Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Minnow Pond II will close doors
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
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No one will question the dedication of Minnow Pond II tackle shop owner Christine Crewson.
A devastating fire didn't put her shop out of business.
The death of her husband and partner Melvin Crewson didn't put her out of business.
And a brutal recession didn't put her out of business.
But things added up, and a person can fight for only so long.
Crewson said Monday that she's planning to shut down the shop in Southeast Roanoke in October, when her lease expires.
"I really pushed myself," she said. "I put everything I had into it.
"It's hard on me to even think about closing because I've been in it so long."
Crewson said the decision is based on simple economics.
Business has been fair this fishing season, which is not surprising given the shop's favorable reputation among anglers. They know it's a good place to find bait, tackle and friendly conversation.
But once the weather cools and sportsmen put their fishing tackle up for the winter things get slow.
"I can't make it through another winter," Crewson said.
Crewson said she tried to renegotiate her lease. Since that didn't work she has started keeping her eyes open for another location.
"I'd like something closer to the lake," she said.
But she realizes she can't get too near the lake.
"If I were to go to Westlake or some place like that my overhead would be just as high," she said.
The Crewson's started the business in 1983. Even before then Christine had been helping Melvin with his bait business, boxing up nightcrawlers that they sold in bulk to other bait and tackle stores.
The shop has moved several times, landing most recently on 9th Street between Bullitt and Jamison avenues.
Some loyal customers feared that the arrival of the big Sportsman's Warehouse and Gander Mountain outdoor stores not quite three years ago would doom the Minnow Pond, which is basically the last standing mom and pop tackle store left in the Roanoke Valley.
Certainly no one expected that it would be Sportsman's Warehouse shuttering its doors while the Minnow Pond persevered.
In the fall of 2008 an accidental fire, the cause of which was never determined, ripped through the store after hours.
For several months the inventory that could be salvaged sat in storage trailers in the parking lot as construction crews, the Crewsons and friends restored the space.
The store reopened in February 2009.
Barely a month later Melvin Crewson died from heart failure. Christine Crewson has worked the shop since, with help from friends. The hours are 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, a schedule that would grind on anyone.
Getting a regular job would likely be a break for Crewson, who has marked everything in the shop down 30 percent to try to clear out inventory before her anticipated closing.
Still, she remains hopeful that she can reopen somewhere else, for the sake of her customers.
"There's a lot of people down about it," she said. "It's tough."
Big tournaments loom for Crews, Dudley
The next couple of weeks will be big for the region's two major league bass anglers.
Salem's John Crews will fish Friday and Saturday in the Bassmaster Elite Series' final postseason event.
The next week, David Dudley of Lynchburg will try to add a second Forrest L. Wood FLW Championship trophy to his case.
Crews was one of 12 fishermen to qualify for the Elite Series postseason, which is modeled loosely on the format used in NASCAR's Sprint Cup series.
After this past weekend's event on Alabama's Lake Jordan, Crews is 10th in the point standings.
Interestingly, he was eighth in the points before the event, finished eighth in the tournament and still fell two spots.
"The points are heavily skewed toward the top," Crews said of the two postseason tournaments.
Even if Crews wins this weekend's tournament on the Alabama River he's too far behind to win the points title.
"But I could jump way up," said Crews, who said the tough fishing conditions expected could help. "It lends itself to being anybody's ball game."
Dudley, who won the FLW tour's season-culminating event in 2003, will be among the nearly 80 anglers competing in this year's championship tournament on Georgia's Lake Lanier on Aug. 5-8.
