Selling RR District in Alabama

Founded in 1967 by Ray Scott in Montgomery Alabama, Birmingham Alabama celebrated the 2010 Classic in record fashion. For three days the folks of Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Missouri have journeyed to the heartland of bass fishing in America.
Everyone who was attending the actual Bassmaster show had to pass by our booth on all three days and on Friday night and Saturday night, the crowd was ushered back through the exhibitor space at the end of the show.
Attending our second Classic Expo, Doug Cain and I were surprised by the number of visitors to our booth who have fond memories of fishing the Rainy Lake and Nestor Falls area of the Rainy River District. Many are former residents of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and southern Minnesota.
When they lived in those states, their summer vacations were spent in the Rainy River District. Many had vacationed annually for several years.
For Doug Cain, Anthony Mason and myself, taking time to listen to the stories from vacations in the seventies, eighties and nineties was time well spent with visitors to the Rainy Lake Fort Frances Booth. Those former visitors to Rainy Lake were excited to enter a contest to win a trip to Campfire Island. One visitor remembered coming to that island as a guest of the company that owned it well before Wayne and Pat Howard reopened the camp as Campfire Island.
It was a great opportunity to promote Rainy Lake, Fort Frances and the Rainy River District to potential visitors. Each day, we began our work at the show before 7:00 in the morning and the show didn’t close until 8 at night. The three of us did not see much of Birmingham, but we are left with good memories of people who were pleased to talk to us.
We were joined at the booth by Phil Bangert, who drove over from Camdenton, Missouri to assist us in the booth,and there isn’t a better sales person for Rainy Lake and the region than Phil. He was able to convince even the biggest doubter that the fishing and scenery in the Rainy River district is second to none. And with his connection to the professional angling tour, he spent a great deal of time working the floor talking to professional anglers, encouraging them to join him fishing at the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship
As Doug Cain, Anthony Mason and myself flew into Birmingham, looking out the window on that clear Wednesday night, the lights of communities seemed to run into each other from the time we overflew Memphis, until we touched down at the airport.
Driving to Birmingham’s city, names of cities that first caught my attention in the 1960’s, returned as we passed the highway signs announcing turnoffs to head for Montgomery, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa and Tuskadee. Montgomery came to America’s attention with the bus boycott in 1955.
Just up the street from our hotel four young girls at the 16th street Baptist Church were killed in a church bombing in 1963. We were advised by our cab driver that if we only saw one thing in Birmingham, we should take in the Birmingham Civil Rights institute.
We didn’t make it to the Institute, but the good memories of Birmingham would make it a destination to stop at in the future.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher