The Toronto Sportsmen’s Show 2023 – Part 1

NOTE: I CAN ONLY POST 200 PICS AT A TIME. PLEASE SEE THE LINK TO PART 2 AT THE BOTTOM

Last year I broke from my tradition of covering all things firearms related first but with the entrance of O’Dell Engineering and Wolverine Supplies, guns are back in the limelight at the Toronto Sportsmen’s Show!

The O’Dell Engineering booth had the best spot in the show, meeting show-goers right at the entrance.

The booth was divided into Bergara precision rifles and Canuck shotguns.

I headed straight for Bergara to check out the Premier line, including the MgLite, Competition, and Divide

Other fine Bergaras

Canuck shotguns including the Engage, Operator, Sentry

The extremely popular FD12

And new Freedom Enforcer

There were multiple chances for show-goers to win a Canuck shotgun by tagging pics at the booth (although as media I did not enter)

Morgy and Phil O’Dell

Morgy and Tom

Ian from O’Dell, Dave from NAS Outdoors and Tyson from Wolverine Supplies

Speaking of Wolverine, I was sooo excited for them to be at the show!

I LOVE B&T! The newly approved non-restricted SPC9 has not arrived yet, but that’s okay, I would gladly take an APC or GHM9 (or anything else they offer lol)

Accuracy International is not too shabby either

The GHM9 with a Freedom Ordnance FX9

Closeup of the GHM9

And FX9

Non-restricted variant of the FX9

Andrea and Tyson of Wolverine’s The Breakfast Club podcast

Me with the B&T APC

More great firearms on display at Stoeger Canada, Benelli shotguns including the Super Black Eagle, Nova, M2 etc.

Big selection at Shooters Choice

High Falls Outfitters

Wing’s Live Bait and Tackle

Ok on to knives!

PUMA was the star of last year’s show. I covered them quite comprehensively so I won’t go into the details again but just to recap their three main product lines are Hand Made in Germany, PUMA IP, and PUMA TEC.

PUMA Defender Elforyn Damasteel Superclean, a limited edition of 50 pieces

PUMA Knife of the Year 2022 carbon Superclean Damascus, also limited to 50 pieces

PUMA IP Longhorn Stag

PUMA also has some unique knives. Last year I was smitten with the Fishing knife (ended up buying one), while this year I liked the PUMA IP mushroom knife with brush, tweezers, carabiner, and walnut wood scales

Finally the El Hacha

Happy to see Svord from New Zealand back at the show

My favourites were the Giant Peasant

And Von Tempsky Golok

Also nice to see Skip’s Customs back at the show. As I mentioned last year, this Canadian knifemaker has been making custom knives for over 30 years.

and from the other side

HUGE selection of knives at Blades4You, including brands such as Spyderco, CRKT, SOG, United Cutlery, Ka-Bar etc. etc.

The Rambo knives were my personal favourites lol

More custom knives from Ash Gears, MAB Impex, and The Pocket Blade

I must confess that I don’t know much about game calls but fortunately there were three great custom makers at the show to teach me all about them. First up, some pot calls from TS Custom Calls

Beautiful hand-made duck and goose calls

Next, some beautiful wood and acrylic duck and goose calls from Knotty Beaver

My favourites were this white acrylic duck call

And this buck call

Although their pot calls were pretty stunning

It was great to meet Claude Piette of Conception CP

I liked these acrylic predator calls so much…

that I picked up a couple

Later on in the show, Claude was to provide a demo of how he makes the calls by hand (using this machine)

Claude was sharing his booth with Samuel Côté-Sculpture sur panache & Antler carving. His carvings are absolutely incredible!

In past shows I have kind of breezed by the fur and pelts but this year I wanted to take a closer look, particularly because I have some old fur pieces that are shedding and need replacement.

The great selection of pelts at Ontario Fur Managers Federation provided a great opportunity to see what I like

And the answer is wow, this wolf pelt would make such a great stole lol. It felt so bada$$, I wanted to walk around the show like this.

More incredible fur pieces at Fur the North.

These coyote mitts are even bigger than my rabbit ones and I absolutely love them..definite show favourites.

Morgy liked them too!

On a related note, taxidermy…I know lots of people like Owls so I tried to capture all of the ones on display

Though personally I liked the beaver the best

Looks angry

Beautiful colours

I got a much greater appreciation for taxidermy at this show

I guess this show was all about learning for me, or at least exploring things that I have glossed over in the past like game calls, fur/taxidermy, and archery/crossbows. I spent some time at Excalibur’s booth and it was quite educational.

I took a close look at their top-of-the-line Assassin 400TD, which has a lot of great features such as take-down with a simple push of a button and without affecting accuracy, a dead-silent integrated crank, tool-less fully adjustable stock, sound deadening system, and match-grade trigger

In terms of optics for your crossbow, the Garmin XERO X1i was one of the coolest optics I have ever seen! It has a built in laser rangefinder and allows you to use digital aim points automatically calibrated to your crossbow setup. Check out their website for descriptions of the Steady Aim and other features, truly impressive!

They also have a red-dot for bows but it is much simpler than the crossbow optic

Speaking of red-dots, the new Defender ultra low profile CCW sight from Vortex. While small in size, this thing is tough! The ShockShield polymer insert absorbs shock to the 7075 aluminum body protecting it from everyday abuse. In fact, it is shockproof, waterproof, and fogproof. It has motion activation with 14 hour shutoff and battery life of over 9000 hours.

More great optics from Vortex

And Steiner

The rumours that Yeti coolers are addictive are completely true! I don’t know anyone (including myself) who has just one lol. While most people like all of Yeti’s crazy colour releases, such as Canopy and High Desert Clay shown here

I prefer the ones with laser engraving, like the Ducks Unlimited on the re-designed stackable lowball

In addition to Yeti, there were other cooler brands at the show, like Chilly Moose with their cool wood-grain print

And Calcutta

Great gear selection from Hudson, including Tasmanian Tiger, Nanuk, and Bridgford MRE

Glad to see Radioworld back at the show, I love this store! While they offer a huge array of electronics, they mostly concentrate on their marine line and metal detection for the Sportsmen’s Show