attendees.
Also, on display in the booth, were all color selections of the aluminum reel seats with matching gimbals to help customers make selections. This was another way of giving the customer a better understanding of the meaning of custom rod building.
Even though rod building has existed for quite some time in Germany, it was clear that not everyone has been exposed to it. With the success of this show we are confident we made some great rod building impressions!
- Dan Paluch, American Tackle Europe Contact: Dan@AmericanTackle.us
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Reel Seats & Gimbals On Display |
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