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Posts: 1344
Location: E. Tenn | Planning the trip to the show, as well as the All Canada Show in Milwaukee..
Does anyone know the operating hours for the Chicago Show? I've found the dates, speaker lineup, and exhibitor exhibitor list, but no times..
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Posts: 280
| From the Chicago, Milwaukee Show Website, hours listed below.
It's showtime already! Enjoy!
Welcome to the Muskie Expo
The Muskie Expo is the Midwest’s best Muskie Fishing event. Join us for the industry’s top manufacturers, retailers, fishing lodges and resorts, and guides. Enjoy seminars with the top muskie professionals. Register to win great prizes.
Please mark your calendars for the 2026 shows.
Muskie Expo Chicago: January 16-18, 2026
Fri 1-7, Sat 9-5, Sun 9-2
Muskie Expo Milwaukee: February 13-15, 2026
Fri 1-7, Sat 9-5, Sun 9-2 |
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Posts: 13
| I am seriously thinking about going to the Milwaukee show. Is it worth the 7-hour drive? How big is the show?
I am already going to the Ohio show (which I've never been to before).
If you could go to 1 show, which one would it be?
Edited by Cat Power 12/30/2025 5:59 AM
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Posts: 32954
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | OFM will not be attending either the Milwaukee or Chicago shows. No videos or still images, nada, for the first time in over a decade. We do proudly partner with the Minnesota Muskie Expo. |
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Posts: 1344
Location: E. Tenn | blkdrs - 12/28/2025 2:58 PM
From the Chicago, Milwaukee Show Website, hours listed below.
It's showtime already! Enjoy!
Welcome to the Muskie Expo
The Muskie Expo is the Midwest’s best Muskie Fishing event. Join us for the industry’s top manufacturers, retailers, fishing lodges and resorts, and guides. Enjoy seminars with the top muskie professionals. Register to win great prizes.
Please mark your calendars for the 2026 shows.
Muskie Expo Chicago: January 16-18, 2026
Fri 1-7, Sat 9-5, Sun 9-2
Muskie Expo Milwaukee: February 13-15, 2026
Fri 1-7, Sat 9-5, Sun 9-2
Thanks.. I guess I was too quick to click... |
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Posts: 1626
Location: Brighton CO. | I haven't been to a sports show here in Colorado since 2001 when I worked the Muskies INC both. Back in the day I wanted to go to the Chicago Show but one of our fishing friends from Chicago would come out here to go Ice fishing at the same time. The cost of a trip was the same as a cost of a fishing trip too. Both my old ice fishing partners have died off and the winters are too warm to Iced fish here in metro Denver. We had 18 days over 60 in Denver in December and nights the water didn't freeze in my bird baths. I have a few baits to get repaired this winter but I have so many lures I should have the Colorado Muskie show to thin the herd. Even this gym rat is starting to fell the aches and pains of jerking in lures I way be time to start going at a time of year when I can throw surfacebaits or go jig fishing. |
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Posts: 223
| Does anybody know if there will be a swap on Saturday January 17, this year? |
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Posts: 307
Location: Not where I want to be! | sworrall - 12/30/2025 8:03 PM OFM will not be attending either the Milwaukee or Chicago shows. No videos or still images, nada, for the first time in over a decade. We do proudly partner with the Minnesota Muskie Expo. Well that sucks, always enjoyed them. |
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Posts: 32954
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | wavridr - 1/1/2026 3:07 PM
sworrall - 12/30/2025 8:03 PM OFM will not be attending either the Milwaukee or Chicago shows. No videos or still images, nada, for the first time in over a decade. We do proudly partner with the Minnesota Muskie Expo. Well that sucks, always enjoyed them.
We'll miss covering the shows too. The show promoter feels we offer no value promoting and placing content here and on several social media platforms. His call! |
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Location: Illinois | 6PM @ the Moose Lodge in St.Charles Il.
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 574534313_10238693106243171_6438532275221508846_n.jpg (67KB - 15 downloads)
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| sworrall - 1/2/2026 9:46 AM
wavridr - 1/1/2026 3:07 PM
<p> sworrall - 12/30/2025 8:03 PM OFM will not be attending either the Milwaukee or Chicago shows. No videos or still images, nada, for the first time in over a decade. We do proudly partner with the Minnesota Muskie Expo. </p><p> Well that sucks, always enjoyed them.</p>
We'll miss covering the shows too. The show promoter feels we offer no value promoting and placing content here and on several social media platforms. His call!
Seems short sighted to me. I went to the Milwaukee show after seeing a video about it here. That was quite some time ago, and maybe things have changed that much but an opportunity to showcase your event to a target audience seems like something they would want to do. |
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Posts: 32954
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | North of 8 - 1/2/2026 5:04 PM
sworrall - 1/2/2026 9:46 AM
wavridr - 1/1/2026 3:07 PM
sworrall - 12/30/2025 8:03 PM OFM will not be attending either the Milwaukee or Chicago shows. No videos or still images, nada, for the first time in over a decade. We do proudly partner with the Minnesota Muskie Expo. Well that sucks, always enjoyed them.
We'll miss covering the shows too. The show promoter feels we offer no value promoting and placing content here and on several social media platforms. His call!
Seems short sighted to me. I went to the Milwaukee show after seeing a video about it here. That was quite some time ago, and maybe things have changed that much but an opportunity to showcase your event to a target audience seems like something they would want to do.
As I said, he says there's no value. Quite an insult to my business. |
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Location: Illinois | Year after year, in promoting the event and the industry vendors, I found a LOT of value in the coverage Outdoors First Media provided. Many a musky nut discovered the existence of these shows right here on MF. From lure demos using the hydrophone, to Slamr's informative interviews with Lodge owners, Tackle mfger's and Guides, to special coverage of Lax Reproductions Free Reproduction. The time and the effort put in to produce professional videos drew interest to this event in particular and the sport as a whole. I can't in good conscious support such FIBberry. Ridiculous! |
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Posts: 1626
Location: Brighton CO. | I'm 65 years old and feel more and more like a Dinosaur every day, from how we communicate, how we buy stuff, and what's even available product wise. How they even cover Football games (what channel, streaming ECT) and even the weather.
There was a time where after Labor Day they rolled up the streets above HYWY 10, then more and more folks started fishing in the fall and the resorts loved it. Now by the third week of October it gets harder and harder to find a place to stay and places to eat. How many great lures have come and caught lots of Muskies and now are no longer on the market? The Beers who distribution has shrunk? I've missed a few playoff football games in order to take advantage of the short ice fishing season, Now it's been in the 60's everyday in my part of the country. Ice? some nights my birdbaths in my backyard don't even freeze. As I get older there's more and more multi species fishing and going off the beaten path in small craft. |
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| muskellunged - 1/3/2026 10:41 AM
Year after year, in promoting the event and the industry vendors, I found a LOT of value in the coverage Outdoors First Media provided. Many a musky nut discovered the existence of these shows right here on MF. From lure demos using the hydrophone, to Slamr's informative interviews with Lodge owners, Tackle mfger's and Guides, to special coverage of Lax Reproductions Free Reproduction. The time and the effort put in to produce professional videos drew interest to this event in particular and the sport as a whole. I can't in good conscious support such FIBberry. Ridiculous!
I would agree. I liked hearing from Muskie First members about their experiences at the shows, recommendations on best times, etc. |
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Posts: 7106
Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | I personally don't understand why less promotion of an event is better for the event, but whatever.
Feels like at a time when more and more people are happy to shop online and learn about fishing and fishing gear/boats/lures from online sources it would be harder and harder to get people in the door at a show and thusly more online promotion, activities during the show, etc would be a good thing.
"Muskie shows" will be gone in 5 years. More if they're open to adapting to the current world, less if they act like this.
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| Slamr - 1/6/2026 10:29 AM
I personally don't understand why less promotion of an event is better for the event, but whatever.
Feels like at a time when more and more people are happy to shop online and learn about fishing and fishing gear/boats/lures from online sources it would be harder and harder to get people in the door at a show and thusly more online promotion, activities during the show, etc would be a good thing.
"Muskie shows" will be gone in 5 years. More if they're open to adapting to the current world, less if they act like this.
I agree. If looking at muskie lures and rods is all the show is about, not a great future. There is a segment of population that wants the hands on experience but fewer all the time. As to seminars, I can go on YouTube and see how to videos from places like Musky Shop. Promoters should be looking to sell what is special about their show. If it is just a retail experience, nope, not a big deal anymore.
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Posts: 307
Location: Not where I want to be! | sworrall - 1/2/2026 8:40 PM
North of 8 - 1/2/2026 5:04 PM
sworrall - 1/2/2026 9:46 AM
wavridr - 1/1/2026 3:07 PM
<p> sworrall - 12/30/2025 8:03 PM OFM will not be attending either the Milwaukee or Chicago shows. No videos or still images, nada, for the first time in over a decade. We do proudly partner with the Minnesota Muskie Expo. </p><p> Well that sucks, always enjoyed them.</p>
We'll miss covering the shows too. The show promoter feels we offer no value promoting and placing content here and on several social media platforms. His call!
Seems short sighted to me. I went to the Milwaukee show after seeing a video about it here. That was quite some time ago, and maybe things have changed that much but an opportunity to showcase your event to a target audience seems like something they would want to do.
As I said, he says there's no value. Quite an insult to my business.
May not be the brightest star in the universe.. |
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Posts: 8852
| I probably wouldn't have known there WAS a musky show if not for this site, and I probably would not have bought tickets and attended the show, either. Started out as a shopping excursion, then it was for the seminars. Agreed you can do that other ways these days. Beyond that it became a reunion of sorts with all the guys from N/WI,MN and Canada that I don't get to see very often. No value? Tell that to the resorts, guides, and tackle manufacturers whose kids I helped put through college! |
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