One week ago, Saturday February 27, 2016, the first ever Catfish Conference was held in Versailles, KY. By all measures it was a total success. Billed as a “catfish community get together” it certainly achieved its goal. A combination of vendors, tournament pros and everyday catfish anglers came together in Versailles, KY to share information on the sport of catfishing.
Coconspirators in organizing the event were Steve “The Catfish Dude” Douglas and Jim Hopper. Douglas is owner of Monster Rod Holders, a popular rod holder manufacturer. Jim Hopper is General Manager at Jeff Jones Marine, the location of the first time Catfish Conference.
“We are very pleased with the conference,” stated Hopper on the afternoon of the conference. “Very pleased and very relieved. It exceeded our expectations and it has gone off without a hitch, which is awesome. I have been worried about that for two months.”
“The response from the vendors has been incredible,” continued Hopper. “Most have already commented that they want to be more involved next year and this thing is not even over yet. It is very good for them because they have a captive audience.”
The conference was good for visiting catfishing men and women too, because they have all the catfish stuff in one place. They can touch and feel it and talk to the folks who know the most about it. Many of the vendors had product for sale at the show and given the consumer response more will have product at the show next year.
Douglas was pleasantly surprised. “I was expecting maybe 250 people when we first started talking about it,” said a proud and happy Douglas. “By our best calculation we had at least 1,100 people walk through the door. I am pretty sure there were more that did not pick up a free ticket online or stop and register at the conference. The whole idea was to target catfish anglers and they came in big numbers.” Continue reading – http://www.examiner.com/article/catfish-conference-2016-judged-a-total-success?CID=examiner_alerts_article