Canadian Dealers

[mikeo2]

I was wondering why your dealers in Alberta (Russell Sports and Wholesale Sports) do not carry any of your decoys.

[Eric Larsgaard]

Mike

I do not know the answer to that question but I will have Rick get back to you asap.

Eric

[Rick Frisch]

Mike,

It is a shipping and duty issue. The freight costs a lot and when you add the duties to it, it is not economical enough. We started working with a couple of distributors this last summer. They will be taking shipments directly from or manufacturing facilities. This will make the products more readily available at a great price for Canadian dealers. In fact, there were two containers delivered to a distributor last week. I have talked to them about it, but they didn't seem very interested at this time.

Thanks,

[AltaGoose]

Mike, shouldn't really be surprised that Wholesale and Russell don't carry much. Unless it has four legs or fins they don't seem to be interested. That's probably a big reason why guys have gone away from bird hunting. If you need equipment you have to get it in the U.S. and that adds a minimum of 30-40% onto the price. Bird hunters in Western Canada are diehards. You know the sad part is that I can buy equipment cheaper from the U.S. than from a Canadian distributor. Even with exchange, duty and freight it lands at my door for less than driving down to a distributor in Edmonton.

[Brobones]

I have found the same thing out here in Saskatoon Sask. Don't get me wrong I would like to support the local guy that sells the same gear that I want to buy from the USA. They still have to meet the same price though, it it seems it can't be done. It is very strange that we have some of the best water fowl hunting in the world here in Sask and yet buying top of the line decoys is a struggle. The difference is that we do not have enough die hard water fowlers in this province to support it.

[Zekeland]

Brobones,

Ditto for Manitoba. Most guys are happy with any deke off the shelf.

[Rick Frisch]

You guys should be pleasantly surprised in 2006. The decoys will be very competitively priced with what you can buy them for here in the US.

Thanks,

[mikeo2]

Yah its very very hard to get decent decoys here, they want $160 for 4 bigfoots here. I wonder why they worry about the cost to bring them up, almost every other decoy brand they would have to bring up from the US to. The selection is very poor, and you would think in the spring/summer you would get a deal on dekes because they are old models, but I don't think they even bring any new models in until they sell all the old ones, even if it is 5-6 years.
The only thing that has stopped me from ordering them in the States is the $60 for shipping 6 decoys and the duty, if any of you canadian guys have had experience of order decoys from the states about how much did it end up costing?

I can kind of understand why they don't bring decoys up but why do they not even stalk any calls, those can't be all that pricey to bring up.

Yah you are totally right about wholesale sports, well in edmonton anyways, I go in there just about every friday in the goose season before I head home hunting, and was looking at maybe picking up some Silhouettes, when I asked th eone guy he didn't have a clue what a Sil even was.

I have found one place just west of edmonton that carry's Greenhead Gear decoys, but don't know what he charges for prices, here's their website www.canadianwaterfowlersproshop.com (http://www.canadianwaterfowlersproshop.com)

[Brobones]

The shipping doesn't bother me, you pay for it either way. The brokerage fees bother me and I would like to know where the heck the NAFTA deal is. I pay the same amount of duty brokerage fees ect ect ect. If I buy a decoys from GHG or G & H and G & H is a company that makes all of the decoys in the USA, I do believe nothing is imported.NAFTA my A$$. I don't want to open up a whole different can of worms. But this is one arguement that I have had with a retail store in defense of the high prices.

[AltaGoose]

Mike, I have tried to deal with canadianwaterfowlers but found them very expensive too. I asked them to quote on exactly the same things I could get from Cabelas and they were significantly more expensive. They are located in Edmonton so I would have picked up whatever I bought. Even with exchange, duties and shipping, Cabelas dropped it off at my door for less. I asked them to quote on some GHG Fullbodies and got an email back that they were no longer carrying the GHG's because of poor paint quality and bad deliveries. They claim that there were too many customer complaints. So I have no choice but bring them in from the states.

Like Bro said, I would love to support a Canadian company, but they just aren't competitive.

[mikeo2]

Thats good to know alta, I guess next summer or this winter I will be ordering some from the states, there are a couple other places other than Cabelas, so I may shop around, one place that looks very good is Mack's Prairie WIngs, I may end up ordering the Avery Camo Briefcase from them shortly. Some of those places should start to have deals on dekes later this spring. Man I can't believe my season is over, can't wait until next year. Hey alta, do you do most of your hunting around edmonton?

[AltaGoose]

Mike, I also order stuff from Macks, they truly have the best selection of waterfowl supplies that I know of. The only small glitch with them is that they don't do the brokerage so you have to pay UPS when they bring it to your door. Cabelas includes all that and UPS just drops it off at the door. Nothing better than coming home from work and having a box of decoys waiting to be openned (just like Christmas!!)

Most of my bird hunting is done about half way between Edmonton and Lloyd. How about you??

[mikeo2]

All my bird hunting is done around lloyd, thats where i grew up and still live, well when i'm not here in edmonton at university. I spent 2 years in Lethbridge at the college there and done some fantastic bird hunting down there. Man I wish I could get one more hunt in this year, I have been kind of keeping my open around the city here, there has to be some geese still on the river here, and they have to be feeding somewhere.

[AltaGoose]

You're right there is still some of the big boys around. The problem is that they feed within the city limits. In Llod they travel 5-10 minutes out of the city and you can hunt them. Its bad here as they have to travel about 15-20 minutes out before you're able to hunt.

[mikeo2]

Yah that sucks, I was hoping to get a real big canada this year to et mounted, but never did end up getting one, oh well. I've been thinking more and more about the sask spring snow goose seaon this year, by then I may need some bird hunting medicine to cure me until september 1.

[AltaGoose]

If you start with the Snows, you'll have a hard time going back to the Canadas!! Which side of the border do you hunt?

[mikeo2]

We usually just hunt the alberta side, but are going to start hunting the sask side next year as well as the alberta side, kind of the best of both worlds. The main reason for hunting the sask side is that there is way to many **** outfitters on the alberta side.

[AltaGoose]

How far west do you get? I know the Vermillion area has a few guides around it.

[mikeo2]

We usually don't get that far over, but th eguides around vermilion are mostly the ones around lloyd to, most of them hunt closer to lloyd, with the exception of Sean Mann, I believe he is more around vermillion, and there are probably more out there around that area that I do not know about.