[cool]Here ya go fellas![cool] ‘Hooked’ fishing icon calling it quits
When Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and other prominent golfers have retired, one of the fi rst questions they get asked is: “So what are you going to do in your spare time now? Work?”
No kidding, huh? They’ve lived a life most of us hackers can only dream of. But what about a guy who retires from the fi shing tackle business?
James Ferrin, owner of Hooked Fishing Tackle in Kaysville is closing up shop. So I spent some time with him to ask about his business experience and his place in the community.
“It is just not as simple as opening up a location and selling a lot of fi shing stuff. Retailing fi shing equipment is a whole other world from actually going fi shing,” he said.
And while most of us would envy his position, we might think again if we knew all the facts.
“Seventy hours a week to run a shop does not allow for much fi shing time,” he said.
But his investment of hours spent indoors does have its fruits.
“Because of my store, I have fl ies that I have designed that are fi shed by fi shermen all over the world. I have fi shermen all over the state using lures that they otherwise would not know about. This means there are a bunch of people out there having fun because of me,” Ferrin said.
For instance, you’d have to be a Hooked customer to know what James means by, “Boogers are for fi shing, not eating!” Boogers are a plastic jig that James invented two years ago. It quickly became a popular lure among local ice fi shermen and is available only at Hooked and Angler’s Den in Riverdale.
Other Hooked products — including the dry-merger, which imitates the in-between phase as nymphs morph into dry fl ies — are sold at fi shing shops from Washington state to Iowa.
James and his store have become a sort of corner barber shop, where guys hang around to swap stories, offer reports and check up on the latest hot spots. And James also does a bit of research.
“I go to see how a water is fi shing or how a lure works or to teach a person how to fi sh so I can do marketing for the store,” he said.
All this so that his consumers, those faithful customers, can benefi t from his knowledge.
One of those customers, Dale Searcy, Roy, said, “He
p me with you that it takes to help you out. His store has become the information center for Northern Utah. James has contributed much of his time, energy, and passion to the betterment of fi shing in Utah. And for that, I am grateful.”
Then, when someone takes to heart the information given them at Hooked, James gets to enjoy one of his favorite things: feedback.
“They come back just to tell us how well they did, and how much fun they had. I always enjoy those stories,” he said.
And that interest in the customers is one of the keys to his success.
“You don’t get the same kind of service at the larger chain retailers as you do with a smaller tackle shop that is run on friendship and value,” Dan Tyler said.
He, too, said that time is the difference with James’ technique. Tyler, of Star Valley, Wyo., doesn’t visit Hooked that often. But he still remembers a trip there several years ago, when he bought a few of James’ new fl ies and ended up with samples of more and a lesson on where to use them and how to tie his own.
Ferrin doesn’t just sell tackle; he sells himself too. And people have been satisfi ed buyers for years.
“James Ferrin: The last of the best. … Without James Ferrin, it (Hooked) would have been just another store with fi shing stuff on the wall,” said Mike Bass, an occasional Hooked customer who lives in Ogden.
James has earned a chance to focus a little more of his time on other things in his life.
“The biggest regret is time away from my family,” he said
Now he plans to watch his boy play hockey and soccer, which he has missed out on for the past 10 years. He also said he wants to catch up on cow tipping, skinny dipping in golf course ponds, and driveby moonings.
On top of all this, you can bet he’ll use some of this free time to do something else he hasn’t had much time for in the last 10 years: Fishing. And a well-deserved bit of fishing that would be. Tight lines, James!
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