Support Your Local Bait Shop

Made a last-second decision Sunday afternoon to head out to the local lake for some shore fishing with my son and his cousins. On the way there the six of us invaded the local bait shop and asked about the bite. He showed us pictures of some crappies, and then talked us through the details: what they were biting, proper depth, and step-by-step directions of the path to walk to where the fish were holding and accessible from shore. I bought some jigs and plastics and we headed out.

Two hours later my son were making a deposit with another local shop – the taxidermist.
Do what you can, whenever you can, to keep these kinds of shops in business!

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Nice crappies.

I agree 100% on the local shops. They are getting far too un-common.

Nice fish, great memories!

That’s why I never tell my local bait shop where I fish.
It’s very nice of them to put people on the fish and the teqniques. I visit pretty often and they always ask where I’ve been fishing. I always just say on the water.

Very nice catches.

Bearcat89 wrote:

That’s why I never tell my local bait shop where I fish.

And I agree with you 100% as well. Something else I figured out in a hurry was to never take a bait shop owner fishing with you.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
That’s why I never tell my local bait shop where I fish.

And I agree with you 100% as well. Something else I figured out in a hurry was to never take a bait shop owner fishing with you.

Tom I agree. I’m really close with 2 of the shops in my area. And I learned first hand if and when we ever go out. We dont go to my choice of spots. Always theirs. And I notice then they will sacrifice and go to a obvious spot and not their secret spots.
But its respectable, it is the business they run and I get it 100 percent

Yup. They have a living to make and that is totally understandable. The three or four shop owners I have had great dealings with I consider friends even though none of them are running bait shops any more. I still fish with a couple of them and since I make all of my own plastics I think of these outings as my turn to share with them when a couple baits turn hot and they haven’t got access to any of them except thru me. Its ok to show and tell as long as a guy doesn’t tell all and show all. lol Don’t even have to lie.

Its great though when a shop will share enough “honest” information to help a customer, even a new one, get on fish like those in he opening post here. That goes a long way to the shop’s credibility and that keeps people coming back.

I’ll admit I was pretty skeptical about the sizes he was claiming, right up until we caught some too.

His generosity will definitely take me back to that store soon, and if I have some muskie info to share with him, I’ll do so. And I’ll buy a pile of the plastics he makes, even though I don’t really need more, and I’ll probably buy a new rod and reel combo for my son too.
You simply can’t put a price tag on the experience and the ability to get a combo mount of big crappies for my son and I caught back-to-back like this. Hopefully they’ll still be hanging in my son’s house some day after I’m long gone.

What size were they if I might ask?

Yep buy a soda and a candy bar or 2-(OMG but I could save 75 cents at Walmart-so what! give that baitshop a chance)I go to a shop where they have bait out so if you go early (I go very early) they have an honor box to pay-I throw in a few extra bucks. Nice catch BTW

Maybe the guy went out, found his own fish and decided to share the info? Personally, I,m pretty helpful when it comes to Dads with kids.

Nice fish!

-J.

Jon Jordan wrote:

Maybe the guy went out, found his own fish and decided to share the info? Personally, I,m pretty helpful when it comes to Dads with kids.

Nice fish!

-J.

Dont get me wrong. I am as well. I didnt mean to come off like a a$$ if that’s how it came out.

It’s all good.

J.

I do like to support the local bait shop.

Even though at times I get the feeling they don’t want my business…but that’s not part of the discussion. I wanted to be in and out fast, but I still had to wait like 40 minutes before I was even acknowledge. It may have been like 5 months since I’ve been there and they may have forgotten how frequent of a patron I’ve been in the past years.

I always like the honor boxes. At times when I’ve forgotten to bring smaller bills…well whooops $20 for just a scoop of minnow. No problem, y’all deserve it because I would’ve had no bait. Then a year later they quit cuz, other people stolen all the bait. You can’t stop would be thieves unless you’re physically there to see it. Likewise poachers, unless you actually saw them in the act. That’s another discussion for another time.

Yes, I like to support local bait shops when I can.

I used to go to the local shops all the time, but over time they are fewer and farther between. I like to go real early and my only option a lot of the time is Kwik Trip. Which I don’t feel bad about since the bait there comes from the local guy. If I can go though I certainly do, I like to look at the baits that I can’t get at home. All the locally made stuff is what keeps me coming back.

the quad city area has a good number of them. they are all really stepping up their game. they host tournaments, clubs, and do a great job helping people get on fish.

Cool deal with the bait shop and kid. Try to support the small local guy’s all I can.

As far as spilling the beans on my own spots, agree with bearcat. To much time and effort to find spots on local, metro, hard fished bodies of water to giveaway freely willy nilly. Am pretty tight lipped around people I don’t know, let alone people I do know.

Hard to watch the trend of local bait shops drying up.

There’s just something about that feeling of walking into a “bait shop”. Hearing the water in the tanks and seeing lures displayed. It’s a shame to see so many closing. I used to always stop at ebners in elk river on the way home. The hardware hank in Zimmerman has started carrying bait and has a good selection of tackle.

Scenic byway baits in Pennington is top notch for the area lakes !!
as good as they have been to us,one of these days I need to quit telling them what we are catching them on,,,,,,down here five hundred miles away.
do I feel guilty?? nope,I aint lying to them.

Just don’t support Ray’s mini mart

That’s pretty great!! Gotta love locals