Jim’s Pro Bass — From a Longs Drugstore Clearance Sale to a Full-Service Tackle Shop
🎥 Prefer video? This story is also available as a video on my YouTube channel, Vince Goes Fishing.
If you prefer a blog-style experience with text and photos, just keep scrolling!
Jim's Pro Bass Tackle is located at 1645 Riverside Ave, Paso Robles, CA 93446
And you can follow them on Instagram @jimsprobasstackle
Tina, and Jim Slusher of Jim's Pro Bass Tackle - Paso Robles, CA I’m really curious what your background is and how you guys came to be here.
“I've been fishing pretty much my whole life. My dad, my grandfather's and everything. Moved out here. We have so many good lakes to fish. Um I started with the ambushers fishing uh local tournaments. And Long's Drugstore used to be the only place we could buy tackle.”
Where?
“Longs Drugs.”
“Longs Drugstore on Nimble Road was the only place to buy tackle. Wow.”
So other than Wilderness Outfitter down in Roar Grandandy.
“Uh-huh. So I went in one day and they had this massive clearance sale and they were clearing everything out. They were discontinuing all their tackle at Longs.”
At Longs. [laughter]
“So I go in there and I load up a shopping cart full of stuff and I put about I don't know $800 worth of stuff on a in a shopping cart and the guy that used to supply longs happened to be there.”
Okay.
“So their rep and uh became Big Rock Sports, he came to me and said, ‘What are you doing with all this stuff?’ I said, ‘Well, I've got office space, so I'm going to just hang it back up in the office and resell some of this stuff because it's, you know, 70 80% off.’ So, he says, ‘Well, you know, I'm the rep.’”
“He says, ‘Do you have, if you have retail space, we can set you up as a tackle store.’ Okay. So, we started out in my office about 200 square ft. That's all we had.”
The shop started with just a tiny amount of space.
“We had Lucky Craft and a lot of some Pine stuff. mo mostly pline products cuz that's what he was. He was with like Poochie and Suns and so we had Robo Worms, we had some line, we had some gamatsu hooks, not a whole lot.”
“Then all of a sudden we needed to expand. So I have a 3,300t building here and I opened up the back of my building, 1100 ft² and we outgrew that in just a few years and moved everything up front.”
From a Sheet Metal Shop to a Tackle Shop
“Um, I used to have a uh a a sheet metal shop. I did a lot of stainless steel, a lot of copper. It got too much on me. We sold off everything and we just expanded the store.”
Oh, okay.
“So, I used to run the sheet metal shop for 20 plus years and I think we brought in the first bit of tackle in here in about 2002.”
So, and it just keeps growing from there.
“Yeah, we started with the bass only only freshwater stuff and then some of the customers say, ‘Well, don't you have any, you know, can you give me this rod or can you get me this?’ And so then we started building the saltwater section.”
“And now we have quite a large selection over there as well.”
So it's not only from sheet metal to a tackle sale at Longs.
“Yep. Clearance.”
Absolutely. To shaking hands with a rep at Big Rock to saying, “All right, let's dedicate this retail space.”
Exactly.
“And then building it up from there.”
Learning What Fishermen Actually Want
What were your biggest challenges along the way?
“Oh, trying to understand what will sell.”
“You know, don't buy too much of this.”
“You know, oh, you bought $2,000 worth of this product. We sold $1,000 in the last year and a half.”
Ah, not a good buy.
“So, it's just understanding what the people want. So now pretty much everything in this store is because somebody once said, ‘Do you have or can you get?’ Ah, and that's what we've done. We grow.”
“Every time somebody says, ‘I want this.’ We bring it in pretty much automatic. If you guys can bring this in, I'll buy it.”
“Uh we've got a couple of our local saltwater guys that when they come in and they say, ‘You guys need this,’ we take that as gospel and we order it right away and we bring it in and they send the customers to us.”
So when people say, “I want this. Do you have this?” They're verbally asking for it. That's the indicator to go ahead and—
“That's the indicator. Absolutely. From that point, we bring it in. No, no questions asked.”
All right. So, you guys heard it. If you need something, if you want something, just ask for it.
“Just ask for it. Yeah. We try our best.”
“You know, if we can get it, we will get it.”
So, that pretty much answers my question as to the history of Jim's Pro Bass.
“Correct.”
How Jim and His Wife Met
Um, is there any juicy details about your story, the two of you? How did you guys come to be here? Where did you come from? How did you get hooked up and how did you guys end up here?
“Oh my goodness, that's a long story.”
We uh you can tell as much as you'd like.
“We met uh doing West Coast swing dance.”
West Coast swing dancing.
“And we do it competitively now. Just like I go to a fishing tournament, we go to dancing tournaments. Competitive swing dancers, guys.”
“We've done nine US Open swing reachings. Nine US Open.”
Oh my gosh, these guys are pros.
“So, he was a fisherman and I'm a dancer. He dances, too. But, um, I used to have another job and then I retired about 5 years ago now. And so, I work in here full-time. I used to work in here a couple days a week. And as we've grown, I've retired and I work here full-time.”
“And we need it now because we've gotten a lot busy.”
And she takes care of everything.
“The pricing, the inventory, uh, if something needs to go on clearance, she makes the call. Uh, don't carry too much of this. We're not carrying enough of that. Uh, pretty much she's 100% in control of inventory.”
Cool.
“I pay the bills.”
[laughter]
Okay. So, you guys were swing dancing.
Mhm. Mhm.
Let's like—What year are we talking? Like when was this all happening?
“98.”
Yeah.
Okay. So, 28 years ago, we're going back.
“Oh my god. It seems so long when you say it like that.”
Were you married at that time? No. You were just dancing partners?
“No, I I was recently divorced. She was recently divorced. where there was no reason in the world for the two of us to come together ever.”
[snorts]
“Um she's from Southern California. I'm from Arizona.”
It was your dance moves, man. It just happened to be.
“And we had mutual friends and we'd all go out together. And then one day he says, ‘Let me just pick you up. Well, why do why are we taking two cars?’ I was like, ‘Okay.’”
“And then Ah, yeah. And then I think Yeah. Our first real date was Tim McGrath at the Men State Fair.”
Tim McGrath. You guys went out on a date. Your first date.
“And we just celebrated uh 25 years married.”
25 years.
“25 years married.”
You guys are clearly doing something right.
Touring Jim’s Pro Bass
Um can we take a tour of the shop?
“Absolutely.”
Yes. All right. I'm going to follow you around and you just show us around and you guys can both talk and point and we'll start in this aisle.
Bass Fishing & Freshwater Tackle
“This is pretty much all of our miscellaneous hardware type of things. Um once [snorts] again, if there's something we don't carry, somebody needs it, we'll bring it in.”
“Most of our craw flipping style baits are on this wall here.”
“And uh hard baits, crankbaits over in here. Uh jigging spoons.”
The Trout Section
“Uh we finally started to build a small little trout section. We don't have a lot cuz we don't have a lot of real trout fishermen around here, but we got to, you know, we're starting to get bigger section over here.”
All right, we got a little trout section.
“Not a lot, but yeah. So, we have this and you know, trout fishing is fun. Um, people are traveling and then they, you know, they want to pick up, they're going to the Sierra or somewhere.”
“And we have got fantastic trout opportunities to our north and south, so why not?”
Yeah. Mhm. Mhm.
Plastics, Senkos & Robo Worms
Um, and I see plastic worms for bass fishing. Lots and lots of plastics in here.
“Roboorm is one of our standards. Um, everybody that fishes has fish on Robo Yamamoto. We've got a very large selection of Yamamoto as you see.”
Oh, wow. Look at all the Yamamoto.
“And we have We don't have every color, but we have a lot of colors.”
Okay, that's more than enough.
[laughter]
“They ought to buy one.”
And then somebody wants—
“Oh, we don't have that color. You can't change baits that many times.”
[laughter]
“I think we have about a hundred colors of senkos.”
Okay. 100 colors of senkos.
“There's a lot of senkos on the wall there.”
Rods, Topwater & Spinnerbaits
Then we carry a lot of different rods.
“Uh we have Dia, we have Dobbins, and we have Phoenix.”
“Those are our main um freshwater rods that we carry.”
And we have top water, top water on that wall.
“All top water. Here we got frogs, zuks, spinners, and all of that.”
Okay. Spinner baits.
“We used to love slow rolling spinner.”
“We have all our line there and leader here.”
Um Okay. braid and leader and more leader right here—
“and more leader.”
Okay, so this is all line and leader.
Scotty Kayak Gear
“And then we have over here all the Scotty supplies. We sell a lot of this right now this time of year.”
“We got a good selection of kayak fishermanmen that come in and um once again they say, ‘Hey, you know, we like the Scotty products.’”
Okay.
“And uh there's other products on the market, but they like they know the Scotty brand, so we bring those in.”
All right. All right, what do we got here?
Terminal Tackle
“All of our terminal tackle down this aisle.”
Okay, I'll go for a walk down here.
Terminal tackle, guys. All your bullet weights and hooks.
“Okay. Lots of zooms and flukes here.”
Flukes.
“Crush City, guys. A lot of bass fishing stuff. They made a good name for themselves.”
Yeah.
The Saltwater Section
Then over on this side, we have all the salt water.
“All the salt water is on this side, guys. And then here's our Hawaiian Customs, which for all the surf fishing.”
Hawaiian Customs. Very popular surfing rod.
“And Rockways.”
Rockaways.
“Okay. Our two most popular surf rods.”
Right. Exactly.
“Probably thanks to Edward Tomallosa over at Hook to Cook on YouTube. He's done such a good job of sharing his favorite rods from Okuma and they've become very popular.”
“We used to carry some other brands, but they want these. This is what people want these days.”
That's what they want, right?
“We have a lot of people reference Hook to Cook. Yeah, a lot of people come in. Hey, I followed this video. Do you have—Oh, Edward just makes the best videos.”
He's my mentor, man. I just look at what he does and I I just wish that I could keep up.
There [laughter] you go.
The Surf Fishing Section
“Then, of course, our surf fishing little section we have it all consolidated right here so people can just go, ‘Okay, this is what I need.’”
This little surfishing section, guys.
“They even put up a VINCE GOES FISHING fishing sticker right there.”
That's wild. I'm so honored. Thank you so much.
“And here's all your battle star jerk baits, battle star soft cany perch baits. Also quick clips. You also got flip flops and socks, grubs. There's big hammer grubs and crappie sliders.”
“So pretty much anything you you're going to you guys are going to want, it's right there.”
“It's all in one little section.”
[IMAGE — Jim’s Pro Bass surf fishing section / Battlestar display]
Frozen Bait
So, and then over here we have we have all our frozen bait.
“We've got mackerel, squid, anchovies.”
“Uh we do have the tray bait. Trey bait anchovies. They look like good quality bait. Trey bait herring.”
Yeah, a little bit of salmon catfish.
I got to try those.
Ancho. These are—
Oh man.
“Yeah, I gotta throw some of those up at Big Su.”
I want to get up to Big Su. Throw some bait today.
Crocodiles, Salmon Gear & Lead
All right. Crocodiles.
“If you guys don't know it, this might be the best lure ever [laughter] made. I love the crocodile. I can I could cast that for anything and just just slowly crank that all day long. I mean, they catch everything.”
“There's a lot of salmon uh gear right here. We're a little low right now because it's starting to end that that time, but um we section earlier this year stuff.”
Oh, look at all the lead.
“Then we have lead.”
Nice organization.
“We have, you know, the pyramids, the torpedoes, the cannonballs. What a cool down river balls as well.”
All right. All the lead you guys need.
[IMAGE — Lead weights / fishing tackle]
Local Soft Plastics & Sea Bass Gear
Jig heads. All the jig heads.
Tons of jig heads and big plastics. Swim swim baits.
“Jig hammers. Custom craft. This is local.”
Mhm.
“These are local. We like to carry a lot of local brands actually.”
Very cool. Right out of San Luis Obispo, guys.
Custom craft soft plastics. Here at Pro Bass.
“Yeah, these these baits right now they're loving these for the sea bass.
Wow. Those nice big flukes look killer for sea bass.
I know some of the veteran guys do that. They fish these big—like I don't know if that's 9 in or something like that. They're really big.
“8 in ones. 8 in hooks.”
Yeah, that's a that's a good way to get them.
Hookup Baits & Battlestar Ribbaits
And then the hookups.
“We got a big selection of hookups. Everybody loves hookup baits. And the rib baits.”
And so—
Oh, there's the Battlestar Rib Baits.
“Got blurple, shiny white, and green pumpkin.”
Some of my go-tos right there.
“and and all our terminal for salt. This is for salt water. We keep that separate over on this side.”
All the hooks.
“There's all kinds of hooks here.”
Saltwater hooks, I take it.
Like salt water, replacement treble hooks.
Um some more rods.
“These are all the salt water. We got the da therus. And we got all the Phoenix and also some Puma, all the frog tuna and all that.”
Meet John — Jim’s Saltwater Expert
All right. And we got John that just walked in.
John just walked in.
And here's John.
Hey, he's our saltwater expert.
Very well. Nice to meet you.
“I'm Vince. Nice to meet you.”
And John is our saltwater expert.
“Yes, absolutely.”
Cool. Can you tell us anything about saltwater fishing? Is there anything you'd like to share, tell people about here?
“Oh, um, yeah, I mean I mean as far as the selection goes. Sure.”
“Yeah, great selection here at Jim's. uh everything from the offshore blow fin, you know, the Southern California um you know, type of fishing down there to the local rockfish of course, uh good kayak selection, a lot of swimbaits, uh an unbelievable number of swimbaits, and of course, um surf fishing hookup hookup products, uh the crankbaits, all the plastics, all kinds of options.”
[IMAGE — John in the saltwater section]
What’s Happening on the Central Coast?
Any good saltwater opportunities happening right at the moment?
“Um, right now it's the local rock fishing is still good, of course. And there are some offshore opportunities off of Mororrow Bay.”
Cool.
“In Kauga, I saw some some interesting fish being caught just yesterday out of Moral Bay that we don't usually see.”
No.
So, that's a lot of opportunities there.
So, what's going on out there?
“You know, some um offshore blue fin.”
Yeah, blue fin.
“Um, I've heard of some yellow tail.”
I saw some yellow tail and kelp of—
“There's a guy coming today who broke a rod, so we'll be talking to him.”
Okay.
“Um, for either a replacement rod or a repair, someone that Jim knows well.”
So, we're having like an anomalous warm water warm water event.
And with that, it's bringing this like just really interesting mix from—
I mean there's um marlin being caught off San Francisco.
Marlin in San Francisco.
“Yeah.”
To uh you know, all kinds of—
I saw blue fin all the way up in I think Washington State.
Washington.
“Outstanding albore fishing northern California.”
[laughter]
So, it's good.
Cool.
“It's good. minutes and and I don't think it'll keep going.”
All right.
“Fall will continue to be, I think, really good.”
“If you know what you're doing, you can get them. October, November, December.”
Rod Repair & Reel Spooling
All right. So, um, is there anything that you guys would like, uh, the community to know about, uh, for the shop?
“He does, uh, rod repair.”
Rod repair.
“So, he doesn't repair a broken rod, but he put replaces eyes and guides.”
“He does a really nice job on that. We can do that if you're just missing an eye or missing a guide. I have a lot of broken rods in the back and I rob whatever pieces I need off of those.”
“Uh if I have to buy an eye for you, then you know it takes a little longer to order that piece in. But uh we do, you know, minor rod repair and then we also have a a spooling machine back here in the back corner where we can spool up all your reels.”
Okay, let's take a look at that real quick.
The Spooling Machine
Spooling machine.
“all of the, you know, braid opportunities and mono, especially for the larger saltwater reels.”
“So, all kinds of braid. And this is the machine we use.”
“I actually need a a tip on my rod. So, if you happen to have that rod tip, I'll go grab my rod. We can do that while you wait.”
That would be rad to get some footage of the repair on video.
“Okay.”
Stop by Jim’s Pro Bass
Um, so, thank you guys so much for sharing your story and for the tour of the shop.
And um well, if you're out there and you're passing through Paso Robas, you got to stop by, check out Jim's Pro Bass.
It's always fun to see a new tackle shop and bring home some goodies.
So, we'll see you then.
“All right. Thank you very much.”
