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Article published Jun 7, 2009 Free fun for family this summer
Here is a fun family activity, and it is free. Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World in Sevierville is offering its Family Summer Camp four days a week now through July 5. At the store there will be free craft activities for the kids, including decorating fishing bobbers, making key chains, designing their own birdhouse, creating plaster animal tracks, and painting a souvenir wooden lure.
The whole family will enjoy free outdoor workshops about hiking, camping and fishing basics. Other workshops include bird watching, archery, animal identification, plants and insects, and even making campfire S’mores. Kids will earn a collectable pin for every workshop completed.
Kids can pose for their own “Field & Stream” cover photo. Everyone can test drive a kayak in the kayak pool. Other activities include a laser shooting gallery, casting pond, soft strike foam bow range, and BB gun range.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays activities begin at 3 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays they begin at noon. For a schedule of events and more information go to www.basspro.com/camp or call 865-932-5600.Knight Rifles, one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of inline muzzleload firearms, is closing up shop. Tony Knight began his company in 1985 with his first muzzleloading rifle, the MK-85. Since then more than one million Knight rifles have been purchased by black powder enthusiasts.
In recent years nationwide sales of hunting rifles, both modern and muzzleloaders, have been lagging. Competition is fierce. Knight, owned by Ebsco Industries, is known for its high quality components, including Green Mountain barrels and Timney triggers. Apparently these expensive components did not attract enough sales to support their cost.
During this economic downturn, the firearms industry is bucking the trend with runaway sales, mostly in modern handguns and target rifles. The Knight decision is a stark reminder that not all in the firearms industry are flourishing. There are several companies struggling today.
n The Quality Deer Management Association will have its Ninth Annual National Convention and Whitetail Expo on July 23-26 in Louisville, Kentucky. QDMA is committed to ethical hunting, sound deer management and the preservation of the deer-hunting heritage.
Thursday and Friday will be seminars and research sessions while Saturday and Sunday there is an outdoors exposition with more than one hundred exhibitors, celebrity presentations, banquets, entertainment, and auctions.
To learn why QDMA is the future of deer hunting, call 800-209-3337 or visit www.QDMA.com.
Tom Wiest welcomes news, questions and comments from readers. Contact him at wiest.tom@gmail.com.