Many hunters have heard of the SHOT Show, but few have attended. SHOT stands for Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show.

The show is four days long, Tuesday through Friday in January of every year in Las Vegas. This show offers a place for shooting sports manufactures to show off and possibly demonstrate their new products.

Garnet and I started going in the early 1990s, so we have been attending for over 25 years.

This is a trade show, so only exhibitors, dealers and media are allowed to walk through the doors. The attendance credentials are strictly monitored.

Press must prove membership of a writing organization, which monitors eligibility in the organization and therefore qualifies for SHOT Show attendance.

Garnet and I are members of the Northwest Outdoor Writers’ Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America and have been for 30 years. Still, we must show our current membership card each year.

Our objective for attending the show is to bring back to our readers information about new and old outdoor-related products. We make a week of this adventure and job. We have stayed at the Stratosphere for about 20 years.

Monday of show week we head to the Bolder City Shooting Range. This is called Industry Day at The Range. It is an invitation-only event, with press invited by an exhibitor.

Basically, busses take participants to the range where exhibitors have their firearms available for the press to pick up and use. Imagine all or most of the Remington rifles lined up at the firing stations, with cases of ammunition beside the rifles.

The shotguns are in a different area, again, with cases of ammo at hand. I’m big on .410 shotguns and own two.

The wind was blowing at a 10-mph rate, so not many attendees were shooting in this area. I asked for a .410 and missed the first two shots.

The representative said he only had one person hit one clay with a .410 during the day. This upset me greatly, so was able to hit the next three and quit.

The numbers from the SHOT Show are exciting. They show the tremendous interest in the shooting sports. The SHOT Show has exhibitors, buyers and media from all 50 states and more than 100 countries.

There were more than 1,600 exhibitors on the exhibit floor, plus more than 2,400 when the ones hoping to eventually exhibit are allowed to show their wares on a one-day basis.

Next week: More about the 2019 SHOT Show