I know the majority of you guys probably won't find this as appealing as the snakes but my review is about the other vendors. Getting to know some of these guys really is a bonus as far as getting something out of this hobby. The breeders I know all seem to have unique presonalities and it is a lot of fun hangin around with them. Then to top it off, to actually see them taking a keen interest and have them pay undivided attention to what you have to say shows how genuine they are.
Howie Sherman of Strikers Herps is one of the funnest guys to speak with, he has the charisma of someone in television and is a non stop joke machine. His snakes are also top notch, I love speaking with him and his friends.....can not say enough great things about him.
Brian Barczyc[probably butchered the spelling] from BHB Enterprises is an extremely busy guy but we cornered him one night and he seemed very interested in colubrids these days. He has been a huge name in Pythons and has tons of everything you could ever imagine as far as snakes are concerned and he really appeared to want to start paying a little more attention to what is being produced from his enormous operation and that is a good thing. As I wrote in one of the articles on my site many Boide breeders are looking at colubrids again,,,,,this is a good thing. Brian and his family are great people. To visit their booth can be overwhelming. Awesome!
Mark Crimson King Kenderdine is no stranger to this forum. I listened in on one conversation between him and Rainer bringing points to a very important man in the hobby as far as research for Kings goes and though we all don't agree on everything I like that fact that some of us can argue a point without going nuts or walking away mad. I only got a peek at his snakes as we were both running behind and busy but as always he had great stuff on his table and showed me some cool Mole Kings. Don't get to see those every day. Good seeing you Mark!
John Schmitt an Suncoast Reptiles produces large numbers of colubrids, and yet you can tell he loves his snakes and runs a clean tight operation. Another guy with a unique personality who always leaves people thinking he is a great guy when they walk away from his table. He had tons of awesome stuff and I took home a killer Snow San Diego Gopher for my multi het projects.
The Bells, what is there to say,...........they have everything and tons of it and have many people behind their tables. I did a trade with manager Michael Cole and again to see enthusiasm over a colubrid makes me feel very confident about the animals I choose to work with. I got what I wanted and he scored a female White Wall Speckled King and man he seemed blown away. Some of us would guess since this company is so enormous and works with snakes worth mega bucks they'd not be impressed. I guess this is not true, as it was obvious he thought the snake was incredible, and they certainly are. I will post the 2 Kings I got from him soon,,,,,man they're awesome!
I was let down Lindsay Pike of Urotopia had not hatched out his het for nothing normal Brooksi yet. I always drop by his table to look at his Uros and say hello. Man I wanted some of those this year....maybe I will still get some but I always liked him and think he has great animals.
Terry Dunham of Albino Tri Colors dropped by my table. Another unique personality, and a wealth of information. We had a cool conversation about things and many of my comments were influenced by things I learned from Frank Retes. Terry certainly had nothing bad to say about Frank or my views but what I liked was the fact he seemed to take in what I had to say and then recalled similar instances as far as breeding size age and weights. I think a rule of thumb perspective is fine, which is what I learned from Terry, but we both know there's exceptions. The world of breeding snakes is not something that is constant....things will not always be by the book and it is great to hear FACTS about things that many people would not want to believe. Great seeing Terry too,
Randy Whittington and Rodney J. are two guys I met the first year I went to the Expo. We have hung out every year since. I can not stress the fact that I feel these guys are two of the most under rated colubrid guys out there. Sure many people know of them, but with the quality of animals they produce they should be, and will be common names brought up in conversation when speaking of colubrids. Randy was the first guy I ran into upon arriving. I am sure the ear to ear smiles we both were wearing said "tonight the drinks will be flyin!", and they were and we had a great time as usual. Cheers guys! Great hanging out again!
Dave Powell is another friend that I met from my first Expo trip, and another guy I spend time with every year. Dave likes to work with some less common colubrids and I sexed some Ridleyi for him this season which was cool for me since I had never held one. Now I can say I held 14 of them, and they're freakin cool! Dave has great snakes and is good company..
Jason Nelson and I have been good friends for several years and have done quite a few projects together. His last name should be "At Envy Reptiles" but we were kind of low key at this show using a friends table who could not attend. Regardless we kicked major butt selling a lot of Kings and Pits. Colubrids are picking up again and it was great to watch people buy from us, leave and show back up an hour or two later only to buy more snakes. It made us feel great and we thank all those people from the bottom of our hearts. We did great and I will be writing about this in my summer report on my web site. He is very responsible for helping me make a name for myself as is Rainer
Good ol Bluerosy Rainer W. Man we have taken many years to work on things that we hoped would bring attention to the Brooks Kings. I hope this year was only the beginning of it all as we both had boatloads of people admiring our snakes. MANY of them think they know this n that...and have a lot to learn but all in good time. In the meantime we will keep doing what we love doing and keep the presence of the allmighty Brooksi in your face at Daytona. We drive each other nuts and it gets crazy at times but he is a great friend and I have a lot to thank him for. It was great hanging with him again. Lemme tell you this. It's a good thing I had my Air Purifiers with me, as the first night in our hotel room would have been insane. Hundreds of snakes in our room, many who recently pooped or had uneaten rotten pinkies in thier cups after the long drives. Oh yes people. This is HARD work. When we arrived we went through every single deli cup and made sure all snakes were clean and watered. It was a long tedious job but then when we were done we knew set up on friday would be that much easier. It was.....but man it took all day Friday to make a decent display. We were exhausted but it was well worth it. It deserved a reward so we went down to the bar. Tons of fun there but Rainer...please....lose that freakin pink phone! Yuck!
Todd Antelope Hughes now has one Daytona experience under his belt. Thanks for helping me out and I hope you had half as good a time as I did. I wish I could make another post of friends who weren't vending but that would probably lead to the longest post ever seen on this forum. If you have not made it out ot this show, do yourself a favor and go. If this post doesn't peek your interest....I give up. I know I probably forgot some people and missed getting to see some other vendors I intended to meet but we were swamped. There's always next year, hope to see you there.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com
