This past weekend we had a booth at the 2015 SCDNR Sportsmen’s Classic and we also gave 3 presentations (one each day) on coyote hunting. We had been looking forward to the Classic and preparing for some time so it was good to see March finally roll around. At the event there were hundreds of booths set up and there were products, services, and speakers of all types. It was really amazing and it was also a well organized event.

You can see our booth setup below:

Activity at the Booth
We had a lot of good traffic by the booth. Since we don’t do a lot shows there were numerous individuals we met who had never heard of WeHuntSC.com before. We had the coyote competition promo video playing on repeat (shout outs to Yellow Cape Communications for some awesome video work) and as people walked by they would see the video and hear the howl of the coyote and check things out. Several coyote hunters said they’d never heard of the competition and that they would definitely be entering it this coming year and some even said they would be the next winners!

One thing that was really amazing to me was to see how many farmers, turkey hunters, and deer hunters stopped by our booth and showed pics of dead coyotes on their phones. These people weren’t specifically coyote hunters yet they had pics of them on their phones. Regardless of the type of hunter nearly everyone at the show had pics of coyotes and I think that is very telling. We all recognize that coyotes are prevalent across the state and to see the evidence first hand from outdoorsmen from around the state just validated it for me.

We even had people stop by and thank us for what we’re doing… that is trying to work to raise awareness for what coyotes are doing across the state & motivate people to start hunting coyotes. Several individuals shook our hands and told us to “Keep up the good work”. Overall we had a good location with good foot traffic and the booth side of the show was a good experience for everyone.

Celebrities at the Event
There were also a number of celebrities or famous people on TV at the event. The crew from Lizard Lick towing were on hand, Captain Wild Bill from the Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" was there, and Bruce from "Swamp People" was there as well. We were even able to get a quick pic of Sam with Bruce.

Presentation Recap
Each day at the event we also gave sessions on “Intro to Coyote Hunting”. We had an average of 22 people at the sessions and the sessions seemed to go well. We fielded lots of questions and you could definitely sense the feeling that the people in the room really cared about the coyote problem. We provided background information on coyotes and also tips on how to get started hunting coyotes. I’m going to post some subsequent blogs on each topic we covered in the presentation later this week. We also had a few organizations inquire about if we would speak to their groups about coyote hunting. If you are interested in that then please let us know and we can line something up.

See You Online & At The Check-In
We were glad to be able to participate in the 2015 Sportsmen’s Classic. It was great to meet a lot of new hunters and connect with other outdoor organizations in the state. We hope to be able to do it again sometime. In the meantime we’ll see you online at WeHuntSC.com & hopefully at next year’s Coyote Competition check-in!