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This episode explores the unique aspects of the Mile High Hunt and Fish Expo, an event tailored for those passionate about hunting and fishing. Discover the meticulous planning and quality control that goes into selecting exhibitors and creating unparalleled experiences. We delve into the event’s focus on first-class offerings, which include top-quality hunts, fishing trips, and premium gear. Listen in for insights into how this expo aims to elevate the standards of outdoor adventure expos.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Watley.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to Sports from Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, just a quick reminder, people join in different times of the show. Of course, our live show is Saturdays 1 to 2. Then on Sundays, 8 a.m., 8 p.m., you can hear a replay. And then on the following Thursday, 9 to 10 a.m. So hopefully one of those four times will catch you. If not, our podcasts are where you find yours. And we appreciate you being with us. Well, the show is coming. It’s the Mile High Hunting Fish Expo. It’s around the corner, and we’re pretty excited. Glad to have Phil Mendoza in studio with us and Abe Arian. Phil, good to see you, bud. Hey, it’s been a little while. It has been a while, man. It’s so crazy because you’re together, you’re together, you’re together, and then we all go back to our lives a little bit, and then you don’t see each other for a number of months. But, yeah, great to have you in. Abe, good to see you again.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, thanks for having me back. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, Abe was with us a few weeks ago and kind of kicking off here. So, Phil, since Abe was on last time, we’ll let you kick us off today, man. When you look back, you thought of the idea, you guys, and man, when those doors opened last year, dude, I’m telling you what, it was an awesome feeling, wasn’t it?
SPEAKER 06 :
I agree, and it was a little bit of drinking from a fire hose at first, you know, a couple days. But you know what? The staff, the team that we put around us, and Abe and I just – we were – relentless in our preparation. And even by doing so and having that mindset, we still learned quite a bit. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. But I feel like we had a great start. And the exhibitors had really good feedback. attendees and gave us some really good feedback so we’re excited man i mean we’ve kind of took what we did last year you know peeled off some of the the pieces that maybe didn’t pan out like we thought and we added a few things that to improve and and i’m excited to see what happens here what we’re about six seven weeks out or so right now yeah i mean it’s crazy so
SPEAKER 03 :
And, of course, the venue, the Gaylord, beautiful, beautiful place. And I think just talking to people, even recently, you know, at the previous show that was here in January, man, just everybody is already so excited about it and have been since it finished last year. I mean, just a whole different aura. I mean, from clientele to our booth exhibitors to speakers to I mean, the events in the evening. I mean, it’s a whole new game, man.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and for those that, you know, came and dabbled a little bit last year, you know, I’d encourage you to consider getting a room with the Gaylord, hanging out with us a couple days or, you know, one of the evening activities because it is. There’s no shortage of activities and offerings that we have that are different, you know. You can hang out all day and – Go back and forth with some of the exhibitors on the booths, on the floor, and then go catch a couple guest speakers, presenters. Come have a dinner at a banquet with us. You know, Saturday we’re going to be – did you talk about the Saturday night collab yet with the – We haven’t put it all out there yet. Okay. Well, so we have two activities Saturday night. We’ll talk about it here in a bit. But there’s going to be something for everybody all weekend long.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. And, Abe, you and I went through, last time you were on, just, you know, the success of even the drawing. You walked in, dude. It was the price was right on steroids as far as gifts. I mean, things to go. I mean… I don’t think there was anything on that table less than two grand. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. I mean, from hunts to bows to guns. I mean, everything. And those were for some decent prices to get into the drawing. I think it was $20, $25. So walk us through what this is going to look like.
SPEAKER 11 :
So we’re doing something similar. You know, I know we look back. And the one thing I will say before, Phil and I are constantly forward, right? Look forward. We’re forward-thinking people. And so… Fortunately, this worked out. Phil and I work on the same plane, and it’s good that we have two different people from two different angles. So there’s always new ideas. I mean, we have ideas for 26, for 27, for 28. So just talking strictly about 25 for now. First off, and I hope that this is the feeling that you got, but we wanted everything to be first class. That’s our goal. You take your first step into that expo, and it’s got to look, feel, taste, and smell first class. Second thing is you can expect those drawings and better this year. We don’t do anything cheap. Here’s the deal. You know, you go to a lot of these events, you can win a $400 bow, $600 bow, or you can win a, you know, $900 off-the-shelf Walmart rifle, or at least back when Walmart used to sell rifles, right? And so we don’t do that. That doesn’t excite anybody. Nobody’s going to spend the next six months or the year saying, oh, my gosh, I won, you know, this bow or this rifle or this hunting or fishing trip. And they’re not going to go tell all our friends. So if there’s one thing I request of all the listeners, you know, Phil already touched on the fact that we have something for everyone. And this year, I think we’re going to have more than something for everybody. Not I think, I know. We’ll have multiple things that everybody walks in. So if there’s the one thing I ask is if you came last year, thank you, bring a buddy. All we ask is that you bring a buddy so that we can grow the awareness to this. And if you didn’t make it last year, mark it on your calendar, come this year, and I promise you you’ll never, ever miss another year. Um, but back to your question. So this year you can expect some of the same. We actually, uh, um, we had some, some good sponsors come in this year. So this year we’re offering, like we did last year, high, high quality hunts, uh, good fishing trips, um, and the gear, the gear’s a big deal. I mean, really, really nice stuff from multiple different vendors, no cheap stuff. Um, high end bows again, this year we have Hoyt, we have Elite, um, You know, between the archery companies and No Limits Archery in Denver, just on the north side of Denver, you know, our archery influence is really big. This year, last year we had some Christensen’s rifles. This year we signed up a really, I mean, the highest level off-the-shelf rifle you’re going to get is a Seekins Precision. Everybody knows it. So this year we have Seekins Precision’s rifles and drawings everywhere. They will be present. They have a big booth. They are our… Bolt rifle and modern sporting rifle sponsor for 25. So people are going to have an opportunity at really, really nice rifles. And on top of that, we didn’t leave our muzzleloader guys out this year. So this year we made an additional move. CVA muzzleloaders will be present. They have a booth. And on top of that, we’re going to have CVA muzzleloaders in our drawings, both on the floor and in the banquet nights. So any weapon you hunt with, right, we’re bringing it to you, and we’re bringing you the best of the best. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
April 11th through the 13th, by the way. I don’t think we’ve given a date yet. So excited about just talking about it. But April 11th through the 13th, go to milehighhuntexpo.com. Hey, there you can get your tickets now. And also, the evening events we’re going to talk about here in a little bit, those are separate ticketed events. Those will go quickly. And if you’re a business out there or just, hey, maybe a team of friends, you want to get a table, Phil, we can get into that, I guess, a little bit. Now’s the time to get on those tables because those are going to go pretty quick.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. Last year we just had one banquet Saturday night, and this year we’re going to offer two. But I’ll tell you, last year we started with a 400-person reservation probably, what, a week or so before we bumped it to 450. We ended up squeezing in, I think, 460. Yeah. And we still had more people that were trying to buy tickets at the weekend for that event. And it sold out, and we’re optimistic it’s going to be the same this year. So this year we’ve got a Friday night, kind of a fun night banquet, right? We have a casino night theme we’re bringing in Friday night. It’s going to be still – the Gaylord doesn’t do anything, you know, Mid-tier. The food is top-notch. We’re going to have a buffet-style dinner Friday night, and there’s going to be 20 to 25 casino-style games in the event, right? Blackjack, roulette, craps, some poker games. It’s for all ages. We went to an event similar to this with my kids, and I’ve got a 10- and a 15-year-old now, and you couldn’t pull them off the tables, man. I’m trying not to raise addicts by any means, but they had a good time, and it was fun all in good nature. The proceeds of that essentially are all for conservation again. So the way it’s going to work is you come in, you buy some poker chips, you go play. Whatever your winnings are, you come back and trade those in for tickets towards our, again, Abe mentioned it, high-end prizes in gear and rifles and bows. We’re going to have prizes Friday night. that are a full docket of prizes. And then at the end of that night, we’re going to have a live auction, you know. So there’s so many hunts that have been brought to the table. And that evening is just going to have that kind of kickback fun feel, you know, with what we’re bringing there. And tickets are available. Like I said, that’s a Friday night casino night through our Web site. We do have some corporate tables. We have a few corporate tables we can sell there. If you’re interested in purchasing one of those, you can message you can message Scott. You can message a bribe directly. You can go right to the Web site on our contact page and submit a submission there and just say you’re interested in the corporate table.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. And hey, if you want, again, we have our text line for the show. So 720-201-8585. You’re driving and you want some information, just shoot me a text and I’ll get it to these guys and they can get you fixed up. You know, one thing that I think you got to set out with this is a lot of expos in the past have just been, you know, full of outfitters. Then you’ve got the expos that are some outfitters and purses and candles and things that don’t belong in an expo.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
So your mindset putting this together. It’s what?
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s hunting and fishing related. And if you can articulately and relevantly present that to us, we’re going to consider it. But the massage units, the pillows, the purses, that stuff’s not – we’re just not inviting them into the show. And it’s not that those businesses aren’t – I’m an entrepreneur. I have nothing against people trying to make money, right? Sure. We’re putting on a hunting and fishing expo. We want you to see hunting and fishing-related brands, top-quality brands at that. So we’re vetting that, and we’re filtering that process to where that’s who we’re bringing to the table.
SPEAKER 03 :
And limiting a lot of those to where it’s not just inundated with certain categories.
SPEAKER 1 :
100%.
SPEAKER 06 :
The balance is huge. And, Abe, I’ll let you attest to that on the outfitter side. Balance was first and foremost one of the things that we talked about.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day, you know, you get folks, the percentage of folks that come in to talk to outfitters to buy a hunt, They go to a lot of these expos and they leave confused. There’s 15 different options, and whoever hosted this expo didn’t take the time to say, hey, is this really a good outfitter? No. They want to buy a booth space, they sell them a booth space, and they stick them in there. We do things differently. We really pay attention to what the prior experiences are now that we have a year under our belt. We’ll just say we made adjustments from what we heard about outfitters.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 11 :
And we will continually do that every year. That being said, you know, if somebody buys a trip at one of our shows and didn’t have a bad experience, you know, we’ve listened, we’ve heard some, and we’ve made adjustments for that reason. So we don’t want to give… people 15 options. We’d rather have a category and give them five options where they can look at timing and pricing and availability and know that any one of those options, they’re going to have a good experience, right? And that way you don’t overrun the expo with a bunch of outfitters and too many options, just really good options. Which leaves a lot of room for manufacturers. And the way we do manufacturers is, you know, we have the big names, right, from Gunworks to Seekins to Leica to Zeiss, Swarovski, Hoyt, you know, Elite, so on and so forth. We can go down the list. But the point is, these are big, well-known manufacturers in the hunting and fishing space. Mm-hmm. There are up and coming brands and what I like to call, for lack of a better term, boutique brands. Brands that have been around for two, three, four years that are on the up and up and are going to be a real market share placeholder with a quality product. And whether it be on the waterfowl side, the fishing side, the big game side, these new innovative products either solve a problem or do better than what’s offered on the market. So we target companies like that. We invite companies that innovate. and make the hunting and fishing experience better and more effective and more enjoyable and more advanced. So we have a multifaceted approach to our outfitters and our manufacturers. We don’t just let anybody in the door, and that’s the honest truth. Like Phil said, we have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to if it’s not hunting or fishing, it’s not in the expo.
SPEAKER 03 :
yeah absolutely you’re listening to sports from colorado tell you what we’re gonna get hit a quick break real quick be back with more with phil mendoza avian right after this today’s show is brought to you by the mile high hunting fish expo go to milehighhuntexpo.com get your tickets now and hey get your tickets for these evening events as well and once again if you’re looking to get a table i highly recommend you do that very very soon and i promise you it will be a fun few days and we would love for you to join us we’ll be right back
SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
We’re calling all hunters and anglers to the 2025 Mile High Hunt and Fish Expo, April 11th through the 13th at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center. Explore the best in class outfitters, premier manufacturers, and gear. Get tickets now at milehighhuntexpo.com.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re listening to KLZ 560, your home station.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. If you’re just joining us, my name is Scott Watley, along with Phil Mendoza, Avery, and hey, Mile High Hunting Fish Expo, April 11th through the 13th at the Gaylord of the Rockies Resort and Convention Center. And we hope you will join us. All right. If you’re just joining us, we’ve already talked a little bit about the Friday night deal going on with the casino night. But then Saturday night is a great, beautiful sit-down dinner, Phil. And tell us a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, so last year we did a really nice plated dinner. The venue is just top-notch all around, and we’re going to continue that. Our Saturday night banquet will always be our premier night with the higher dollar prizes, hunts, excursions, rifles, etc., And we’re going to continue that this year and dial it up a little bit more from what we did last year. So very excited to continue that night of conservation, collaborating with multiple conservation organizations. That’s the big thing, too. You know, we wanted to invite everyone in that field and participate and be able to do some focus on their own individual projects. fundraising aspects and projects. So Saturday night is going to be that. It’s that nicer plate of dinner. You know, Abe and I were dressed up to prove our, you know, the level of commitment exactly with where we’re at with this whole project, specifically that night. So Saturday night is, I would say, a notch or two above, what maybe you’ve seen at other conservation banquets around the area. Because our goal, like Abe said, is presentation and, you know, first class with what we’re putting out there. So that’s that Saturday night. Again, there are two different levels of corporate tables offered for that night. Live auction, too. The live auction is where it’s at on Saturday night. And, Abe, you know, last year we had elk tag from Arizona. We had a Wyoming – commissioner’s tag. We had some hunts from other hunts, pronghorn and whitetail hunts in Kansas. And this year, we’ve got mule deer hunts in Arizona. We’ve got elk hunts. We’re working on a couple governor slash commissioner tags as well this year, multiple to bring to the table. And I’ll say that our goal with that night moving forward is to push and exceed that $50,000 to $100,000 tag value multiple times over. That’s the goal, and we want to set ourselves on that same stage of some of the big conservation banquets around the country that are pushing those kind of numbers and benefits to the project for those organizations. I mean, what else would you add to that? I know there’s a lot, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I mean, first off, so this year, both Friday and Saturday nights have live auctions. They’re just killer hunts and trips. I mean, last year we had really, really good offerings. This year they’re on fire. I mean, we have everything. First off, I’m going to start by saying, you know, where does the money go, right? Who’s this benefiting? So our partnerships are with Muley Fanatic Foundation, and they actually just told us yesterday – The commissioner tag that they’re bringing will go to directly benefit animal crossings. And for us being Colorado residents, we see the amount of animals, for example, by Green Mountain Reservoir and Meeker and all these areas where you see the elk and the deer migrate through. Animal crossings are a big deal. A lot of them get killed on the roads. And a lot of them can’t get to that food in that safe haven. So one of our big things last year that we pushed for and that we have commitment to is making more animal crossings. So that’s directly where the money will go through MFF for the commissioner’s tag, number one. Number two, I mean, we’ve got the – Colorado, um, pronghorn governor’s tag this year. So that’s going to be available. And like Phil had mentioned, we’ve got really, really, really good hunts and the dollars are, and we’ve got everything from black bear hunts. We’re in negotiations for, for even bigger hunts, like grizzly bear hunts and potential moose hunts. And these things aren’t off the table. You know, we were going to bring these really, really high quality desirable hunts in and And so we have Muley Fanatic Foundation, we have Howell for Wildlife, and Ducks Unlimited and the Colorado Wildlife Council. And between those four, and especially the first three that I mentioned, we’re driving… Every year we’re raising the bar on how much money goes back to conservation. And to be very clear, a lot of people may be at home listening to this thinking, oh, these guys are getting all these money at this banquet for themselves. No, we don’t keep any of the money. We cover our cost to hold the event, and everything goes back, and we can prove it, goes back to all the wildlife organizations. And a lot of them are specific projects where they’re going to benefit Colorado or they’re going to benefit our flyway or they’re going to benefit surrounding states so that a lot of guys like to hunt. Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, you know, it’s one state over, right? A lot of guys have points. A lot of guys buy hunts. We’re making sure that we raise these dollars and bring you a top, top quality experience. Like, we’ve got some awesome celebrity hunts. There’s one that I can’t mention yet that’s going to be, it’s looking like it’s going to be put together. And all I can tell you is it’ll be, we’ll have it. If we finalize it and money couldn’t buy you this hunt. Right. So it’s not just something that you can go do. You’re not going to tell them it’s with me? No, no. You’re right. Money couldn’t buy it. Yeah. So, I mean, our offerings this year, I mean, with the hunts and, once again, high-end rifles, muzzleloaders, archery equipment, I mean, it’s worth stepping it up. And we have better offerings this year than we had last year, and now we have two nights of offerings.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. A couple of things definitely want to hit on film festival. Tell us.
SPEAKER 06 :
So this year we’re taking the film festival and we’re collaborating with the Full Draw Film Tour. The Full Draw Film Tour has been a longstanding film festival that comes through the Colorado area and different for this year. So let me back up. They’re still going to be doing their normal film festival that runs like summer, you know, late summer. We’re going to do more of a showcase with them. They’re going to showcase some of their upcoming hunts, tease some of those, show some hunts that they have in their hopper. We have some featured hunts we’re bringing to the table as well. There’s going to be a film showcase in collaboration with the Full Draw Film Tour. That night is Saturday night. It’s going to be at the same time as the conservation banquet. So one of those things that… There’s only so many hours, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s it.
SPEAKER 06 :
But right after the film festival ends, we’re rolling that room in that area into the after party with the Gladiators Unleashed and kind of collaborating with Gladiators again and some meet and greet. Luke is a fun guy, great guy. He brings a lot of energy and energy. he’s well connected with a lot of people that are just fun to be around. And I won’t say any names. I know there’s some big MMA names that he’s chalking up to come that night. So if you pay for the ticket for the film festival and the after party, that’s one essential event. So it’s in the same room. But the good thing is as soon as the conservation banquet’s over, if you want to head over to the after party, it’s about that time. So you’ll roll right over and be able to enjoy still some of that event experience On Saturday night. So Conservation Banquet starts, doors open at 5. The Film Festival, doors open at 6. It’ll start around 6, 630. And then the Gladiators Unleashed After Party will go from about 9 to 11-ish. So there’s two events on Saturday night. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
And you know what? Doing this for three days is perfect.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
I mean… You don’t need four days. It would be a lot. It’s too much. Yeah. I don’t know if we could withstand four days.
SPEAKER 06 :
I might have to bring in the IV to give me some.
SPEAKER 03 :
And, Abe, we’ve got some calling contests again.
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, yeah. We turned up. Once again, we raised the bar. So the waterfowl calling contest, I’ll start there. We’ve got cool figures, you know, people like Jeff Foyles is going to come in and be one of the judges. He has a booth this year at the Expo. Wadsworth Waterfowl Quilt Creek Calls, they’re running the waterfowl calling contest site again. But really what we did is… We want to make this open and inviting to everybody, so we turned up the prize money. So now, you know, just one of our divisions in Goose Calling pays $2,500 just for first place, along with prizes and all those other things. We have partners this year, for example, Bandit and Avery and Greenhead Gear. Not only do they have their big game site, Thaka, they have – They have a booth. They will have a ton of inventory available to people there. But the flip side is they’re also backing our waterfowl calling contest. So we’re going to have some killer prizes. Last year, the waterfowl calling contest was so big, we ended up having to get a bigger room just to have seats for everybody. And this year, we anticipate it will be even bigger. The elk calling contest has a lot of involvement from a lot of big names. We have Joe Giglio coming up from…
SPEAKER 06 :
elk bros from new mexico they’re coming to be a part of this and we’ll have phelps at the expo and we’ll have uh what pd game calls and i mean the list goes on i don’t know who i’m missing phil well i mean western hunt fest essentially is is running is running that that calling contest so that’s where you’re going to look for information on registration and uh details obviously we’ll have information on our website as well
SPEAKER 11 :
And just so that we’re clear, we are going to have a youth division so that the kids that want to compete, we’re going to keep that. You know, we’re big in the youth. So both Waterfowl and Elk will have youth divisions with cool prizes, really cool prizes. And for the pro divisions or the open divisions, for example, our top division for Elk pays $5,000 for first place this year. So it’s a big pot. No doubt. Yeah, this is going to be a series. I mean, we’re bringing what calling contests should be from all over the United States to our expo.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Again, go to milehighhuntexpo.com. Now, look, Phil mentioned it earlier. Hey, come stay at the Gaylord. Make it a nice event for yourself. And we’ve already booked our rooms there. And I’m going to say this, Phil. Victoria and I went out and told Dave this. Victoria and I went out there for dinner a couple weeks ago, booked our rooms. And then when I showed the guy there the rate that we got, he goes, I don’t think that’s right. No, he did. And he goes, and I said, what do you mean? He goes, I haven’t seen a rate that low. Yeah, and they go quick. Yeah, and they are going to go quick. But then you worked out some deals with some other hotels not too far away with some shuttles. All that’s on the website.
SPEAKER 06 :
So actually the complimentary hotels that are on Tower Road will be up on the website here soon. That update has not been made. I checked this morning. But it should be up within the next few days. There’s three different hotels, again, a mile away. And we’ll be running a shuttle service. We’re not running a 200-person shuttle bus, but we’re running somewhere. It’s going to be somewhere 17 to 24 passengers.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 06 :
Back and forth. Just from those hotels.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
So it’s going to be one of those things that we’re just giving the customers that, again, they comment, hey, you know what? We would love to stay at the Gaylord, but it’s still a touch out of our price range. We’d rather spend money at the expo doing other things, so can we save a few bucks on a room? Yeah, well, we helped you out there. I mean, there’s rooms from $139 to $159 a night down the road.
SPEAKER 03 :
And parking may range $10 to $20, you know, but here’s what I told people. We have a lower parking rate this year. Yeah, and we talked last year, I mean, last time Abe was on, you know, hey, downtown, hey, I will promise you this. Your car will be out there when you leave the expo, okay? We couldn’t make that promise if you were downtown, and all the windows will still be intact. But seriously, man, you guys have done a great job, and, man, we’re looking forward to it again and, you know, working with you guys on this.
SPEAKER 11 :
And to be clear – Scotty, parking is less this year. We renegotiated the cost. Right. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
MileHighHuntExpo.com. Don’t wait. Get your tickets now and get those evening tickets event, ticketed events as well. And we look forward to seeing you there. We’ll get these guys on another time or two here before the event. But don’t wait. That’s the big message from Takeaway today. MileHighHuntExpo.com. So, Phil, thanks, man. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Abe, thank you. Thanks for having us. You’re listening to Sports from Colorado. We’ve got to take a quick break, and I’ll be back with more right after this.
SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 14 :
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Yeah, we really do have something in common.
SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
This is 560-KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Sportsman Colorado. Just a quick reminder now, you miss our live show on Saturdays, which is 1 to 2. You can catch us twice on Sundays. That’s at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. And then also on the following Thursday at 9 a.m., you’ll get to hear Sportsman of Colorado. So hopefully one of those four times will work out for you. If you miss it all, of course, you can get our podcast anywhere you get yours and also at sportsmanofcolorado.com as well. Well, you’ve been hearing a lot of different folks from the Colorado Gun Collector Association over the last several months and, hey, all in promotion, a lot of, for their big upcoming show, their expo, May 17th and 18th. at the island grove event center and uh this is the 59th annual colorado gun collectors show and i have been up there a few times years back but i’m planning on going this year and we hope you’ll make your plans to go there as well and glad to have rick wilson with us rick has been um duly appointed the new president Is it president, chairman, king of Colorado gun collectors? What’s the title?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, on the minutes for the meeting, we call it president.
SPEAKER 03 :
President.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s as far as it goes.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Good deal. Well, Rick, let’s learn a little bit about you. What got you into the collecting side of things?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I was a city kid, and my uncles lived in Colorado, and they went hunting all these times, and I just thought that sounded like great fun. I was just so… interested in hunting and things. I wanted to be like my uncles. I wanted to go back to Colorado because at the time I lived in Virginia. So I got started into hunting when we moved back to Colorado eventually. I loved hunting. And, of course, with hunting, you run into guns. I just became fascinated with guns. There are so many different types out there. And so along with hunting, collecting guns and having an interest in guns, has just lasted my whole life, and it’s my major hobby.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow, that’s cool. And you know, it is interesting that we’ve probably had a half a dozen different people in here from your organization, and each one of them seem to have their little favorite niche that they like to collect in. Does that make up a lot of your group?
SPEAKER 05 :
I think that’s correct. Now, a lot of people will go around the room when we have a monthly meeting, and people say, what do you collect? And I’ll say, well, I collect general, you know, a little of this, a little of that. But everybody does have a favorite. You know, like I like Winchesters and Marlins, the old lever guns from 120 years ago. But I’ve still been fascinated with World War II military, World War I, the Civil War, war. Even brown vests from the Revolutionary War. It’s like a virus. You just, you know, you get addicted.
SPEAKER 03 :
And, you know, my wife, she’ll walk in and I’m watching some Western. She’s like. why do you watch those and she’ll walk in you’ve seen that 50 times because i’ve seen it 50 times walking in here and i go i know but you know when you look back at a lot of the old western man there are some i don’t know what all the guns you probably can look at them and tell what they’re shooting with a lot of these guns but what were a lot of the cool guns so to speak with you know whether it be the handguns the pistols or you know and some of the rifles they use in the lever action
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, you’re right. I was very interested in the Westerns when I was a kid. That was the period when Westerns were a big deal. So a lot of Colt single-action .45s, the Winchesters .94 and the .92, of course. Those are the main ones. Once in a while, somebody would have a Sharps rifle, like Quigley down under, shot a Sharps.
SPEAKER 03 :
Do you remember the movie Tom Horn with Steve McQueen?
SPEAKER 05 :
I remember the name, and I remember Steve McQueen, but I can’t place that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Boy, there’s a rifle in that that’s so cool. I’ll have you look that up and report back because, man, that is a cool rifle he uses.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, there is one where it’s kind of sawed off, and he used it like a pistol. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, that was Wanted Dead or Alive. That was a series he was in. Okay. Yeah, that was really cool. Yeah, long top holster on his side. Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
That was really neat. And the rifleman, he had a similar gun like that. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
They could handle those, too. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
But it’s interesting that a lot of those movies, if you look back now, you can tell that those were props. They’re, you know, a 94. They took the wooden forearm off so it would look like a Henry rifle or something. So an advanced collector can say, oh, that’s, you know, they turned that into something else. Wow. But at the time, you know, it goes so fast you only see it for a second. And it just fits in the movie and you don’t pay attention.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Have you ever been up to the Cody Firearm Museum? No.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, many times. I belong to the Winchester Arms Collectors Association. Isn’t that unbelievable? It is.
SPEAKER 03 :
The curator that used to be there several years back, her name was Ashley Urbinski, and she invited us up one time and took us on a really neat tour of that place. And, man, she knew every gun that was in there. I mean, she was so sharp. And she took us through kind of the Hollywood section there of different guns, Jimmy Stewart, you know, Winchester 73, different things like that. And it was really, really neat. So when you look at the evolvement of guns over the 100 years, what’s changed the most in them?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, a lot of things are still the same, like semi-automatic rifles, which there is a bill in there currently to ban.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, man.
SPEAKER 05 :
Those have been around since 1900, even before 1900, 1898. They had magazine-fed semi-automatic guns, pistols mostly. So those are not that new, actually.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. And, boy, just talking about that real quick, there’s never been a time we’re under such attack for our guns than now.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it’s really true. A lot of city people, they’re several generations away from farming or ranching or, you know, back 150 years ago, everybody had a .22 rifle in their kitchen for varmints or whatever. But that day is gone. And so a lot of people, they’re not around guns. They don’t understand guns. They’re afraid of guns. Right. So I think that’s kind of been part of the problem.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Absolutely. Rick Wilson is with us. Once again, he is the new president for the Colorado Gun Collector Association. Hope you will mark the dates now, May 17th and 18th. They just have so many guns there. How many exhibitors will probably be there for that show?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well. Ordinarily, we have about 750 tables of guns. So some exhibitors have more than one table. There will be 25 to 40 exhibitors that are just exhibiting their gun display. They’re not selling guns. They just have an educational display. They’re competing for prizes. Who’s got the best display? There’s several categories. There’s antique firearms. There’s modern firearms. Military firearms. There’s something for everybody that would be interested in seeing those displays, I think.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. And you were kind of telling me before we came on air here a little bit about move-in and different things. So let’s kind of walk through your show there and kind of tell people what dates and how it all works.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, sure. Well, we have this show once a year. So it’s a big thing. And we probably have more displays than any show in the country. There’s a few large shows in the country. We have the most displays. So we’re kind of famous for that. So in a lot of ways, we’re the best display show in the country, which would mean the world because Europe doesn’t have anything like this. So anyway, people move in. The afternoon of Thursday, I think that’s the 15th, starting about 2 o’clock, the dealers will start to set up their tables and their displays. They can finish setting up Friday mornings. And then once displayers are set up, all the displayers can go around and visit each other’s tables, meet old friends, talk about good times, and look for bargains. That’s what people love to do, these dealers, because it’s closed to the public on Friday. unless you buy one of our VIP passes. The VIP pass is good for three days, but people love to go in on Fridays and find those bargains. And then Saturday morning, it’s open to the public and then Sunday as well. And then we close a little bit early on Sunday because the dealers want to get on the road to Minnesota or wherever they live.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. And so to get a table there, any specific qualifications someone has to have or how do they go about getting a table?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, we bill our gun show as antique and collectible curio and relics. A curio and relic firearm is one that was made more than 50 years ago. So if it was made before 1975, it’s a curio and relic at this point. Next year, it’ll be anything before 1976. So anyway, that’s the draw to our shows. It’s about older guns. It’s not modern guns. If you’re looking to buy a modern weapon. then you need to go to one of the other gun shows. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Man, I graduated high school in 1976, and you’re talking about it being antique almost. That’s not nice. Well, you don’t look like an antique, so how’s that? Okay. You know, let’s talk about some of the, when I say personalities in the Colorado Gun Collector Association, like I say, we’ve got to meet about a half a dozen of them doing these shows once a month. But it’s quite the group and different. You know, people came from different backgrounds, different things, but they still have a love for collecting. So kind of tell us a little bit about the group itself.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, well, you’re right. It’s very eclectic. We have people that worked at Safeway for 30 years. We have lawyers. We have doctors. People from all walks of life. People in business. And you’re right. They can be very knowledgeable about one specific area of collecting. Like somebody might put a display on with a hundred Colt 1911… Or somebody might have Civil War guns every gun show. They’ll have a display of that, and they’re very knowledgeable. So that’s the neat thing about our show is people can come there, even if you’re not that interested in guns. If you like history, you can come in and talk to these people with these displays and learn so much and have a very entertaining afternoon.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Will some people come to your show and maybe bring a gun or a knife or something like that, maybe from military, and try to just find out what in the world they have because they don’t know it was maybe something passed down to them?
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure, that’s exactly right. People come in, they want to know what their gun is, they want to know what it’s worth. Maybe it’s their great-grandfather’s gun. And they’ve had it for all these years in the closet, and they don’t know what to do with it. And they get it out and say, I don’t know anything about this. And so that’s a great place to go because I guarantee you there will be somebody there at the show that knows about that gun. And I’ve been doing this for 50 years. And even today, I’m learning about new guns I’ve never heard of. So anyway, if people want to do that, learn about their gun, learn how much it’s worth, even if people want to say, I want to get rid of this gun, I don’t know what to do with it, dealers there would love to talk you out of it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Yeah, absolutely. So Winchester and Marlin.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s what got me started.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s what got you started.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, Winchester’s, and then I found out about Marlin’s. And the neat thing about Marlin’s is they made lever actions at the same time, but they weren’t. as publicized, and they have case-colored receivers, which is case coloring comes after you quench your gun and case harden the receiver. It has these fabulous colors on it, but it wears off quickly. That’s why Winchester got rid of the case-colored 1873s and then started to blue the guns like the 92, the 94, and 86, and the later guns. But I love Marlins for the beautiful case colors. And the beautiful mechanisms, they eject out the side versus out the top like the Winchesters did. Right. So they’re easier to mount a scope on, for instance.
SPEAKER 03 :
Which one would you shoot if you were in a Western, a Marlin or a Winchester?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Which one would you shoot? Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’d shoot them both. I love them both.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think sometimes, too, I’ve heard of people saying, oh, I’ve got this old gun. I’m going to take it somewhere and get it re-blued and get it fixed. You really don’t want to do that, do you, to older guns?
SPEAKER 05 :
We like to see all the original marks on the barrel. we want to see what the corners look like, we want to see what the blue look like, even if it’s worn and stuff, we can say, look at that wear spot on the forearm from the wood. Somebody’s carried that over their saddle horn for, you know, their whole life. Or tacks in it, you know, maybe it was a Native American owned this gun and they put some tacks in it and a decoration that was important to them.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 05 :
We love to see all that history. If you re-blew it, you erase all that history, and it can’t tell you anything.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Once again, Rick Wilson is with us. He is the president of the Colorado Gun Collector Association. Hey, make your plans now to attend this great event. It’s May 17th and 18th. It’s the 59th annual Colorado Gun Collector Show. And, hey, this just happens once a year, so time to come out. Great family event. Hey, sometimes it’s hard to find those, but great time for the family to come out. And just see a lot of cool guns. And, I mean, I would assume it’s something from every era that has anything to do with guns, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. Yeah. We have everything from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War. up through World War II, and even some people are displaying guns from Vietnam now, some of the veterans.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Tom Hellman, the former president, he brought in one day, he brought like seven or eight different type knives and things, which are cool. So we focus on Colorado gun collector, but there will be a lot of other things there too, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, absolutely. There’s all the other things that go with guns. We call them the accoutrements, reloading molds or pots and beadwork from Native Americans. Leather goods are a collectible item, you know, pistols that go on a holster or scabbards for a horse that you put on a horse that you can fit your Winchester in. Okay. Even those are collectible. Wow. Leather goods makers were right here in Colorado, down in Pueblo, Trinidad, Denver here with Heiser. Yes, there’s all sorts of things besides just guns.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
And Tom himself, he loves swords.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s what he collects. And I look at a sword, walk right past it, right past it, and he says, wow, did you see this great sword? It’s from, you know, 1872 or something. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
I tell you, when you do see some of these things and you think, man, this is what guys battled with. I mean, what we’ve got now, pretty easy to carry an AR or something like that. But when you look at some of these guns and the weight of them and loading, like a muzzleloader type gun, you know, where you’re shooting one at a time and bad guys coming at you. Man, that was some serious war fight going on right there, wasn’t there?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it was. And the modern guns, I own modern guns, but they’re just tools to me. They’re not fascinating or interesting like the old-time guns because they all have a story to tell, especially the military guns. They all had inspector marks and things, and when they were refurnished at the arsenal to help them further their career or if the military was going to get rid of them, they have all these markings from that. They tell this whole story. Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that’s how you can tell a lot about the military, especially there’s going to be special markings on many of those, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. I have a trapdoor Springfield and I had a number 74 painted on the stock. So I asked one of the experts in that field, I said, what does this mean? He says, oh, that’s such a cool gun. That gun belonged to the New York 75th, 74th Volunteers, and they went to San Juan Hill. They were in the unit there right next to Taddy Roosevelt. And I had no idea.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
But I think that’s such a cool story. Yeah, no doubt.
SPEAKER 03 :
No doubt. You know, one thing when Tom and I met and started talking about doing some shows for you guys, just to let people know who you are and what you do. Tom said, man, I’d love to get some younger folks in this, you know. And so what do people need to do if they want to apply to be a member?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, we have a website. You can go there, fill out an application. But most people, they need to go to a show or come to some of our meetings. That’s how I started. I started going to the meetings because I was interested in the guns. So if people have an interest, most of our members do not live here in the state. Oh, really? We have people from all over the country, and they have a membership because they get a discount on tables for our show. But anyway, it’s easy to become a member. You need to have somebody sponsor you. So we want to know that you’re serious about this, you’re really interested, and you’re not just some flaky guy trying to, you know, burn in someplace. But it’s pretty easy. We’re a nice group. I can’t remember the last time we turned somebody down for membership. Sure. So if you have an interest in guns or history… I’d have you consider being a member.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. And you all have meetings once a month, I think you said?
SPEAKER 05 :
We have meetings once a month. We put out a newsletter every month. I’m trying to get back to where we have an interesting topic discussed in the newsletter. So just from reading the newsletter, you can learn things about something else that you have no experience with. We also have a Facebook page. More people are visiting our Facebook page. And we link with other gun collectors groups. So there’s always something interesting on there, even if it’s the Virginia area. Weapons collectors, I love to read about their latest meeting and guns they talked about.
SPEAKER 03 :
So do most states have some form of an organization like yours?
SPEAKER 05 :
I’d say most of them do, not all of them, and some have more than one. But most people live within a couple hundred miles of an organization that has a show. Okay, all right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Dave Wedel. I know Dave. I’ve known Dave for a long time, and he used to have his store on Broadway. You know, he wore a lot of cowboy action stuff there. Yeah, Dave’s a really great guy, so we’ve got to get him on sometime as well. But anything else we want to mention today on it?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I think that’s pretty good. I think if people have to drive a few hours to see the show, they might think about doing something else. Personally, since I love history, I love to hit all the museums on the way to someplace or on the way home. But, you know, people can come up for a few hours or they can come up for the weekend.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. And, hey, you may think you’re coming for a couple hours and end up spending the whole day because it’s going to be a pretty cool show.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, right. For me, I couldn’t even see the whole show in two days because I want to look at everything. I want to look at all the displays. Right. Other people say three hours is enough. But one thing I would like to say is the gun control that’s coming at us this year is the most severe I’ve seen in a long time, and it’s affecting our show. They want to eliminate people from gun shows that don’t have a federal firearms license, which is most of the collectors. We’re not dealers. We don’t sell guns. So most of us don’t have a license. So we’re working on that. They’ve instituted this law where you have to have not just a federal firearms license, but you have to have a Colorado license. licensed to deal guns, and so that’s going to eliminate a lot of our dealers. So we’re fighting for our existence. I hope this is not our last show this year. So come and see this show in case it’s not there next year, but I’m going to work as hard as I can to make sure it is next year.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re trying to do everything we can, you know, on fighting the battle too. So, Rick, congrats on being the president. And, man, hey, that’s a good tag with your name right there, Rick Wilson president. All right. So, man, we appreciate it, and thanks for coming in. Oh, thank you, Scott. I’ve really enjoyed it. You bet. It’s the Colorado Gun Collector Association, May 17th and 18th at the Island Grove Event Center, 59th annual show. Hey, make your plans now to attend. Again, we’ll be talking about it still more here before that date. So thanks for being with us today for Sportsman of Colorado. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Leave it right here on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 10 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
