Business Spotlight: Angling for Growth

The owner of a 5-year-old fishing retail shop launched amid the COVID-19 pandemic is navigating some choppy waters as he looks to lure a larger customer base.

It’s all about fishing at Modern Outdoor Tackle LLC, which moved in 2023 to its current home at 1362 N. Bryan Drive in Nixa’s Eagle Plaza, near U.S. Highway 160. While nonstop fishing programs play on televisions spread throughout the 4,500-square-foot shop, the shelves are stocked with a variety of fishing equipment and accessories such as baits, lines, reels, rods and tackle boxes, for casual and serious anglers.

The Bryan Drive shop is triple the size of its original Nixa location, which opened in December 2020 on Mount Vernon Street. Visibility is much improved being near Highway 160, says Modern Outdoor Tackle owner Westin Yancey. Still, it wasn’t a move made for lack of being seen, he says.

“We still were very busy over there off [Highway] 14. We were running out of space,” he says, adding inventory had filled up the back room and made it difficult to navigate. “We would have had to end up putting a storage unit out back.”

Working in the fishing retail industry was a challenge in 2025, Yancey says. While he still hasn’t completely closed last year’s financial books, he says revenue should finish around $450,000, a 10% dip from 2024.

“We opened in 2020, which was the start of COVID, and so we kind of only knew what business was then in terms of being a retailer,” he says, noting sales were boosted by an increased interest in outdoor activities such as fishing. “So, we’re kind of trying to see what things look like now post-COVID normalcy.”

Addressing challenges
Still, Yancey says having an online presence and social media audience have been goals since he started the business. Competing with Amazon is a challenge, he says, but notes his shop’s sales have become a roughly 50/50 split between in-store and online.

“You’ve got to have an online presence to compete,” he says. “That’s just the nature of the business in retail anymore.”

Yancey says his company has experienced rising price tags with the United States Postal Service to get products shipped to the store.

“If you look at our average cost on USPS, we used to be about $2.50 to $2.75 per package. It’s $5 to $5.25 a shipment right now,” he says.

Tariffs also are impacting the retail industry, with much of the store’s inventory coming from places such as China and the Philippines.

“Now I’ve got to go look at prices, come out and reprice everything, change it on the computer,” he says. “It’s been a big-time challenge here in the last 12 months in the fishing industry.”

Casting bait
Roughly five years before his tackle shop opened, Yancey started digital marketing company Modern Outdoor Media LLC as a home-based venture. It remains in operation, and he runs the two companies in the same space. As Modern Outdoor Media serves clients in the outdoor industry, such as Angler Aid and G3 Boats, Yancey says he recognized an opportunity to sell some of those industry products he markets in a storefront.

Long hours working at the digital marketing company for several years helped set the table financially for Modern Outdoor Tackle, Yancey says.

“That enabled me to save up some capital to start the retail fishing tackle store,” he says, adding startup costs were $60,000.

Less than three years later, he invested another roughly $150,000 on relocation and renovation costs for the Bryan Drive store.

Yancey says he sees his shop appealing more to people serious about fishing than bigger local outdoor focused retailers that have larger crowds and facilities to navigate.

“You can come here and pull in and maybe be the only car in the lot, or you may only have a couple other people in here and those other people in here are probably talking about fishing,” he says. “The person that’s working here knows what (the fish are) biting on.”

Social media is an avenue where Yancey says he learns which products are successful catching fish. His company also has built a presence online, accumulating over 45,000 followers on Instagram, which he says has helped the store draw out-of-town customers from states such as Florida, Georgia and Texas, to name a few.

“I talk to the guys that are fishing a lot and they’re like, ‘Hey, you need to get these. I saw these on Instagram,’” he says. “Most of our people obviously are local fishermen, but we definitely have people that are traveling through that will make a stop just especially to see us.”

Interest in fishing brought Billy Elbert to the shop shortly after Modern Outdoor Tackle opened.

“I have known Westin and used his shop for really since about the time he opened,” Elbert says, adding he formerly was a full-time fishing guide on Table Rock Lake. “I’ve been a customer of his, and he’s a customer of mine.”

Fishing fan
A fishing enthusiast since he was around 6 years old when he started getting involved in tournaments with his father, Yancey says he still goes angling every week. He primarily goes to Table Rock Lake in search of bass or crappie.

“You can spin the bottle in this area and hit so many good lakes,” he says.

Elbert is now a regional sales representative with Ferguson-Keller Associates Inc., a Buffalo, Minnesota-based marketing firm in outdoor sports. His firm handles a lot of the top products in fishing from companies such as Daiwa and Fish Monkey that he supplies for Modern Outdoor Tackle.

Elbert says he connects with Yancey several times a month on products that might be a good fit for his store. It was at least a weekly visit when Elbert was a guide.

“His shop is extremely clean, very professional,” Elbert says. “Wes knows his stuff. He’s very well organized, and he’s very good at keeping stuff in stock that people need.”

On a recent Monday morning, Yancey had over three dozen shipments he was planning to complete before day’s end.

“This time of year, we have a lot of stuff coming and going,” he says, adding his main plan for the rest of the year is to just “keep trying to add new products.”

“We’re just kind of rocking and rolling,” he says. “So, increasing social media content and trying to get our footprint out to online people all over the country is the focus right now.”