Winter 2026
A
ngler’s Marine didn’t start as a grand business
plan. It started with a young carpenter, a long
tournament drive, and a simple question: “Why don’t we just open a tackle store?”
From that moment in 1980 to what Rick Grover now calls their 46th year in business, Anglers Marine has grown from a small Orange County shop into a long-running bass boat dealership, tournament trail host, and fixture in western bass fishing.
A TACKLE SHOP BORN ON A TOURNAMENT ROAD
In the late 1970s, Rick Grover had a degree in police science and was living in the San Fernando Valley. When his parents divorced, he moved to Orange County to help his mom. She told him to get a job, so he walked onto a construction site in Mission Viejo, where homes were going up fast, and got hired.
That crew changed his life. He found himself working alongside serious bass tournament anglers, Chuck English, Gail Hancock, Bill Craig and future three-time U.S. Open champion and Bass Fishing Hall of Famer Mike Folkestad. Grover was already fishing tournaments himself, in pro-on- pro events and traveling with Don Doty, who had qualified for the Bassmaster Classic and was plugged into national pros like Ricky Green.
At that time, there were no real bass tackle shops in Orange County. Everything was a drive: a couple in the San Fernando Valley, one in Roland Heights. On a drive to a tournament in the early days, Doty asked Grover what he was doing for work. Grover told him he was “swinging a hammer… like every other 24-year-old.”
Doty’s response was the spark. He suggested they open a tackle store. He offered to put up the money, give Grover a percentage, and have him run it. Grover agreed.
In 1980, using money funded by Doty, owner of Orange County Concrete, one of the largest concrete construction companies in Southern California, they opened Anglers Marine as a tackle shop down the street from Doty’s business.
FROM TACKLE TO OUTBOARDS TO FULL BASS BOAT DEALERSHIP
Doty’s competitive streak quickly pushed Anglers Marine beyond tackle. While hunting at a San Jacinto duck club with Bill Andrews, then owner of Andrews Sporting Goods and the concessionaire at a booming, bass-rich Irvine Lake, as well as a Mercury and Skeeter dealer Doty saw Andrews bragging on a big load of Mercury outboards he planned to hang on Skeeters.
Doty decided Anglers Marine should be selling outboards too. He bought a batch of Mercurys, then worked with Gary Marshall of North Hollywood Marine and Ranger rep Don Lee to make Anglers Marine a satellite Ranger dealer. It was perfect timing: in what Grover calls “the absolute rise of the bass boat business” in the early ’80s— Ranger, Champion, Skeeter, Cajun and more—every Ranger they brought in sold fast.
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THE CHAMPION TURN: A RISK THAT REDEFINED THE BUSINESS
In 1983, Ranger rep Don Lee suggested Anglers Marine become a full Ranger dealer and invited them to the upcoming dealer meeting. A week before Grover left, Champion’s national sales manager, Bill Pace, happened to stop by towing a Champion and offered a demo at Lake Perris. Grover ran the 184 with a 200 and said it rode noticeably better than the Rangers they’d been selling.
Grover still attended the Ranger meeting as planned. But during lunch, surrounded by Forrest
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