About Us

Owners

Fred and Melissa Gilbert

History

Fred has been coming to the Chowan River since the 1950's. He came down as a child with his Dad fishing and fell in love with the river the more he came thru the years as a young lad. The black water of the river and the Cypress trees and how beautiful a river it was. In the 1970's he was able to buy a small piece of property on the river and came down as often as he could to fish the waters.

Fred retired in October of 2007. He had previously worked for 35 years at Sears and took early retirement and went on to work at UNC Physical Plant in Chapel Hill and worked another 15 years before retiring in October 2007.

So the store is Fred's new venture and is at work 7 days a week . So so much for retirement!!

Well I finally was able to retire from Duke in Durham, NC after 23 years of service.  I have been at Tunis with Fred Full time now since Dec 1 2009.  I'm loving being able to be here with him and help with the daily things that come up. We are now enjoying our new home beside the store. Just got in it in time for our 19th Anniversary. June 22, 2010.

About 3 years ago we were given the opportunity to buy the Old bait shop in Tunis, located on the Chowan River near 13/158 bridge. Due to the condition of the old building we had to tear it down and rebuild. We saved a couple of the beams/rafters and placed in the cathedral ceiling of the front part of the store. It had previously been a thriving bait shop back in the 1960's-1980's. Due to the owners passing it fell by the way side. Several tried to reopen but never seemed to make a go of it. So we are hoping to make it another thriving store.

The store was completed at the end of December and were able to open for a couple of weeks in December but it became a full time opened store in January 2008. It is a nice place to go and sit a while. Tell stories, see if the fish are biting. What they are biting on. Catch up on the local gossip,etc.