OKOBOJI, Iowa | Oh Shucks!
Charlie Shuck has been a part of the fishing world on the Iowa Great Lakes for the past 50 years. He learned the business at the Okoboji Bait Farm which his dad bought in 1961. Eventually Charlie and his wife Bev took over the business from Charlie's dad, moving it across the highway in 1972, and Shuck's Bait and Tackle was a fixture for the next 27 years.
It's still a fixture, one of several popular bait shops in the Iowa Great Lakes area; but for the past 13 years, it has been owned and operated by Steve Plueger, a longtime restaurateur who was ready to tackle something different.
"This place came up for sale and I just ended up buying it because I did some fishing and hunting and stuff like that myself," Plueger said. "And now that I bought this place, I don't have time."
At least not the time he wants.
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"But I go out fishing, you know, if I'm invited as a guide or something like that. But I've always said, if I'd wanted to go fishing, I'd have bought a golf course."
When he bought the place along Highway 86 at Milford, Iowa, Plueger decided to kind of keep the old name, but he added an "Oh" in front of it. And Oh Shucks Bait and Tackle on Highway 86 at Milford, Iowa, remains one of the go-to bait shops in the region.
Half of the 3,000-square-foot store is bait and tackle, the other half a convenience store. That makes it one of the bigger bait shops in the Lakes area.
"We sell live bait, all your fishing tackle and accessories. We have full service for fishermen as far as the bait goes, the tackle, the cleaning services. We have guides who work out of here. And we have the normal convenience store things, the pizza and burger and hot dogs and stuff like that.
The live bait for sale includes the usual suspects" night crawlers, leeches, minnows and grubs. But the plastic and artificial type baits are beginning to be more popular, he noted.
"A lot of these companies are coming up with some fantastic artificial type lures and baits," he said.
And the best-sellers throughout the region always include "Berkley's stuff," Plueger noted, referring to Pure Fishing, the fish tackling business founded by legendary Spirit Lake native Berkley Bedell.
STAN'S PLACE
Stan's Bait Shop, opened 40-some years ago by Stan Reinders, has probably been around as long as Shuck's.
Located on Okoboji Avenue at Milford, it was taken over after Stan died in 2000 by John and Tammy Wittkamp, who had worked in the shop for years. A few years ago, they moved the shop to a larger location next door, but unlike many bait shops in the region, it's strictly a bait and tackle place, Tammy said.
"We're just a bait shop," she said. "Oh yeah, we have a lot of tackle. We've got a lot of all the different tackles for pan fish, walleye, bass muskies. I mean you've got to have a lot of room to be everything, and we are specializing in bait and tackle."
She said they thought about expanding into other areas when they secured the new location four-and-a-half years ago, but were happy they didn't.
"It seems like we're busy year-round," Tammy said. "And there isn't really much of an in-between season thing. We have times when there's not as many customers, but it seems like we stay pretty busy, John and I do."
What makes Stan's special?
"I would say my husband," Tammy said. "He's really good about what he does and he cares about people. He tries to get you on fish. I think a lot of it has to do with the people that run the place."
WHERE DO I GO?
Plueger agrees that bait shops are where people go to find out the best fishing spots.
"I mean most of the people who work here do fish," he said. "But we get a lot of feed off of other fishermen, which we pass on. We get like, 'Wow, I caught these fish yesterday on this and this ... and that and that. This is where I caught them and how deep it is.' And we sort of pass the word."
Both agree that business tends to slow down a bit during the hottest months, primarily in mid-August.
"I'd say May and October are probably the best fishing months," Plueger said. "But our ice fishing here is fantastic. We do a lot of ice fishing from December until mid-March."
The live bait sells especially well during the winter months, he noted.
And bait shops are where you hear some of the best fish stories. Most of them even true. Mostly.
"As a matter of fact, last Sunday morning, a fellow from Ireton caught one of the tagged fish that we tagged during Walleye Weenkend and he's going to receive, I think, $2,700," Plueger said the end of May. "If you catch one of the tagged fish between now and September, you win part of the prize money."
And that fish story is no tall tale.
