Captain Chris Phillips
Thirty-two years ago, when Tommy Holmes, owner of Outcast Tackle and Marine, decided he wanted to have a tackle sale he never dreamed that it would be to the magnitude of today’s Outcast Spring Tent Sale.
Back then his sale consisted of a 4×8 folding table with a couple boxes of manufacture rep samples on it. Soon after one the nation’s largest reel manufactures agreed to start selling Holmes all of their reconditioned reels and that really allowed the sale to get its feet off the ground.
“I started this sale because I wanted to offer anglers the same product they already buy at a lower price and in turn increase my volume of sales,” said Holmes.
This year he expects to see tens of thousands of people stroll through the tents over the four day event. Twenty years ago, only about 2,500 people were showing up annually, so the growth has really exploded since then.
Now days the major fishing tackle companies are shipping all of the reconditioned items overseas to keep them out of the US market. So, these days year after year Holmes and his crew spend countless days and months scouring the country for closet outs and negotiating deals to be able to offer the local fishing community a once a year shot at unbelievable pricing on fishing tackle and equipment.
If you’re unfamiliar with the location of the fishing tackle extraganza it all goes down at the 6,500 square-foot outdoors shop that opened in 1987 located off Barrancas Avenue on the westside of Pensacola. For this weekend only multiple tents are brought in to house all of the discounted goods.
The fun will begin at 4 a.m. on Thursday March 7 and shoppers will be served lunch each day of the sale. It’ll be open until 8 p.m. on March 7 and then 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on March 8-10. For more information contact Outcast Tackle and Marine at (850) 457-1450.