I want to say that I’m all about supporting your local tackle shops and if you have them available, by all means, please support those businesses. In Maryland, I had one high tackle shop that carried a great selection of bass lures. Sadly, it went out of business just this year and my local selection of shopping consists of Dicks, Wal-Mart and luckily Bass Pro Shops. There are a few local tackle shops, but they usually don’t have what I’m looking for. One other thing that I take into consideration is driving. While some of these stores are not too far 5-20 miles, it could take anywhere from 30-min to well over an hour depending on traffic.

I recently bought just one lure online the other night and spent about $10. I also selected free “Ship-to-Store” instead of paying the extra $5 to have the lure delivered to my house. That got me thinking about that $5 that I just saved to have the lure shipped. Did I really save $5 on the shipping? No, I didn’t, I have to drive 31 miles round trip to get to my local Bass Pro. At an avg of 16mpg in my truck, that is about $5 in gas. I also mentioned that traffic is mostly chaotic in the area between Washington D.C. and Baltimore. That 31-mile trip costs me at least $5 and will probably take at least 1.5 hours to complete (gotta walk around the store)

I’ve put together a list of online shopping that I take advantage of to save time and money. I think some of you will find this very useful. One of my biggest shipping concerns for fishing equipment is rods, and the costs to ship can be pretty hefty. Sometimes, I ‘ve just chosen to not buy something simply because of the shipping. Here are the companies that offer “FREE SHIPPING” on rods. As long as you go over the minimum. Let’s get started. This is not an all-inclusive list of online tackle shops, just some of the most popular. If you have a recommendation to add to the list, please comment below.

I put Amazon and Wal-Mart in there as an absolute last resort for shopping. I have never bought anything online from Wal-Mart and I rarely buy fishing gear from Amazon. It may be worth it to check those avenues when other don’t work out. Each image will take will open a new tab and take you to that online store.