Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger reports on how various retailers are adjusting to a warm winter in the region. It’s nightmare weather if you sell snowmobiles or downhill skis for a living…but not bad if you prefer bicycling, or fishing from a boat.
Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger reports on how various retailers are adjusting to a warm winter in the region. It’s nightmare weather if you sell snowmobiles or downhill skis for a living…but not bad if you prefer bicycling, or fishing from a boat.
LEIF ENGER: If more anglers knew how strong the bite is at this time of year, says Bob Ketting, they'd be getting their boats out of storage while there's still time.
BOB KETTING: Usually, it's just the real hardcore fishermen that are out sneaking out on the ice when they shouldn't, actually. But the fish continue to do what they do naturally. In past years, we just haven't been able to take advantage of it. And this year, the people that didn't put their boats away are taking advantage of it.
LEIF ENGER: Ketting owns the trading post, bait shop, and sporting goods store in Crosby. He says many of the area's good fishing lakes are still ice free. And walleye and northern pike are coming into the shallows to feast on spawning bait fish. He says no one's interested in his ice fishing gear yet, but that's OK. The various autumn hunting seasons have been long and warm and profitable.
BOB KETTING: Grouse hunting has been excellent. And that's been extended. And deer hunting was excellent because of the conditions. Also, the muzzleloader season, which is the first three weekends in December, has been unusually warm. And so the muzzleloader hunters are having a lot more success.
LEIF ENGER: The fall of '98 has played tricks on retailers. Forecasts of the so-called La Niña winter, coupled with several November snowfalls, had ski and snowmobile dealers all revved up, an extra cold winter, the prognosticators claimed, a foot more snow than average. In reality, bicycle and rollerblade rentals prevail. Teresa Dullum is the store manager at Martin's Sports Shop in Nisswa, where the warm, dry pavement of the Paul Bunyan snowmobile trail beckons the adventurous.
TERESA DULLUM: We've got some Schwinn bikes here. We've got the ladies-style bikes as well as men bikes, mountain bikes, 18 speed. All of our bicycles and kid carriers that we had in storage because we got some snow once, and we thought we were going to keep it. And now we keep on the weekends, these beautiful days, keep bringing them back out of storage and renting them out to people again and again.
LEIF ENGER: Near the bikes is a full rack of rental skis and snowshoes. They're actually dusty. On the retail racks, skis are marked down in red ink. Nobody's shopping. At Easy Riders, a sporting goods store in Brainerd, owner Kenn Shepherd says it's the kind of winter that makes buyers cautious and sellers inventive.
KENN SHEPHERD: We ran an auction sale on Sunday, which caused a little excitement around here and brought people in. And we had a good day and a lot of fun. And as long as we get snow for Christmas, we don't feel we've lost too many sales.
LEIF ENGER: Those wishing for more Christmas-like weather took encouragement from predictions of snow this Wednesday and Thursday. In fact, MPR wanted this story on today, just in case. Turns out, we could have waited. The updated forecast through Friday calls for sun and highs in the 30s and 40s again. Leif Enger, Minnesota Public Radio.
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