2015 NAFA Meet - Hutchinson, Kansas

[Captain Gizmo]

Head's up: I just called the Atrium hotel to double check my reservation (since I made it ~2 months ago and forgot what arrival date I chose) and they had no record of it. The confirmation number didn't hit and they couldn't find my name. I was able to rebook but they only had single bed rooms available.

Steve,

I checked, My reservation is good to go for arrive 8, leave 14. I am booked for a two bed. I do not use the other bed except s a table for my workshop supplies. be happy to trade for a single.

Thomas of the Desert

[David]

I just checked my reservation and they had it messed up. They had me checking in on the 7th and out the 8th. Short meet....... they were able to fix it. You may want to verify your reservation.

Steve,

I checked, My reservation is good to go for arrive 8, leave 14. I am booked for a two bed. I do not use the other bed except s a table for my workshop supplies. be happy to trade for a single.

Thomas of the Desert

[FredFogg]

I will be there around 11 am today, anyone want to go hawking this afternoon?

[skooky20]

We made it, got into hutch at around 12:30 today, am so stoked for my first nafa meet, already got hawking plans for tomorrow morning.

[FredFogg]

We made it, got into hutch at around 12:30 today, am so stoked for my first nafa meet, already got hawking plans for tomorrow morning.

In the bar, where are you? LOL

[wyodjm]

I was wondering what people thought of this year's meet. I don't have a bird at the moment so I focused mainly on seeing and catching up with old friends, including making a few new ones. It was the first NAFA Meet that I've been to in over 15 years. Times, they are a changing. There were many new faces at the meet.

For the folks who did attend, what did you think?

[Ken S.]

I was wondering what people thought of this year's meet. I don't have a bird at the moment so I focused mainly on seeing and catching up with old friends, including making a few new ones. It was the first NAFA Meet that I've been to in over 15 years. Times, they are a changing. There were many new faces at the meet.

For the folks who did attend, what did you think?

I may not be the best person to answer because I seem to find fun times wherever I go (life being so short and all that...) but I live all year long with anticipation of the annual trip away from the east coast to see old friends and even make some new ones. Seemed like it took some serious driving and scouting for game this year, but that's become pretty normal for meets and anybody that put in the effort was probably rewarded. I've gotta say...at this point the post-meet depression is starting and next year can't get here fast enough. How is it that some of my favorite people all live so damn far away?

Many thanks to the fine folks that volunteer to make these things happen!

Other than that...I always say what happens at the meet stays at the meet. Y'all want more details than that you should show up next time and find out how fun it is for yourselves.

.

[FredFogg]

I thought the meet was great! I was a little disappointed in the game numbers but I think that is because I was a little spoiled last year in Lubbock. There was game to be found but you had to get out there and find it.

I was disappointed in the vendors, but I have been at every meet I have ever attended. I can't understand why the major falconry suppliers aren't at the meet. Of course, this isn't the fault of the NAFA folks but those suppliers themselves. I have bought things online from everyone of the suppliers as I am sure a lot of folks do. It would be nice to see them selling their goods every year at the NAFA meet. Even if they didn't sell enough goods to offset the cost of going to the meet, it shows me that they care about the falconers that buy their products. By not showing up, it shows me all they care is about selling products and not about the folks who are buying their products.

I spoke with next years meet chairman, Ryan, and I like some of his ideas to spice things up in the evenings. Over the years, folks get in small groups and party together in the evenings. I think Ryan has some ideas to bring everyone together to have a good time in the evenings. Hanging out in the vending area every night gets a bit boring so I look forward to where everyone can hang out together and do something different.

But overall, I think my biggest disappointment was that the meet was just a bit too early for my falconry. I don't normally even try and have my birds hunting until the end of October, first part of November. I had to trap earlier than I normally do to have that bird ready and I had to pull the other bird earlier. I think the long wingers would like it a bit later as the ducks would be migrating better. I know there are a lot of obstacles to overcome having it later with other hunting seasons starting but everyone has to deal with all of those yearly at home too. My vote would be the week after Thanksgiving as I, along with others, could use the 2 days off the week of Thanksgiving to head on out west and get our birds acclimated and some hunting in before the actual meet starts. But I know the numbers this year for the meet were the highest ever besides the joint IFA/NAFA meet so that does show that having it a week besides Thanksgiving will have more folks coming so I am sure they will pick a week that works best for what the circumstances dictate.

But again, it was a great meet. I went a little slow on the bourbon and only drank a half gallon bottle while I was there so hopefully next time I will get a little more partying in. LOL

[raptrlvr]

Fred, I have friends back east that haven't even started flying their birds this season. Here in the west/southwest our season starts in September and we do some usurious hawking by the time the NAFA meet rolls around no matter when it is. I didn't make it to the meet this year because I am catching jacks every day I go out in the field locally. I am planning on making it to the Western Desert Classic meet the 2nd week of December just because its a lot closer to my house than Kansas was.

[NMHighPlains]

For the folks who did attend, what did you think?

I've been going to NAFA meets since 1984, although I've missed a bunch in between. I thought this one was "average" on the whole. Now, don't get me wrong.... "average" is still a lot of fun! What makes meets stand out for me are: scenery (Vernal), game (Amarillo or Lamar on good years), a particular standout speaker (Steve Layman, Steve Martin, Karen Pryor), vendors (Northwoods in their heyday), getting to play music (me and Bob Martin in Woodward OK), or meeting someone who ends up being a life-long friend (I'm not dead yet, so we'll see who goes the distance).

None of these were real standouts. I met some new friends but need to see how pan out over the years. The vendors were good but the same folks we've seen for the past several years. Game was hard to find but it was there, esp if you were willing to drive a couple of hours. Kansas had its scenic moments but it's no Vernal. And so forth.

Highlights for me- 1) getting to meet some new faces and some on-line-only faces in person, 2) jamming in the lobby with Jeff, 3) the stand up/sit down raffle on the last night. 4) Chris's shrimp boil. Tavo/Terrance's talk would have made the list but I already knew what they do so it wasn't all new like Steve Layman's first talk or watching Steve Martin work his birds for the first time. So, Honorable Runner-Up there.

This is not meant to be critical or negative in any way- I know the meets take a LOT of HARD work and different people get different things from the same event. It's just that the longer I do these things, the more life-time highlights have already accumulated and the harder it is for something new to come along and make me say "Whoa...that was killer!" I will say this- I was ready to come home Thurs but my boys wanted to stay Friday and help put the weathering yard down. Friday ended up being the best day of the week for me- I had some relatively non-egotistical and funny discussions, played some music, helped with the yard, swam, and had fun at the banquet.

Looking forward to the next one.

[Paul Mascuch]

I enjoyed seeing old friends at the meet this year. The earlier timing of the meet seemed to help attendance, but the earlier date hurt me as my bird was not quite ready and the ducks had not really showed up in Kansas yet. One day we checked 100 ponds and didn't see a duck.

I didn't catch anything at the meet, but I did get a 4 point buck Saturday on the way back home. Unfortunately I did it while driving Jim Frazier's truck. We hit the deer 6 miles short of our destination for the night in Evanston, Wyoming. My wife had to drive my truck from Boise and retrieve us. Jim's truck was not driveable and is still in Wyoming.



Paul

[Tasha55403]

Ouch!!! That's gotta hurt Paul
In general, it was a good meet. The weather kinda sucked and the game wasn't great, but the people were wonderful and that's the really important part Everyone seemed to like our hoods and we sold a fair amount which was really, really nice.

Personally, it was probably at the bottom of my list of favorite meets. Nothing to do with the meet itself though. Our clutch went out about 200 miles from Hutchinson. Brian used some magic (and a whole lotta luck) to get us to the meet hotel somehow, but we were without a vehicle all week which really limited us. Then I came down with a cold Tuesday night to make it even better.

Brian built us a really cool dog box setup in the truck which was absolutely fantastic except for the 2 days the truck was in the shop and we had nowhere to put 9 dogs. We had a chain gang set up which worked really slick, but we had to borrow a big kennel from a friend and Brian had to walk over to the Tractor Supply to buy a few smaller kennels so we could bring the dogs in the hotel room overnight since the tow truck was 3 hours late and they didn't get it fixed on Thursday like it was supposed to So, I spent Thursday and Friday watching 9 dogs on a chain gang instead of going hawking.

I only got out hawking twice all week and slips were tough to get. We did get a few slips though and on the second trip out (with Michael Beran's crew) we managed to get 2 bunnies in the bag. It was great getting to see one of our pups from the last litter working! Zoidberg/Hermann is doing a fantastic job and he's only 6 months old

[croelke]

We (my fiancee and I) enjoyed the meet. It was our second NAFA meet. We found and caught game, but had to drive, which was ok. I was actually impressed with the banquet in terms of organization and food. We are excited about Oklahoma next year.

I think the dates were about right, but would be ok with the first week of December as well. I don't think NAFA should ever be held over Thanksgiving again. Personally, I would give up time over the holiday, but many falconers have family obligations. Our THA meet is as big as the NAFA meet in our good years and their down years, so I want to go to a big meet with a lot of people. Thanksgiving just isn't a time to get everyone there.

I know the slips could be a bit tough to come by. I also know they didn't have the choice of locations they wanted. I think in future years you will see a focus on game numbers and picking the right dates for the right places with regards to game.

[skooky20]

this was my first nafa meet and i thought it was great, i found game fairly easily, i did however scout online for possible places before ever leaving. i caught game and never saw so many pheasants in my life. looking forward to future meets.

[forestfalcon]

This was only my second NAFA meet, my first was in 2010 when I was pregnant, nauseous, and tired. There was more game in 2010, but I definitely had more fun this year. Because it wasn't over thanksgiving this year, I was able to be there for the banquet.

I met tons of new people, or people that only had online personas before this trip. I made several new friends this year.

I got out to KS on Tuesday night, and lost all of Wednesday as we were blown to Oz, so only had Thursday and Friday to hawk, but still managed to put a bunny in the bag. I wish I had more time out there to go out hawking with more people, but there's always next year.

I liked the week it was held, but I've also been hawking since September. Thanksgiving week is tough for me because of family obligations.

Can't wait until next year!

[JeffNH]

This was my 1st meet so I don't have a comparison to weigh it against. I truly had a blast. I didn't bring a bird as I wasn't sure what to expect and took the opportunity to experience different types of falconry that I don't see in NH. EX: spent a day out for ducks and doves with a barbary/gyr, followed by a gos on pheasants, gos on rabbits in 50 mph winds...what a hoot, an eagle on jacks and rabbits. The food highlights for me were the shrimp boil and the dinners spent with great company. I made some new friends, got to play with Bryan and realized it has been way to long since I've tinkered in the blue grass arena, (thank you for your patience, truly enjoyed playing and singing with you and lovely wife . Got to spend time with several different families and found that when you share the same passion everything seams to gel relatively easy. Shared stories and met some old timers that were a lot of fun to talk about decades gone by!
I felt the hotel and staff were incredibly accommodating. That went a long way to making this trip stress free.
Bring on Oklahoma!