Know what you mean, Mouthcaller! I scratched a 20-year itch with an Albert Paul box up there. Almost won a Josh Shoemaker single-sider in the silent auction, too! I have several friends who make custom calls and it is real easy to get addicted to playing with those exotic woods. I make a decent box, myself and have built a pretty good collection by trading with them. If I can work out a couple of kinks, I might enter one next year just for the fun of it.

The convention was a blast! Being a hobbyist/callmaker, I was interested in meeting the legends in that field. Collectively, they are some of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. I met people like Albert Paul, Allen Jenkins, Eddie Salter, Bob Harwell, Lon Trice, and Josh and Al Shoemaker. I already knew Preston Pittman, but it was good to see him again. (Hope he's feeling better) I got to meet the guys competing in the Grand National Finals calling contest, too. Every one of those guys are so good that the judging is based more on who messed up than who was the most talented.

If you ever get to go, be sure to sit in on a seminar or two and some of the calling contests. The folks that are speaking KNOW what they are talking about and you can see some of the most talented callers that you ever dreamed of. The team calling finals was an absolute HOOT this year! DO NOT miss this if you ever go to the convention!

I found several peices of equipment that I added to my gear, too -- including a shoulder bag like I haven't seen before and a great deal on a set of LongLeaf camo. I aaaalllmost bought a custom skinning knife, too! They had just about everything there! As you can probably tell, I had a ball!