The Tackle Shop has been a fixture for locals, tourists, and even celebrities (the actress Naomi Watts dropped by a few weeks ago to buy some tackle). I’ve been fortunate to have met many great people from behind my counter. The good times outweigh the bad by 50 to one. “It’s a very challenging business to be in, but I have no regrets at all. “It’s been a wild and fun ride that’s for sure,” reflected Bennett, a 13th-generation Bonacker whose ancestors have played a significant part in the fishing lore here going back over 300 years. Still, the closing of his store represents the sad passing of a simpler time, when numerous bait and tackle stores and livery stations adorned every town along the shorefront. Over all, I want to share my experience with others.” I also want to take customers to locations that are not just local state parks, but to areas that few have a chance to see and fish.”īennett added that “we also have some tremendous freshwater fishing here, which many completely overlook. “I get a lot of inquiries from folks who want to learn how to read a beach for fish, how to drive properly and safely on an ocean beach, or just spend a morning fly fishing on Gardiner’s Bay. “I kind of look at it as morphing into a remote tackle and guiding shop now.” “I’m not walking away from my customers, who have been very loyal to me for such a long time,” he said from behind his counter last Thursday morning. And next year he will be ready to provide guide services for those interested in fishing from his boat or the beach or hunting game and fowl. Over the winter, Bennett plans to update his website to offer various tackle and wares, and he will continue to fix and repair rods and reels, as well as build custom rods from his house in Amagansett. After more than 40 years of operating the Tackle Shop, he is altering course to serve customers in a different way, he said. Harvey Bennett, who has spent a good part of the past 70 years on the water catching fish and shellfish and in the field pursuing deer, turkey, ducks, and other fowl, closes his popular bait and tackle store in Amagansett.īut don’t say the word “retirement” when you see him. The page will be turned in another chapter in old-time Bonacker history soon, when Capt.
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