Story by Ken Duke | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
I love independent tackle shops and have loved them for as long as I can remember.
When I was a kid and dinosaurs roamed the Earth side-by-side with us bass anglers, I got most of my fishing gear from Sears and various hardware stores. They didn’t carry a lot, but they had enough of what I thought I needed that I was able to pursue my passion.
Later, Bass Pro Shops catalogs came along, and I my eyes were opened to much of what the burgeoning industry had to offer. It was impressive.
My first experience with an independent tackle shop dedicated to bass fishing was “The Bass Hole” somewhere between Ninety Six and Lexington in South Carolina, where I spent my teen years.
“The Bass Hole” dealt in many of the brands and baits and rods and reels I read about in the fishing magazines of the day. It was also a front for illegal drug sales, so it wasn’t long before the proprietors were arrested and the shop closed … permanently.
That was a sad day.
Since “The Bass Hole” was shuttered, I’ve visited hundreds of independent shops all over the US, plus a few in Canada, Mexico and Japan.
I’m in Tokyo right now, visiting friends and in-laws. I’m also hoping to stop by a couple of tackle shops and check out the stuff we can’t easily get in the US … the stuff we tend to believe would make all the difference but which our US bass will probably ignore just as easily as they do our domestic stuff. Nonetheless, I will be looking.
Tackle shops around the world—at least in my experience—have a lot in common and some characteristics unique to their region. If I had to identify a couple of things that are “different” about Japanese tackle shops it would be that they are more densely packed than American shops. That’s especially true in Tokyo, where real estate is wildly expensive and retail space is so coveted.
Japanese tackle shops display tackle from floor to ceiling. The pricey stuff is under glass, like a jewelry store, and you may need an appointment to see it.
In Japan, being a bass angler is expensive. You have to really “want” it. The Japanese stuff is still expensive in the land of its origin, and the US stuff is imported here, so they charge import prices for it.
Even a “small” tackle shop in Japan can require hours of exploration. These people know how to live and work in tight spaces. Tackle is everywhere in one of these shops, and just because you see a black and blue bladed jig on a peg does not mean that the item behind it is also black and blue bladed jig … or even a bladed jig.
It could be almost anything, so you have to look. Or at least I have to look.
To me, that’s the fun of independent tackle shops. I know what I need, and I have some idea of what I want, but until I go scrounging around and looking at all the stuff I didn’t know I needed or wanted until I saw it, I had no idea how much I needed it or how desperately I wanted it.
Of course, that’s true whether the shop is in Japan or Florida, Maine or California, Minnesota or Texas.
And isn’t that great?
