Central Oregonian

sportsman’s paradise

The Central Oregon Sportsmen’s Show comes to Redmond this Thursday

It’s that time of the year again. The 14th Annual Central Oregon Sportsmen’s Show will be held March 7-10 at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond. If you’re interested in fishing, hunting camping or any outdoor activity, you’ll definitely want to stop by for a visit.

Besides a few hundred exhibitor booths, there will be daily seminars that include camp cooking, fly tying, fly casting, fishing techniques, horse and mule packing, bow hunting, elk bugling, field caping and skinning, bird dog training, turkey hunting tactics, and GPS use to name a few.

For those into fly-fishing, you’ll want to check out the fly casting competition. The 3-D pop up archery competition is another big draw, where contestants aim for cash prizes and trophies. One of my favorites is the mouth-watering camp cooking demonstrations. Not only can you learn how to cook some tasty camp meals, but you also get to sample the finished product.

Camp cooking experts Herb Good, Tiffany Haugen, and Cee Dub will lead daily cooking demos designed for aspiring campfire chefs and grilling gurus. Herb Good’s demos will include Outdoor Cooking: Quick and Easy and Salmon: Filleting, Grilling, Canning and Smoking. Tiffany Haugen ¬will demonstrate Plank Cooking and Cooking Fish and Game while Cee Dub will show his expertise in Dutch Oven: Getting Started; Quick and Simple Main Dishes and Breads and Deserts.

The

freshwater demo tank will return again this year. The 30-foot-long, 3,000-gallon tank, sponsored by Bi-Mart, will assist seasoned experts in sharing their knowledge of the Northwest’s best freshwater fishing opportunities and the latest techniques. Expert anglers will demonstrate fishing strategies and techniques in hourly “through-the-glass” presentations.

The Kids’ Trout Fishing Pond is one of the show’s most popular attractions and it’s free for kids 12 and under to catch a live trout to keep or release. Decoy painting is another favorite for kids. Peter Kummerfeldt, who served 30 years in the U.S. Air Force as a survival instructor, will be giving seminars such as Essentials of Survival, Building a Better Fire, and Plastic Bag Survival. The Casting Pool and Fly-Tying Theater are also popular.

The Heads and Horns Competition is another big draw, attracting more than 300 new entries every year. Hunters are invited to bring in the head, horns, or antlers of any big game animal to be officially measured. There are prizes for the top three places in each category — mule deer, black-tailed deer, white-tailed deer, Rocky Mountain elk, Roosevelt elk, bear, cougar, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope — all the big game animals that are in the Oregon synopsis. Those with high enough scores will be entered into the Oregon record book.

Horns must be attached to the skull, found within the states of Oregon, Idaho, Washington or Montana, and killed under fair chase conditions. Prizes are awarded in two separate categories: “past harvest” for those taken prior to 2011 and “current harvest” for those taken during the 2012 hunting season.

Official entry deadline for the competition is 6 p.m., Saturday, March 9. The winning entries will be on display at the show on Sunday, March 10. The grand prize winner will be selected from the 2013 Washington, Pacific Northwest and Central Oregon Sportsmen’s Shows and will receive a brand new Fort Knox Protector Safe Model 6031.

There’s also a Boat and RV Show, offering everything from the latest watercraft and fishing boats to tent trailers and motor homes.

The show features hundreds of vendors, offering the best in outdoor tools, tips, and gadgets as well as local and national outdoor experts who will be giving free demonstrations and seminars. This is your chance to connect with guides and outfitters from all over the Northwest and around the world. It’s that time to set up the trip of a lifetime.