Sportsman’s Show can leave an impression on youngsters

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Paul Colburn grew up around the Eastern Maine Sportsman’s Show. He remembers the day Ted Williams (the baseball player, not the outdoors writer) came to town and showed off his skills with a fly rod.

Colburn is 79. The show he’s helping organize, along with other the Penobscot County Conservation Association members, is 65 this year, he says. And when the show opens its three-day run at the University of Maine in Orono on Friday, Colburn will be there … just like he always is.

“I used to go to the show back when it was in the old [Bangor] City Hall, years and years ago,” Colburn says. “My father and Horace Bond and them ran the show, and I used to be a door guard.”

Colburn can trace the show’s roots, from City Hall to the Bangor Auditorium, to the Civic Center, and up to Orono.

Nowadays, plenty of exhibitors head to the show armed with fancy posters touting far-off fishing and hunting haunts.

But for many, a yearly trip through the crowded aisles at “The Sportsman’s Show” (we never needed to add the “Eastern Maine” part, and still don’t) provided an education.

Don Corey, a computer expert here at the NEWS, has been going the show for years. A past president of the Penobscot Fly Fishers, Corey has spent the past five or six shows working at the PFF table.

As he can tell you, you never know what will happen when you head to the Sportsman’s Show.

Back in 1997, he’ll tell you, the Penobscot Fly Fishers booth was popular. Club members tied flies, and folks often stopped to watch for a spell.

“This particular day, there was a little kid looking over the table and staring at me for quite awhile,” Corey says. “As I finished the fly, I asked him if he’d like to tie one and his eyes lit up.”

A bit later, Corey sent the young boy on his way with the fly he’d tied.

Two years later, the boy came back to the show to see Corey.

The youth – Chris Cosenze of Old Town – brought a gift that Corey still proudly displays.

It’s a handsome map of the state of Maine, carved out of wood, with a fishing scene wood-burned into it.

“He had apparently brought it to the show the year before, but I hadn’t been there,” Corey says. “It really meant a lot to me that a kid would take the time to do that.”

Corey can easily put himself in Cosenze’s shoes. It doesn’t take much urging for him to take a walk down memory lane … to his first Sportsman’s Show memories.

“When I was a kid I can remember Norman Lambert playing the organ, and the stage shows,” Corey says. “I can remember a guy – and I don’t remember who it was – fly casting from one of the openings up in the stadiums. He was casting down into a hula hoop they had set up in a pool in front of the stage. It was just amazing.”

And Corey can remember his first fishing experience.

It didn’t come in the wild. It didn’t come on a neighborhood stream.

It took place at the Bangor Auditorium.

“I never fished when I was young, but I can remember as a kid, probably the first brook trout I ever caught was out of a little pool they had in what’s called `The Elephant Room’ when the circus is in town,” Corey says.

“They had a 3- or 4-foot [deep] wading pool that somebody had dumped brook trout in. You took a fishing rod with a hook on the end, and whatever you caught – for 50 cents or whatever – you put in a little baggie and took home with you,” he says.

Nowadays, Corey spends plenty of time fishing, tying flies, and teaching others to do both.

Somewhere in the crowd this weekend, a future fisherman, or hunter, or hiker, will be prowling the aisles, peering at stuffed animals and fly tiers with equal amazement.

You may want to make sure your youngster gets a chance to see how much beauty and mystery our wild places offer.

Take ’em to the show.

The Eastern Maine Sportsman’s Show will run from Friday through Sunday. Admission is $6.

Show hours: 5-9 p.m. on Friday, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. on Saturday, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sunday.

As many of you have noticed (and thankfully pointed out), our “Win a Drift Boat Trip” contest rules have not been appearing in the Classified section of this paper, contrary to the fine print claims included on the entry blank.

If you’ve been poring over the Classifieds (like I have), in search of the rules, I’m sorry.

I’ve been assured that rules of the contest will, in fact, be forthcoming. Today. At least, that’s what people have told me.

Rest assured, they’re not too complicated. As long as you’re not related to me or Danny Legere of the Maine Guide Fly Shop … and you don’t work with either of us … you’ll likely pass muster and be eligible if you’re the winner of the June 29 trip.

Good luck, and sorry for the inconvenience.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.