You wanna talk about a fun convention, this is it. If at all possible, be there for the feed on Friday evening. There'll be lots of good stuff to be had. I plan to do a beaver stew again, along with the smoked salmon cheese ball. I hope to see y'all there.

NCTA 2024 State Convention
Trappers Rendezvous
Johnston County Livestock Auction Arena
520 County Home Road
Smithfield, North Carolina 27577
September 27th & 28th, 2024

Here are the links to the details. Just click and scroll down.

NCTA 2024 Convention Agenda

NCTA 2024 Convention Vendors

The Feed that Paul mentioned is Friday evening shortly after 6:00 p.m. and features whole hog BBQ cooked on site, fried catfish fillets and BBQ chicken and lots of with its. There is no charge for the Feed but we do put a bucket for donations at the head of the table.

Been 60 years since ive been in NC. Think its about time i visit. Now to figure out motels.

Here is a list for starters.......all around 5 miles from the convention site.

NCTA Convention Motels

Come on down Lee. You can rest that knee behind my booth.

Looking forward to it. Always a good convention

Getting ready to head east to start getting things set up.

Looks like the heavier rains from Helene are going to track well west of the convention site. The NC Mountains are going to be hit hard with this one.

The current forecast from the National Hurricane Center is showing almost all of the state east of Charlotte in the 1" to 2" precipitation band.

Come on out and have a good time!

Going to have to drive through some of the rains tomorrow, but looking forward to it.

If you are headed to the convention from I95 at Smithfield, put the Livestock arena address (520 County Home Rd, Smithfield) in your map program of choice. You can not get there via 210 as they are replacing a bridge on 210 between Smithfield and the arena. I know Google maps will route you around the closure on 210. Assume other map programs will as well.

I wish I could've made it. But I'll be there next year.

It was a good day today. It was a good crowd, and the feed those folks put on was great. These NC folks work their tails off to put on a well run excellent convention. I'm looking forward to another great day tomorrow.

Paul,
Thank you for the items for the auction and the salmon cheese ball and the beaver stew.
And the walleye were fantastic.
Thanks for all the great baits and lures you make every year to allow us trappers to chase
our dreams. You always embody the spirit of your Dad by “Passing it on”.

Thank you to everyone who came out today. It was breezy this morning and we had an hour or a little more of hard rain midday but other than some wet feet, we fared very well. And anyone that left hungry tonight, it was your own fault! Everything was good but that huge pan of old fashioned cooked banana pudding with meringue would make a fella hurt himself.

Come on out tomorrow!

That is a wrap for the 2024 Convention. I hope everyone makes it home safe.

Some of our vendors had to find an alternate route to get back home. The western part of NC is a disaster of major proportions. The NC DOT is telling everyone to consider all roads in western NC closed. Officially over 400 road closures are documented. The weather folks have calculated that some areas close to Asheville got 40" of rain from the storm and many highways became rivers.

A couple of our directors who live north of Asheville waited until this morning to head toward home. Before communications went down, they already knew that at least 3 ways to get to their hose were impassible. They really have no idea if they can get home. I hope they can find a way to get home safely.

Saw reports form the Sherriff's office in Buncombe Co. (Asheville area) this morning of 10 confirmed fatalities and 1,000 missing and unaccounted for.

This in interstate 40 near the NC-TN line. The eastbound lanes are gone.