ICAST Best of Show winners announced

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Starting Tuesday evening, and continuing today at the first full day of the ICAST expo, attendees had the opportunity to exam and vote on their favorite new products in the event's New Product Showcase.  A couple hours ago, winners were announced - and some came as no surprise.

While the show this year is nearly all conventional tackle, there are several companies who sell fly tackle in attendance. There's also a strong showing of kayak and kayak accessory companies. Hobie has made the biggest splash of them all with their new Mirage 360 Drive, which will be available on certain PA models in 2020.

Because most fly fishing representatives, industry personnel, pro staffers, media, etc. are not present (will be attending IFTD later this year), the voting is probably a lot more skewed than during the past 6 years when IFTD and ICAST were combined. For that reason, I'm not putting much stock in the results of the fly products... yet. They may be excellent products, but I'll wait and see.

Here's a list of fly and kayak-related product winners only:
- Best Kayak Accessory - Hobie Mirage 360 Angler
- Best Technical Apparel Coldwater - Simms M G4Z Stockingfoot Wader
- Best Technical Apparel Warmwater - AFTCO Overboard Submersible Shorts
- Best Fly Fishing Accessory - Simms Dry Creek Z Sling Pack
- Best Fly Reel - Seigler Reels SF
- Best Fly Fishing Rod - St. Croix Imperial Salt
- Best Eyewear - Costa Water Woman

The ICAST 2019 Overall Best of Show winner will be announced on Thursday at 2:00pm.