It’s All About The Gear...and Volume
by Kelli Park
The new location on the Bar Harbor Road and Wallace Lane, Trenton, Maine. The complex of buildings consolidates the operation. Fishermen’s Voice photo.
“We like Walmart. Fishermen drop their wives off over there and come here to browse through our shelves and order gear,” said Alison Holmquist, manager at the new enlarged Downeast Fishing Gear store in Trenton. The new facility, off the Bar Harbor Road at 6 Wallace Lane, is a complex of buildings that enable the company to stock large volumes of the gear. “It’s the gear fishermen need in the quality they expect at the price they want,” said Holmquist.
“It’s all about the gear. If it’s lobster fishing gear that goes in the water, we have it,” said Holmquist. From buoys to traps and even clothing, volume is the keyword. A new 16,000-square-foot two-story warehouse was designed to hold and manage just two items – rope and buoys. The 200-foot by 40-foot building is packed with over 5,000 coils of rope on the first floor and 800 cases of buoys on the second floor. The only dealer in Maine for Perone buoys, Downeast Fishing Gear gets 5-10 tractor trailer loads of buoys a year. Shipped from the factory in Texas, buoys arrive in a truckload of 400 cases. Volume counts. The warehouse was designed for offloading buoy cases directly off the truck to the second floor of the warehouse. The company is also a distributor in Maine for Polyform U.S. inflatable buoys.
Holmquist, the daughter of former Vinalhaven fisherman Bill Holmquist, grew up working with and on her father’s lobster boat and traps. That experience has given her insight into the details of the gear fishermen want and why they want it the way they want it. The company keeps 12,000 pairs of gloves in stock. So many pairs in fact that the Georgia glove manufacturer’s manager and a rep come up to Maine to make sure Downeast Fishing Gear is getting everything they need.
The new 16,000 square foot warehouse designed to handle rope and buoys. It holds 92 pallets of rope, far left, and thousands of buoys on the second floor. Fishermen’s Voice photo.
“Fishermen want the glove that works for them. The glove that fits, flexes, lasts and holds warmth right,” said Holmquist. Not all gloves for fishing do that. “Companies ask us why we don’t want their cheap knock-off gloves. We’re not doing knock-offs because fishermen want the good ones. They sell themselves. A lot of these gloves are bought by us by the pallet and sold to the customer by the dozen. That kind of buying is indicative of the whole store. Volume enables low pricing,” said Holmquist.
In their old store they had 8 to 10 coils of each rope variety on the floor. In the rope room of the new store there is more space for larger piles. There are 30 coils of many of the varieties, for example, of 3/8” Esterpro on the floor in the store. Over in the warehouse the entire first floor is packed with over 5,000 coils of rope – 92 varieties of different brands, sizes and colors. Polysteel Atlantic’s ropes are brought in by the tractor trailer load. “A tractor trailer load of 44,000 lbs. of rope, the most the trucks can carry, requires a lot of space. Our new location has the space to make that happen,” said Holmquist. The company has 4 fork lifts, 4 box trucks and pallet trucks that keep all this inventory in motion.
The new 16,000 square foot warehouse designed to handle rope and buoys. It holds 92 pallets of rope, far left, and thousands of buoys on the second floor. Fishermen’s Voice photo.
Downeast Fishing Gear builds lobster traps and has since the early days. Holmquist’s dad started the trap building business Island Lobster Supply on Vinalhaven after a back injury ended his lobstering career. The retail business began after lobstermen who came in for their traps asked about buying supplies he had around the trap shop. As the business grew it was moved off island to Blue Hill and became Downeast Fishing Gear. More growth led to the recognition that Ellsworth is a major regional market town and the business was expanded to the Bar Harbor Road over the Ellsworth line in Trenton in 1995. Her father’s goal, said Alison, was always to make it a destination business, to have the lowest price and buying in volume was the means to that end.
The new location has a larger trap shop with room to expand. It is equipped with a new $200,000 trap wire shear. The trap shop cuts trap kits and fills orders for completed custom traps.
An expanded clothing room includes the brands fishermen have asked for and products proven to hold up to the extreme conditions they are used in. Fishermen’s Voice photo.
“The advantage of volume is having a lot of options for a lot of people. There are times when a surge of customers come in for a particular product, for no known reason, and we need to be prepared for that with adequate supply,” said Holmquist.
Bait is changing now. Guys are figuring out the bait and so are we,” said Holmquist. Bait bags are changing because bait may be changing. Some are using ground bait and they need the round BaitSaver bags. They are larger and the holes are smaller to hold the ground particles. “We have thousands of bait bags in stock, different mesh sizes, bag sizes, twine and material.”
“Fashion has come to fishing,” said Holmquist. They have more clothing, at the new location in the clothing room. “The younger guys are interested in what the clothes look like and want them tough,” she said. Downeast Fishing Gear is the Maine distributor for Stormline. “We have winter and summer bibs. The cooler summer bibs are in now. Stormline also has a new line of clothing all for lobstering. We are also adding the Under Armour clothing line. We’ve got a larger boot section now. I selected boots that would work for lobstering. We’ve got the Dunlops and the Dry Shod. Dry Shod was designed by the guy who started the Muck Boots company.”
On those rainy days when going out to buy gear seems the best work-related option, there can be a lot of fishermen in the store. There is free coffee in a lounge area for hanging around on blowy, rainy days talking about fishing.