Six years after giving up the day-to-day reigns of running his musky tackle manufacturing business, Joe Bucher has joined forces with longtime friends, the Robinson family, to create a new company — Joe Bucher Outdoors.
“I am very excited about this new relationship,” said Bucher. “The Robinsons bring three generations of experience in the fishing industry to my business. I am certain we will benefit greatly from this new partnership. We plan to refocus on what brought us to the table in the first place — building high quality big fish lures and customer service. The Robinsons and I are totally on the same page in this respect.”
The Robinson family has been in the fishing tackle business since 1939. Beginning with the late George Robinson, who opened a livebait wholesale business, son Jerry Robinson then morphed it into a two-pronged operation that featured both livebait and fishing tackle distribution. Eventually, the third generation of Robinsons — Ken, Dave and Mike — expanded the business even further including an extensive fish hatchery division.
“Like I said,” Bucher added, “the Robinson family knows every single aspect of the fishing business. They raise fish and minnows of many species in their own ponds, as well as supply sporting goods dealers with thousands of fishing tackle items. They know the fishing business. They know my lures. They have sold them for over 20 years. They have been in the fishing business for three generations.”
Check that, a fourth generation of the Robinson family is now also working the business.
“I can’t tell you how excited the Robinson family is to partner up with Joe Bucher and his product line,” claims Ken Robinson. “After 40 years in the fishing retail business and 50 years as a distributor, tackle manufacturing will add yet another dimension. We plan on using our extensive sales staff along with the sales staff of other major distributors to expand our customer base. We also plan to get back to the basics of what made this product line so popular with big game fishermen everywhere for over two decades — build the very best possible products, be aggressive but thorough on researching new ideas, and make sure they are all available on a timely basis.”
The new company will effectively be called Joe Bucher Outdoors and will be based out of Genoa City, Wisconsin. Bucher and the Robinson family expect to be fully operational by early 2009.