Businesses and Customers Adapt to Unseasonable Winter Weather

DULUTH, Minn. — Whether you run a Twin Cities downhill ski facility, or your winter fun is here in the Northland, humans and businesses are all adapting to two different weather worlds.

At outdoors gear shop Marine General, they’re already putting out the summer fishing gear. They are trying to keep two seasons satisfied at the same time.

That includes those who want to test the ice and pull fish up through a drilled hole, and those who are already thinking spring and getting ready for open water.

Owner Russ Francisco said he had to get inside the heads of his staff, who this time of year are naturally and normally thinking ice-fishing.

“We had to pull the summer stuff back out. People were buying downriggers, and some people are fishing out in the big lake. A lot of people are rigging boats. You know it’s nice in the garage, so they’re rigging boats. So we’ve been pretty steady. So we’re doing pretty good. The big things is what happens next? What does Mother Nature give us next? Right? Manufacturers aren’t taking any chances so they’ve been discounting prices and passing it on. We’re selling stuff cheaper than we sold last year, which was sort of an odd year too because we had so much slush. Manufacturers say keep selling, help us out, we need to empty these warehouses out. So there’s really good deals now on tents and augers and things like that so, we’ve been doing that. But, you know, yesterday we had probably fifty percent of our sales were summer stuff. A lot of people don’t have anything to do, so they’re out shopping. Right? But we’ll see now what Mother Nature gives us as it cools down. Our big fear of course is always a big snow, but there’s nothing in the forecast so, we could have really nice ice here pretty quick,” said Francisco.

As another example of fishermen thinking spring, Francisco said they already ran out of their first order of varnish and resin for boat repairs, and had to re-order.

Meanwhile, his crew is already preparing for the spring fishing show in the Twin Cities next month.