How Dick Cabela Sold The Great Outdoors

The origin tale of Dick Cabela, who founded the outdoor-goods chain Cabela’s, and who died recently, at the age of seventy-seven, begins with fishing flies. In 1961, according to company lore, Cabela bought forty-five dollars’ worth of hand-tied lures to sell at his family’s furniture store, in Nebraska. Customers weren’t interested, so Cabela bought an ad in the magazine Sports Afield, offering five flies in exchange for twenty-five cents in postage. When people wrote in to redeem the offer, he put their names on a mailing list, which he blasted with three-page-long catalogues of fishing gear.

The growth of Cabela’s reflects Americans’ odd relationship with the outdoors: we mythologize it even as we pave it over.

LINK (via: The New Yorker)

Why Have So Many Cities and Towns Given Away So Much Money to Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's?

When was the last time your local specialty retailer received a government handout?

An exhaustive investigation conducted by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity found that Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's together have received or been promised more than $2.2 billion from American taxpayers over the past 15 years.

LINK (via:The Atlantic Cities)

Angling Trade: The Spring 2014 Issue

LINK

2014 Wasatch Fly Tying & Fly Fishing Expo

Happening this Friday and Saturday at the South Town Expo Center in beautiful Sandy Utah. 

Fly Fishing for Sales

The only thing that comes close to approaching the absurdity of competitive fly fishing is trying to equate fly fishing to business management techniques.

Introducing Sport Shop Fishing from Eddie Bauer

When Eddie Bauer made the call to return to fishing, it was a return to the roots of our brand. Eddie Bauer’s first Sport Shop in downtown Seattle focused on hunting and fishing, and his passion for the pursuits was so strong that he would close his shop for weeks at a time each fall to disappear to the rivers, lakes, and coastal waters within his home state. His time in the field influenced the products he trusted, the gear he sold, and the clothing he put his name on.

This field mentality is why we linked up with a team of world-class fishing guides to build our new fishing collection and why we looked to the fishing in our home state as a testing ground. Few locations match the fishing diversity in Washington, including everything from saltwater and coastal streams to mountain creeks, freestone rivers, and desert tailwaters. But Washington is known for its steelhead, and our eastside rivers offer some of the best summer-run steelhead fishing in the U.S. In addition, the Yakima River is a classic tailwater and Washington’s blue ribbon trout stream. Yet for destination fishing trips, Washington is often overlooked.