Boat and Sportshow brings spring to Bartle Hall

Ken Cates of Louisburg didn’t have to leave downtown Kansas City to do some trophy saltwater fishing Thursday.

Sitting in a fighting chair, he held on and pulled back on his fishing rod as a giant sailfish rose to the surface and jumped high into the air.

Ah, fantasy is sweet, especially in the middle of a dreary, cold Kansas City winter.

Cates was at the Kansas City Boat and Sportshow in Bartle Hall, participating in Progressive Insurance’s Fishing Simulator.

Pick a fish, an image shows up on a screen, and the fight is on.

The machine calibrates the strength of line a fisherman would need to battle such a monster and even mimics the type of fight that fish would put up.

In this case, Cates watched as the sailfish tail-walked across the surface, putting on an impressive display. Once it sounded, it pulled hard.

But Cates landed his fish … then returned to reality.

The readout indicate that his “virtual” fish weighed 156 pounds, and Cates went to the top of the leader board.

“I’ve never caught a saltwater fish that big,” Cates said. “Maybe now I’ll know what to expect if I ever get one on. That was pretty realistic. I could feel the slack in the line when the fish jumped, and I could feel the drag go off when it would make a run.

“It was a lot of fun.”

Cates’ wife, Beth, also went fishing Thursday in Bartle Hall. She battled a big salmon on the Fishing Simulator. By the time she got it in, the scale indicated it was 34 pounds.

Virtual fishermen can also choose to battle trout, tarpon, marlin or bass at the Boat and Sportshow, which opened Thursday and will continue through Sunday.

“With the Fishing Simulator, fishermen can get a feel of what they will be doing when the weather’s warmer,” said Kayla Zumfelt, who helps run the Progressive Insurance booth. “It might be cold outside, but we bring a little bit of summer in here.”

The lure of Canada

Terry Claudell of Overland Park has no trouble daydreaming about warm spring days when the smallmouth bass are biting like crazy and life is good.

He pictures Niobe Lake Lodge in the heart of Quetico County in Ontario, Canada, and it takes the chill off Kansas City’s winter.

“We try to go the first two weeks of June,” Claudell said as he stood next to his uncle Dick Scholtens and represented the Canadian lodge at the Boat and Sportshow. “That’s when the smallmouths are spawning, and the fishing can be unbelievable.

“One year, three of us fished for five days and we caught 460 smallmouths. It was the best smallmouth fishing I’ve ever had.”

Considering that a 16- to 17-inch fish is fairly common and one of five smallmouths landed will measure 18 inches, that’s outstanding fishing.

But Claudell, who lives in Overland Park, has come to expect that when he and his uncle travel to Niobe Lake Lodge, an 18-hour drive from Kansas City. There are 40 lakes within a 45-minute drive of the lodge, most of them only 20 to 25 minutes away. They hold some big walleyes and northern pike. But it’s the smallmouth bass that make them stand out in Claudell and Scholtens’ eyes.

They fish with finesse rigs to lure the smallmouths — shortened ZinkerZs or Hula Sticks on a light jig head. They cast those baits to the nests the smallmouths have fanned out along gravel or rocky banks, then work them back with a jigging motion.

Hold on. Claudell and Scholtens are playing videos at the Boat and Sportshow of what happens when one of those baits nears a nest. They also can flip through pages of photos showing some of the fish they have caught.

Claudell and Scholtens are strong believers in catch-and-release. All of the bass they catch go back to the water. But the pictures remain to remind them of great fishing times.

“We’ve been going to this lodge for six years now,” Claudell said. “We represent them at the Sportshow because we’re satisfied customers.”

A folding boat

Kristina Gildersleeve displays a pretty convincing photo when she tries to sell people on the stability of the Porta-Bote she promotes.

The photo is of her dad, Oliver, standing at the stern of a 12-foot-long Porta-Bote, holding a 30-pound king salmon. The location? A few miles off shore in the Pacific Ocean.

She hastens to issue a warning. Only the most experienced boaters should venture onto the ocean in such a small boat; and even then, weather conditions and seas have to be right.

But the photo proves her point — that there is a lot more to this folding boat than meets the eye.

“Some people will laugh when they see a group pull up to the lake, with what looks like a surfboard strapped to their vehicle and they started unfolding it,” she said at the Boat and Sportshow. “But once those fishermen put a small motor on it and take off down the lake, they aren’t laughing anymore.

“These Porta-Botes offer a lot of advantages. They’re lightweight, durable, stable and you don’t need a trailer to get them to the lake.”

The Porta-Botes, which are on display at the Boat and Sportshow, are made of a polypropylene copolymer that is tough, but will flex in the water. The hinges are stapled with 90,000 pounds of power per square inch, making them leak proof.

The boats are made in four sizes: 8, 10, 12 and 14 feet long. They are used as fishing boats, sailboats, duck boats and even scuba-diving boats.

This story was originally published January 23, 2016 at 2:36 PM with the headline "Boat and Sportshow brings spring to Bartle Hall."