ICAST Gets Rolling in Orlando
By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire
It’s the Greatest Show on Earth if you happen to be in the fishing industry
The annual ICAST/IFTD show is underway in Orlando, Florida, this week, drawing literally thousands of companies from across the globe to the marketplace in hopes of selling their products to the buyers and retailers who will then offer it to anglers.
Some of the products are a bit doubtful, to be sure-there are some that solve problems that for most anglers do not exist, others that cost so much relative to their function that they’re simply not marketable on a large scale.
But every year there are some big winners, and lots of small companies hoping to become big ones with one or two great products that will start to grow them towards being the next Berkley or Rapala or Shimano.
The event gets underway with the annual State of the Industry meeting, and this year the news was generally pretty good. According to American Sportfishing Association chief Mike Nussman, the show is now bigger than ever despite the competition from electronic media for the youth market. Nussman credits both the location of the show in Orlando, closer to the east coast tackle industry, and the combination of the ICAST show with the Fly Fishing Trade Show the last two years with the increase.
Gregg Wollner, Executive Vice President of Rapala and ASA board chairman, said in his presentation that 4.1 million new anglers fished for the first time last year, and 42 percent of them were women. He also said Hispanic anglers were on the increase, indicating two underserved markets that promise future growth to the industry.
Nussman said that some 40 million anglers have a $125 billion annual impact on the U.S. economy, spending not only on tackle and gear but also on boats, motors, tow vehicles, fuel, and motels and restaurant meals. But he said, to maintain industry success, everyone in the business will have to become conservation-minded in the future, as well as being open to seeking new markets through partnerships with those outside the industry-he pointed to an on-going ASA partnership with Disney World as an example.
Florida Governor Rick Scott, a business-friendly governor, also spoke briefly at the breakfast, pointing out that of the 100-million or so tourists that visit the Sunshine State, a great many of them fish Florida’s waters. Scott has been one of the Gulf Coast governors pushing for state management of red snapper in recent months due to the very controversial management decisions being made by NOAA.
We’ll take a closer look at many of the products introduced here in the days and weeks ahead, and some of them are truly mind-blowing, including an auto-deploy trolling motor from Minn Kota and a system from Lowrance that will let anglers control both the outboard and the trolling motor from the electronics, giving an electronic “third hand”.
General observations from my first day walkthrough are that kayaks, inflatables and paddle boards are becoming ever more popular, both because they’re inexpensive and because they’re versatile-as well as leaving no environmental footprint. There seems to be more ice-fishing gear than ever, electronics are getting bigger and more capable and more expensive-as well as smaller and cheaper in some cases–and there seem to be more companies taking advantage of pro anglers expertise, both in bass and walleye fishing-or maybe more pro anglers are getting sponsor-savvy. There are loads of new top-end reels, and also loads of very affordable entry level combos in all the genre’s, including fly casting.
In short, ICAST this year, like every year, is loaded with candy and ice cream for the angler-I can’t wait for tomorrow to sample some more.