AFTA trade show 2013

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This has been an exciting year for me product wise as I have been fortunate to release an entire range of colors designed by myself in co operation with the good folk at the house of Gan Craft. I was expecting big things from the range as i had put a considerable amount of time into getting it right from the get go, you the consumer had given us plenty of feedback about what you wanted also, so with the design process the combination of Gan Craft, the customer who buys the product and myself we were able to come up with a range to be proud of.

The consumer wanted different barbs and UV coatings, Gan Craft wanted to ensure the quality was up there with what they had designed over the last 10 years and I wanted to go native and native I went. The Kuma Gensan (Native) range was born and finally last weekend released to the the market at the 2013 AFTA Trade show. I have always enjoyed this show as it is a good opportunity to see where the market is in relation to trends in Australia and also a great chance to gauge how the market would respond to the work we had been doing.

I could not have been happier with the response, with only the production samples on hand we set up the Gan Craft display on the Gladiator stand next to the Gosen stand and retailers responded by ordering more of the product than any show previous. This means there will be more product on shop walls and more product range for you to choose from when visiting your local stockist.

Was also great to see how well some of the other products on hand worked with the retailers also, Anthony Thorpe the Bream Gun from Newcastle had been working with Bait Breath to bring out some Australian only colors along with some UV in the plastics a real highlight at the show and how could i forget the introduction to the market for Blue Blue, one of the worlds best slow pitch jigs. I have been doing lots of jigging the past year or so and am going to be putting a lot of time into micro and slow pitch jigging this year. With the right techniques and some of the newly introduced Blue blues and IMA Guns I am sure we will have a season of variety like never before. Who would have thought there was still so much more to explore in fishing.

Was also good to have some political announcements there, Tony Abbott has now committed to suspending the current marine park process, great news for all anglers.