Great American Outdoor Show returns
Santa Claus only comes once a year, but outdoor enthusiasts will get a chance to feel like a kid on Christmas morning again when the Great American Outdoor Show returns to Pennsylvania for its fourth year.
The show includes over 1,000 exhibits ranging from shooting manufacturers to fishing boats, RVs to archery and ammunition to outfitters, jam-packed into 650,000 square feet of the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg.
This is an opportunity serious outdoor enthusiasts won’t want to miss. Harrisburg is about three hours from Southern Maryland. This is the biggest show within driving distance, and it’s a full nine days of exhibits, demonstrations and seminars. If you can find a day (or two) to visit, it’s worth the trip.
GAOS celebrates everything outdoors — fishing, hunting, recreational shooting, camping and other outdoor traditions treasured by millions of Americans and their families. You can get your tackle box ready for spring fishing, find just the right equipment to prepare for your next hunt and check out all the latest and greatest gear on the market.
Want to learn some bass fishing tips from the pros? John Hansen will cover finesse fishing and teach you how to get bass to bite when the fishing is tough, with specific instruction on drop shot fishing.
Hank Parker, two-time winner of the Bassmaster Classic, will be teaching the secrets of how water conditions can affect the bite and hosting another seminar all about spinnerbaits. He’ll be sharing not only when to use them, but also the size, color and retrieval speed that will lead to catching big bass.
Our own regional expert, Ken Penrod, owner of Life Outdoors Unlimited, and several of his guides will be on hand for several different fishing seminars chock full of tips and tactics for fishing the tidal Potomac River and Upper Chesapeake Bay. You don’t want to miss out on gleaning some tricks of the trade from his 35-plus years of expertise if you spend any time bass fishing on the Potomac River.
If catfish are more your style, Rod Bates, founder of Koinona Guide Service will be sharing his advice for bringing in the big channel cats and flatheads from the Susquehanna. Or how about meeting fly-fishing legend Curtis Fleming? His story of growing up a coal miner’s son in Central West Virginia and becoming a world-class fly fisherman, bringing up his two daughters in the family business, is one I’d like to hear.
If you’re planning to do some turkey hunting this spring, Ken Hammel, owner of Mountain Hollow Game Calls, has some tips on the finer points of calling wild turkeys. There are quite a few women headlining their own seminars this year, including Kristy Titus, who will discuss positional shooting in the field in a segment called “Making the Shot of a Lifetime.”