There’s a moment every angler faces before the season hits full tilt – usually sometime in May or early June – when the list of things you need gets longer than your patience. Maybe your spool of 30-pound braid is down to backing. Maybe your favorite bucktail is rusted into a lump in your plug bag. Maybe you’ve just realized that the new size limit for fluke means everything in your arsenal is suddenly one ounce too light.
So you pull out your phone. You open your browser. And within five clicks, you’ve filled a digital cart with everything from barrel swivels to Gulp to a new dry top – shipped, tracked, and delivered before the weekend. No crowds. No lines. No sales tax in some cases. And it’s all cheaper than the shop down the street. Tempting, right?
But here’s the thing: tackle doesn’t live in a vacuum. The gear we use isn’t just about function. It’s about community. And where you spend your money – especially now – matters just as much as what you buy.
Many of us are guilty of both. We’d swing by the local shop to shoot the breeze, maybe grab a few jigs, get the inside scoop on where the weakfish were showing up. But when it came time to drop $300 on a new reel or to replace that busted fluke stick… Click. Buy. Ship.
It’s only in the last few years – post-COVID, post-supply-chain-scramble, post-shrink-wrapped-everything – that I’ve come to fully appreciate what a local tackle shop is. It’s not a convenience. It’s an anchor.
Walk into any shop on the island and you’re not just browsing SKUs. You’re stepping into a living database of real-time bite intel, hard-earned rigging advice, and human connection. You want to know whether the bass are still hitting eels at the Moses Bridge at slack tide? Someone behind the counter already fished it. You want to know if the fluke are holding tight to the inside drop at Demo, or if you should switch to Gulp shrimp instead of squid? Ask the guy tying rigs two feet away.
Try getting that from a warehouse in Indiana.
I get it – money’s tight at times. Prices are up across the board. The big online retailers have capitalized on it, undercutting brick-and-mortar shops with bulk discounts and algorithm-driven “frequently bought together” kits. You can’t blame people for wanting to stretch their dollar. But the thing is, tackle shops aren’t just businesses. They’re cultural institutions for fishermen.
They sponsor our kids’ tournaments. They donate to artificial reef initiatives. They post the lost-and-found tackle that washes up on the beach. They let the old-timers linger and the new guys ask dumb questions without judgment. They’re the only places left where you can walk in and hear about all of the real inside reports all before it gets filtered, posted, and monetized.
These places don’t survive on plugs alone. They survive on loyalty.
When you choose to buy that spool of Seaguar or that Shimano Baitrunner at the shop instead of online, you’re not just paying for the product. You’re paying for the rigging bench. The hook bins. The morning reports scribbled on whiteboards. The guy who tells you, quietly, to “go light green, not white” if you’re heading west toward the Meadowbrook that night.
And let’s be honest – how many times have you bought the wrong size hook or line online, only to end up returning it, or worse, trying to make it work? At the shop, you see it. You feel it. You put eyes on the rig before it hits the water. That’s worth something.
Look, I’m not saying you should never shop online. We all do it. It’s part of modern life. But this season, before you load up that virtual cart, ask yourself: could I buy this down the block instead of across the country? Could I swing into the shop on my way to the dock, ask a question or two, and maybe walk out with exactly what I need and a new spot to try?
Because when the wind’s right and the tide’s perfect and you’re tying on your go-to teaser, chances are it came from a place with a front door and a face behind the counter – not just a cardboard box and a packing slip.
And that – especially here on Long Island – is worth keeping around.
