R&R had to move out of the building on Layton and Nicholson.
They are located across the street in the Layton Avenue Strip Mall.
The building was sold and he had to move immediately.
Rogers a Great guy. Always willing to go the extra mile for the fisherman. That’s how he stayed in business Soooo Long. I used to buy dozens of Bagleys from him. He had instant connections with Jim Bagley. His knowledge of Lake Michigan was immense! Always carried the best equipment and baits.
Great Job Rog,
JD
It’s a great store for sure. I don’t know when I was first there but I seem to think it was the early 1980’s. My grandpa used to sell wolf river rigs to them. I was part of the sweat line for tying leaders for him.
My best memory of R+R is Nov 8, 1991, I was 20 at the time. They have always had a “fishing hotline” and oddly one of the few phone numbers I still have memorized even though I haven’t called it in decades. I called it that day and it mentioned that walleyes were biting on Little Bay de Noc. On somewhat of a whim, I drove up there early Nov 9. When I arrived at the Gladstone launch, there was 30-40 boats in the lot on trailers, no one was fishing. 3-4 of those boats were the InFisherman crew. With a stiff south wind, it was too rough to fish and people were waiting for it to calm down. Not me, I launched my 14’ Mirrocraft and proceeded to make an attempt to catch fish. Clearing the harbor and heading north, with the 4’ swells, it didn’t seem too bad. It was only when I was far enough out and now looking back into the waves that I realized, this was a bad, if not potentially lethal situation.
I decided to turn back and wait it out like the rest. Getting to where I was seemed like it only took 10–15 minutes. Turning back into the waves and returning, seemed to take an eternity. That was coupled with waves effortlessly coming over the boat and any water on a surface froze, including on myself. Somehow I managed to get back to the launch and was just short of kissing the ground.
Loaded my boat back on the trailer and proceeded to wait like everyone else. Meanwhile, the InFisherman had launched a boat. There was a long pier in a protected cove they had a camera set up on. The boat was just off the pier and they filmed a guy fishing or at least acting like he was fishing. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but he’d cast towards the pier and every so often would take a 18” or so walleye out of a livewell and hook it on his line, then proceed to act like he was catching it. It was then I realized fishing shows were enhanced.
So I sat and waited like everyone else but it never did calm down enough to fish. That night I drove back to Oconto and spent the night at a friends house that was right on Green Bay. I figured if it was calm the next morning, I’d go back north, if not, I’d go back home. Woke up at 3-4am and the bay was glass smooth and not a breath of wind. So I went back to Gladstone. I launched the boat, parked, got back to the boat and saw several inches of water in the boat. It was then I realized that I was actually holding my plug in my jacket pocket. It was too much to get up to speed and drain, so I had to pull it out and let it drain.
Finally I got out fishing. It was totally peaceful out there that morning. Huge snow flakes slowly falling, zero wind and not too cold to be uncomfortable. I started drifting and jigging because that was pretty much the only way I knew to catch walleyes at the time. I caught several 15-20” walleyes but kept seeing boats that were trolling catching big fish. Not having done really any trolling ever, I rigged up a rig to troll with. It was a Wolf River rig with the biggest bell sinker I had and a chartreuse #5 Shad Rap. I dropped it to the bottom and started to troll forward but it quickly became apparent that I was going too fast. So I put it in reverse and backtrolled. I didn’t go 100’ and got a 7-8# walleye. That was the biggest I’d ever caught and thought about keeping it to mount. Thinking I’d surely catch a bigger one, I let it go. In the next 4 hours I caught at least 30 walleyes. The average fish was 7-9# of which I probably caught 15 of. Very few were smaller but I did catch one 5-6# fish that had a metal ring/tag in its lip where that was where I had the fish hooked. The rest of those fish were over 30” with the biggest just pushing 34” that I estimated to be close to 13#.
So thanks Roger! You prompted me to have by far the best day of walleye fishing that I have ever had or will likely ever have.
Yes I used to live on theSouth side and would walk to the Mitchell street location all the time until I could drive.I bought a Blaze orange Refrigeware hunting coat and bibs when I was 18 and just replaced Jacket 3 years ago at age 59 it was still bright orange and in pretty good shape what a great product.