[Drossi]

Sport shop is a tough row to hoe. Rental costs are high. You can't really afford the overhead of hiring someone to work in the shop so it becomes an owner/operator thing. Now a good shop with bait and hunting supplies needs to be open early and stay open late and be open weekends to accommodate customers going to or coming from a day's fishing/hunting. That severely cuts into said owners fishing/hunting time. All this plus the items you sell have to have enough mark up to cover your overhead costs and provide a living wage to the owner. This markup often pushes the costs of many items into a range where consumers complain that they are too high and that said items can be order cheaper on-line, so that's what they do rather than spend at a brick and motor shop. They'll stop at the shop for info, items needed immediately, and to check out other things they might want but can order cheaper over the "net". All of this is bad news for the shops survival. I often wonder how shops that aren't directly at a fishing destination survive at all.