ATA 2015: Day One Notes and Quotes

January 09, 2015 By Lynn Burkhead, OutdoorChannel.com

After several weeks of anticipation, the 2015 ATA (Archery Trade Association) Trade Show opened its doors in Indianapolis on Thursday morning with good crowds of buyers, media and a variety of Outdoor Channel personalities and show hosts in attendance.

The show halls were crowded and brisk business was conducted as industry officials made announcements, company’s unveiled new products and celebrities and bowhunting personalities made autograph signing appearances in the hundreds of vendor booths at this year’s show.

Here are a few of the sights, sounds and comments that caught our OutdoorChannel.com crew’s full attention during the show’s first full day of official activity:

Click image to see photos of day one at ATA Show 2015

Eva Shockey Makes ATA Show’s First Big Announcement

Eva Shockey, daughter of Jim Shockey and one of Outdoor Channel’s most recognizable figures, made the first big splash of the 2015 ATA Show in Indianapolis as the show opened on Thursday morning.

After several days of social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where Shockey had been telling fans that something big was coming, the current queen of hunting came to the stage around a crowded Bowtech Archery (www.bowtecharchery.com) booth.

When she did, Shockey made some hunting history, just as she did last spring in becoming only the second female to ever grace the cover of Field & Stream magazine.

“The news it out,” Shockey said later to her fans on social media. “Bowtech just launched a brand new Eva Shockey Signature Series bow. High end, fast, lightweight and totally epic for serious female bow hunters! So cool!”

The signature series bow with Shockey marks the first time that Bowtech, one of archery hunting’s leading manufacturers, has ever offered a signature series model.

During the same kick-off gathering, Bowtech announced the launch of several other new bows including the Carbon Icon model and two offerings from the company’s Diamond line, the Infinite Edge Pro and the Provider.

Cold Start to 2015 Show

In the spirit of the popular song played often during the recent Christmas holiday season, “Baby, it’s cold outside!”

Indeed it was as the weather outside of the Indiana Convention Center became a big topic of conversation on Day One. After a couple of inches of snow earlier in the week, an invasion of cold arctic air filtered into the downtown Indy region with a morning low temperature of minus seven degrees. Add in early morning wind chill factors as low as -20 degrees and the city’s heated skywalks were crowded as show attendees moved from local hotels to the convention facility floor.

In that spirit, popular broadhead manufacturer Muzzy Outdoors (www.muzzy.com) of the Feradyne Outdoors group launched the new M.O.R.E. turkey hunting broadhead on Thursday. The new product is a set of sharp bowhunting blades whose name literally comes from the four subspecies of wild turkeys found in the U.S. (the Merriam’s, the Osceola, the Rio Grande and the Eastern subspecies).

A three-blade offering checking in at 125 grains, the specialty broadhead is a hybrid design that offers hunters a folded back storage design that measures only ¾ of an inch. When it’s time to hunt, a simple move turns the broadhead into locked-back blade design that features Muzzy’s famous Trocar tip and a massive three-inch cutting diameter.

The broadhead’s 1.5-degree offset enhances accuracy while the blade’s stainless steel razor sharp cutting ability gives the design a lethal edge that can literally take a gobbler’s head off or provide a quick lethal hit.

Yeti Unveils New Size of Popular Hopper

After unveiling the widely popular Hopper 30 soft-sided cooler at last summer’s ICAST fishing trade show in Orlando, the Texas-based Yeti Cooler company (www.yeticooler.com) made another big splash yesterday in chilly downtown Indy.

On the heels of the wild demand for the Hopper 30 over the fall months and during the Christmas holiday shopping season, the company unveiled the new bow-blind friendly Hopper 20 soft-sided cooler. The model is a smaller version of the Hopper that offers the brand’s same unmatched durability and ice retention capability in a design that will easily stow in the corner of a ground blind.

Able to hold 20 pounds of ice and numerous canned drinks or bottled beverages, the new Hopper 20 is the perfect size for an early season whitetail hunt or a western antelope bow blind sit on day when early fall temperatures will soar towards triple digits. And like its bigger brother, it’s all in a completely leak-proof package design.

Bushnell Introduces New Trail Cam Models

A novelty just over a decade ago, trail cameras are a huge facet of the annual ATA Trade Show each year and Thursday’s first day was no exception. Bushnell introduced the Trophy Cam Essential HD model with a one-year battery life and a blazing fast 0.3-second trigger speed, all in an affordable package. The company also introduced the completely redesigned Trophy Cam HD camera series. With a low-glow infrared flash, one-year battery life and an even faster 0.2-second trigger speed, the Bushnell booth was a busy place most of the day.

Outdoor Channel Celebrity Sightings

The annual ATA Trade Show is usually a who’s-who gathering for Outdoor Channel television personalities. And Thursday was no different in downtown Indy as the network was well represented as show hosts signed autographs, posed for fan photographs, told media about new products and represented Outdoor Channel.

Seen on Thursday were Raised Hunting’s David and Karin Holder in the Hawk Treestand booth; Realtree Outdoors’ David Blanton in the Team Realtree booth; Eva and Jim Shockey of Jim Shockey’s Hunting Adventures and Uncharted in the Bowtech Archery, Skull Hooker and Feradyne Outdoors booths; Ralph and Vicki Cianciarulo of Archer’s Choice and The Choice in the New Archery Products, Tenzing Pack and Hoyt Archery booths; Lee and Tiffany Lakosky of Crush in the Redneck Hunting Blinds and Under Armour booths; Mark, Terry and Matt Drury of THIRTEEN in the PSE Archery and Reconyx trail camera booths; former UT Longhorn and NFL wide receiver Jordan Shipley of The Bucks of Tecomate and Whitetail Nation in the Hoyt Archery and Tecomate Seed booths; Michael Hunsucker and Shawn Luchtel of Heartland Bowhunter; Don and Kandi Kisky of Whitetail Freaks; Jay Gregory of PSE Archery’s The Wild Outdoors; and Major League Fishing GEICO Select pro Brent Chapman.

Day One Odds and Ends

Industry veterans Chuck Adams, Randy Ulmer, Cameron Hanes and Dr. Jack Frost were among the bowhunting veterans seen roaming the ATA show floor on Thursday.

With some 30-years of experience manufacturing cut-on-contact broadheads, Magnus Broadheads presented its new four-blade fixed-blade Black Hornet and Black Hornet Ser-Razor models. Utilizing two main blades with a 1 ¼ inch cutting diameter, the Black Hornet line also features a knife-grade diamond tip along with two bleeder blades that have a cutting diameter of 7/8 of an inch.

Camouflage is a big storyline at this week’s show with Mississippi-based Mossy Oak unveiling its new Break-Up Country camo pattern design while Georgia-based competitor Realtree displays it’s new MAX-1 XT Western pattern.

Hunter Safety Systems presented its new design, the Hybrid-Flex safety harness system that offers less material for freer upper upper-body movement for hunters along with a multi-pocked vest to carry gadgets and goodies on the safety harness’ lower portion.

Already a big player in the hunting pack market, ALPS OutdoorZ made an even bigger splash on Thursday with the unveiling of its new line of premium EXTREME packs. With molded-foam suspension components and plenty of gear storage options, the company will offer four new pack designs for fall 2015.