The Nakusp Secondary School outdoor education class has returned from the Vancouver International Boat Show, and the results were a resounding success.
The students sold $7,000 worth of their tri-flasher fishing lure, were broadcast on the CBC, and were praised by other vendors there as the first high school students they’d ever seen at the show.
I met up with the students last week during a break between classes at Nakusp Secondary School. They told me about the outdoor education program, the flashers and the boat show. They spoke one after another, finishing each other’s sentences, so I’m not able to identify who said what.
“It was really fun,” one student said. “There were lots of booths and lots of people were interested in what were doing. They were excited a high school was there.”
The tri-flashers are a design developed by NSS students that improve on the classic fishing lure design by making it so the lures spin at the same speed no matter how fast the boat is moving.
“The problem is that as you go through the water if you go faster it will speed up,” a student said. “It’s speed sensitive, so if you go too slow, it’s useless, and if you go too fast it will scare the fish off.”
This was the students’ second trip to a trade show – last year they went to a show in Abbottsford, but this one was much bigger. They received support from Columbia Basin Trust, Home Hardware, the Regional District of Central Kootenay, Nakusp & Area Development Board, Halcyon Hot Springs, the Nakusp & Area Community Foundation and the Nakusp Chamber of Commerce to attend.
At the boat show, the students were placed in an area surrounded by big boats. At first business was slow, but as they began to work the floor and tell people about their product, more and more people showed up at their booth (which also had a display promoting Nakusp).
“The sales pitch that we told everyone is that you could fish at any speed and it doesn’t speed up or slow down with your boat,” one student said.
The end result was they sold about 150 flashers at $40 each.
The next step for them is to find a way to have the flashers manufactured so they can focus more on marketing and less on manufacturing. So far there have been early talks with the fishing company Rapala. The goal is for all the profits to go into supporting the outdoor education program so it can continue in the future.
Teacher Dorian Boswell said that from an educational point of view “the show was phenomenal.” They learned how to do interviews, talk to other vendors and got entrepreneurial experience. He thanked to the supporters for helping get the students to the show.