When Hunter Stebbins was a junior at Mascoma High School, his mother told him it was time to get a job. Stebbins agreed, but rather than working behind a fast-food counter or stacking shelves at a grocery store, he decided to do something different. He opened a live bait shop in the basement of his family home.
Stebbins had another motive for selling bait. He figured he could always use his unsold inventory for his own ice fishing ventures. He, his family and his fishing buddies, over the course of a winter, had been spending approximately $1,000 on live bait. What did he have to lose?
“There aren’t many bait shops around,” he told me. “Where are people going to get bait during the winter?”
So he procured a license from the state, had an inspection by the N.H. Fish and Game Department and began trapping his own shiners and suckers. To hold his inventory, he converted a couple of old freezers, filled them with minnows and aerated the water to keep the minnows alive.
His first year wasn’t anything to write home about. Working out of his basement, with no advertising except for word of mouth, he only sold 10 suckers and 10 dozen minnows. But meager sales did not deter the young entrepreneur.
The next year was better. He sold 350 dozen shiners and 200 suckers. Business was so good that his mom told him it was time to move out of the basement. There were just too many people traipsing up and down the cellar stairs.
In 2018, at the back of the family home, Stebbins used particle board and roof trusses to construct what he calls his “bait shack.” He installed two converted freezers to house different sizes of shiner minnows — small, medium and heavy medium. A third freezer holds suckers of all sizes, some as large as eighteen inches.
After Stebbins put up road signs and distributed business cards, things finally took off. So far this year, he has sold 850 dozen shiners and 350 suckers. He also installed a small refrigerator where he could store nightcrawlers, trout worms, meal worms and spikes.
Meal worms are small larvae that resemble legless centipedes. Spikes are basically tiny white maggots. Both baits, when fished on the tips of jigs or spoons, are effective for perch, trout, pickerel or smelt.
The bait shack stocks everything an ice angler needs to get started — tip-ups, jigging sticks (miniature fishing rods), ice cleats, bait buckets, bait nets, ice scoops, lures, hand warmers, T-shirts and jet sleds, small plastic sleds that are used to pull fishing equipment over the ice.
Stebbins can also special-order ice augers, the hand-cranked variety or those powered by gas.
Because Stebbins works a day job, he has set up a self-service area on his porch, offering shiners, worms and spikes. Sales are strictly on the honor system, which has worked so far. Stebbins has found anglers to be trustworthy for the most part, but that hasn’t stopped him from setting up security cameras to monitor the self-serve operation.
Stebbins himself is something of a seasoned fisherman. He has a trophy patch from the state trophy fish program. He caught a 2-pound, 18-inch black crappie that was very close to the state record. When I pressed him to tell me where he caught it, he demurred, keeping his spot a secret, something I have been known to do.
When it comes to his favorite fishing technique, the bait seller’s choice is tinged with a bit of irony. Stebbins prefers to fish for lake trout with an artificial spoon on a jigging stick.
He has landed an 11-pound, 26-inch laker through the ice, again refusing to give up the place where he caught it.
One thing that Stebbins wants to accomplish through his business is something near and dear to my heart — teaching kids to fish. Over the years, he has watched participation in youth ice fishing derbies fall off to smaller numbers.
“It used to be that the kids were shoulder to shoulder on the ice during derbies,” he says, “but now they seem to want to be indoors, playing video games. It’s important for kids to be outside, to learn about nature through fishing.”
He encourages youngsters to bring in pictures of their catches so he can tack them on the wall of the bait shack, which can be found at 45 May Street in Enfield. The shop is on the left side of the road.
Stebbins plans to stay open through March, as long as the ice is thick enough for fishing.