 What's up guys Joe Holland here. I am getting ready and geared up for the 2021 ice fishing season. We're still waiting for ice but it gives me a really good opportunity to get around to some of the local bait shops here in Maine and some of them might not even be local but I'm gonna get around to the bait shops see what's new see what I can do to support these guys and also get all the ice fishing stuff I need for the year. Today I am here in southern Maine in Wyndham at the famous Saabego bait and tackle. Now this bait shop is unique. I shot a video on it a couple years ago. It is a seasonal business. They don't do open water. They don't do the spring season or anything like that. They do ice fishing and the reason they do that is because Wayne is the owner and he loves ice fishing. They run a really cool construction consultant business. They sell Elgin, Leechfield, septic systems, stuff like that. In the winter they love to ice fish and they love to have ice fishing supplies so that's why this place is stocked to the gills with all of the really cool stuff and the good stuff you need for ice fishing season. Let's go in take a look. Saabego bait we are here. We've been here since 2011. We're going on the 10th year here. Wayne opened this store just as kind of a fun thing to do. We regularly sell leechfield equipment that grows in your septic system. Somebody else can answer that. In the off season when people aren't digging their leechfields ground is frozen well what else is there to do except go ice fishing. He started this is just a fun thing to do and 10 years later it's kind of become its own entity. I work as the office manager on that side and December comes around and I'm back and forth. Most people know I'm here you know Monday through Thursday is 8 a.m. to 4 30 starting January 1st we'd be open Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Yeah 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. We also have a Facebook page that it's Saabego bait. People can go there and get information. There's a Facebook just like you would have a Facebook page as a person that's called Saabego bait where you can friend us. Wayne usually monitors that he's very active in messaging people and we do post a lot of pictures and videos and stuff about whatever deals were running so if you ever have a question the phone system operates for the leechfield product place too so it's a lot of time people will hang up because they're like it says construction consultants well it's construction consultants in Saabego bait if I don't answer leave me a message or go right on and send us a message on Facebook so what kind of services do you guys have you have the live bait you have the artificial bait you have the auger sharpening and then a full service it looks like oh my gosh if you need something we probably have it and if you ask me for something that I don't have there's the potential that we can order it there's also the potential that you just don't need it if I don't have it that's how that works yeah so free auger sharpening we just ask that people drop their blades off I'm gonna put it in a little baggie with your name and your phone number and hopefully within a week we get to it the bait we have live bait right now all I have are shiners we're just kind of starting things up but normally we would have smell suckers we'd have different size shiners as we get further into the season and people want to go pike fishing well you know we can get really big shiners it can be hit or miss the last two years there's been kind of a smelt shortage as we get further into the season we have a bunch of big tanks out back that we store bait in we've got the refrigerated tanks that we can take a look at out here these are refrigerated they are like I said right now all I have are shiners but there's quite a mix of shiners and there's our size now you're looking for some big ones I have some big ones everything in here runs through a couple of filters there's a sorbine filter, there's a sediment filter and then there's some different filters that have different size gravel in them there's now all of the product we put bacteria in here every day fish make waste they they give off ammonia so the bacteria eat the ammonia we never have to change the water in these tanks and then right now it is dialed in at 42 degrees nice that bait is going to be nice and lively when you get on the ice right and the last thing you want is bait that's in 60 degree water and you take it out to 40 degree water well you know something I would like to mention these traps that we have right here these are made by John Hutchins they were originally made by his son Craig his son Craig passed away and now his father continues making them all of the funds from that goes to the center for grieving children or suicide prevention so John does not keep a penny he makes these people think they're cute we sell them this Christmas ornament and the money gets donated we do a donation for the sabego derby every year we do different donations there's a kids derby that's going to be happening that we were approached and we're going to be donating some product for the prizes for the kids so we do a lot of other things throughout the community we ourselves put on a derby many years ago where we tagged a couple of trout I think there were five they were about this big and as far as I'm aware they are still swimming in little Svego because I don't think anybody caught them every once in a while you know Wayne will come up with some hair brain scheme and we we follow through and if you have a derby that's going to be going on and anything like that don't be scared to approach us because if it's you know even if it's a couple of gift certificates that we can donate we'd love to do that oh that's great of you guys to do that and when there's good ice that Svego Derby is huge it is that's one of the biggest one of the top derbies in the state of mania and you know a couple of years we've we've had people oh I caught my fish on your bait and you know so we've definitely had a couple of winners from that derby that were caught on Svego bait they always make sure to come back and tell us that they caught it on Svego bait say new stuff for the year this year we could not stop Wayne from buying things so um you might have seen Andrew in here helping me the last two years he's not here today but he's definitely a big help in the bait shop but Andrew and I decided that we needed to do a little expansion so this year we have one two three four new shells we've moved stuff all around so when you come in it's not going to look the same as it did but we can definitely help you find stuff line leaders reels swivel sinkers hook so you got your hook line and sinkers we're gonna try to keep everything remotely together that's going to be going together traps I have heritage traps I have ht traps I have some jack traps a lot of people wanted jack traps and we went and got some this is something new that he brought in this year it's an ice rod case it's really nice hard cover not soft cover you don't have to worry about accidentally stepping on it and breaking something because you're not going to damage anything in there all your stuff for your otter sleds and your jet sleds I got covers I got the high facts kit I got the tow hitches heavy duty and regular this year we brought in some really big sleds I've got bigger than the otter magnum and bigger than the jet flood exhale and we'll see those here in a few minutes pack basket liners pack baskets we'll see more of those out back in a few minutes these these have been selling pretty good this year I heard yes the lowering pack baskets I have 24 inch and 28 inch and then I have the liners for them some without pockets some with pockets I'd recommend with pockets because then your traps aren't blailing all over the place we moved the ice auger parts to this wall we've got eskimo blades ion blades k drill blades strike master blades jiffy blades the little adapters where you can take your hand auger whether it's a nilson or regular hand auger and turn it into a drilled auger everybody likes those you know those drill bit augers now it's much more convenient than gas some different jiffy parts spark plugs tune up kits the collar gas caps and oil yeah you guys got it all we do we tried to think of everything extra covers to protect the blades yeah yeah some extensions if you needed an extension hopefully we'll meet them this year we need some more ice yeah we need a lot more ice but yeah we've definitely run out of extensions in years past so it's not unheard of that people need extensions the further north you go seems to be seems to be a calming thing we brought in a bunch of rapalas this year we never had this many rapala jigs so there's quite a few rapalas this year still got the cast master who's had those going for a couple years now brought in some new lindy jigs the custom jigs the VMC Wayne brought in a whole bunch of VMC nice and then we kind of made a little croffy fishing corner for people that like to fish for croffy um so you get a couple of little plastics some of the little jigs um andrew did this whole corner for this whole area um specifically so people are like oh go and croffy fishing we can be like come right over here nice we've got some sabiki rigs people were asking for those sure we're gonna try and keep more install and then you've got the swedish pimple wall wow the famous swedish pimple wall wow you got it you got the wall of them here yes look at all sizes all shapes and all colors yes that's amazing helmet this side we've got some northland stuff the airplane jigs the blue one is the most popular a couple years ago you could not keep that in stock all right so in this area in that area for the last few years for sabego lake that is the fishing lure when i used to live down here well i went to st joes yep that was like jeez 20 years ago that was still the hot lure then that's funny it's been 30 years 20 years of that being the hot lure but you know people from up north they're oh i'm just in the area they'll come in here and they will buy copper everything copper because up north copper is the thing yeah it's the airplane jig here and then the owl wives have really taken over in the in the lake and it's it's a resemblance of that color it's a really close close match it is yeah nice one ounce that's awesome yeah daddy mac we brought those in last year so that's new from even last year so those we've got quite a few of those he brought in a bunch of clam uh lures this year this is kind of the the trapped line area this is different line um than you saw over on the other side and if you want to have more than 100 yards they're all connected together oh nice yeah so we cut them if you only want the 100 but if you wanted more than 100 yards now if you're lining five traps with 200 yards or 10 traps with 100 yards that was in yards of line right there perfect yes that's great i got pink i got some dark green black tan the bright yellow um orange seems to come in just as fast as it goes out can't seem to keep orange a couple of other things this year that are new we've got the de-icer for your ice stopper bobbers people want this in like yeah they want this in gallon jugs i just don't have it in gallon jugs this is how they sell it cool i haven't even seen that yet that's something to out of feet today keep your your ice hole from oh nice from ice and back up so this is kind of what was going on when we were having our black friday sale like people can just oh i need these while they're waiting for the cash register these are pretty neat these were new this year can you see it light up something for the kiddos who's never had those before sure that'd be adults too yes still if you like a light up reel that's perfect for you um these are new this year and i have a pair myself andrew bought a pair for himself some of his friends came in and bought some they are hand warmers but you charge them i used mine probably three times when we had those power outages after the last storm just yesterday when i was out shoveling so they're really nice you pop them right in your gloves and keep your fingertips warm so i think the mat itself has different um different things on it that tell you how to cut it oh cool yeah then you guys have everything here this is the best ice fishing store around ice shacks anchors for your ice shack the eskimo clam just kind of a generic we've got the otter ones a lot of people like the ht it's just kind of a a generic adapter to be able to put the anchors in these are a hot seller they're 1599 we sell a lot of those stabilizers as we've we've had for ages so stabilizers corkers or something new this year that we brought in i think everybody has their own preference on what kind of ice cleat they like if you just want the buckle cleats or these kinds the corkers the stabilizers everybody's shoes are different so different choices back here we've got your real wraps put this on your wheel kind of it has a place to keep your hook got a couple of different colors different styles stuff to make your traps so if you wanted to make your own i've got different heritage parts i have some jack trap parts and then i have some just generic ht parts aerators um we have a couple of different kinds the bubble box is probably the best seller that's 1399 i've got tubing i've got air stones with tubing i've got some different two-way valves three-way valves whatever you need people were asking a few years ago for spring bobbers so now we have all kinds of spring bobbers people were asking for the the bite indicator lights so we brought in a bunch of those so and then this is the ice buster bobber so that it keeps your line from freezing the friable bait boxes they come with an aerator and these are pretty neat they have a little net so when you come in i'm gonna fill up your bait bucket your bait will go right in here and then whenever you need to change stuff out or do whatever you just pull the net out fish you're in here change out your water put it back yeah a couple of different trap bags the blue is different this year from the ones we've had we've always had the black jawjacker that's the digging base they've been pretty pretty good sellers or people been getting into them or when they first came out a lot of people wanted them and i don't see it so much now we've got something new this year that as soon as we advertise that we had these bam so this is the ht version works basically the same way so this is the little area for augers so this is the original k drill auger that came out a few years ago so these are gonna be your drill augers and would you get a brushless drill and then you just use this with the drill this is the new one that came out this year it's the eight and a half inch right now this one is 229 you come in before the end of the month this is the eskimo pistol fairly lightweight i wouldn't be doing this with a gas auger um and then the light flight strike master so before the new k drill this was the newest same thing very light and you got some spud bars that's cool yes those are nice for safety or for um or when when there's not that much ice right we do take used augers and wane takes a look at them make sure that they're in nice condition and um you know if you want to do any kind of trading if you're just looking to sell wane would be the one to talk to about that this is the 40 volt that a lot of people i we must have sold a dozen of these so far um right now even though it says 550 my price is 499.99 the black friday sale that he wants to continue through the end of the month that's a great deal 10 inch comes with one battery this is the one i have it's it's unbelievable is it yeah it's unbelievable i've never seen it in action but i'll send you some videos as soon as we posted them people were like save me one yeah it's and you know if you can't make it in here let's say you're from bangor area yeah i want one how do i get one call me pay on a credit card i'll put your name put the receipt when you have a chance to get down here it's paid for it it's put aside great customer service yes yeah we don't want anyone to be like oh i just couldn't make it you know we'll we'll take care of you right just call ahead of that one thing i noticed is you guys have a lot more gig rods than you had last time yes we've spent a lot of time drilling all those holes that is a lot of gig rods around the stores it's cool to see more people are getting into jigging and electronics and yeah and um and being more active when they're ice fishing probably one of the most expensive rods that we brought in are the fenwicks i do have some that are packaged in plastic and they're $59 $49 that are a different brand some have reels on them some don't you know we have ultra light we have medium we have medium heavy we have heavy so we we try to get a a mix of different ones depending on what people want to fish for you know around here big sabago you want to go catch a tow you're gonna want a fairly heavy rod wane likes to fish on little sabago catch a lot of white perch there you don't need such a heavy rod different little things that people that aren't local don't realize about the lakes around here so that's one of the great things about coming into a local bait and tackle shop is you learn really cool unique things about the local lakes and the local fishermen and the local fish populations right and the thing about this shop is other than myself i've only been ice fishing a couple of times when an andrew ice fish they ice fish all the time andrew's out ice fishing today you're coming in here to talk to people that are actually out doing ice fishing and no oh if you want to catch this kind of fish you should go here if you want to catch this other kind of fish you should go there you know there's different different things that we can advise people about that's not just about products in the shop we brought in a lot more mitts and gloves this year we had some of the new eskimo and i'll show you the pattern on the new eskimo it's a plaid pattern red and black plaid for their 60th anniversary i think we have one hat left right there but the mitts we sold out of some of the kinko gloves we've sold out of but we still have all of the furline hats i love those i have one myself the neoprene gloves and just some other different kinds of gloves if you don't want to go for the 30 dollar kinkos we got a little less expensive for a little less money for just a regular glove work gloves the mouth spreaders the hookouts the forceps scissors different things that some fishermen like to be able to use to get their hooks out these are pretty neat these were new last year so different bottle caps made into fishing lures cool and then just kind of some generic stuff that you might need or you're standing in line and think oh how am i gonna strap that sled down well here you go this is how you're gonna strap it down this is how you're gonna strap it down so we got some straps we got bungee cord cargo net over here we got some of the same stuff and then just some stuff that you know maybe on the off chance you might need these were new last year it's a different kind of hook remover more of the strike indicators the tip up line markers people like those well so we just kind of put a little bit of everything over here to say okay look at what else we have buckets you got all sorts of buckets too oh yeah nice so people come in needing a need and bait with a bucket and they don't have their day bucket they can still stop and see it there's buckets everywhere here so these are the home depots these white ones are pretty neat oh wow those are really neat so other than the rope handle they have a little handle here so easy to dump sleds i got a bunch of jet sleds out here the jet sled junior the jet sleds one the jet sled XL we got the black in color the camo that blaze orange is new this year i've had a couple of people come in and tell me that they have actually bought it to go hunting next year clam chairs eskimo chair this is the new pattern that i was talking about for eskimo this year they changed the logo to more of a cursive script logo and the chairs are plaid which i think are really cool that is neat got a couple cup holders and then that one's just a little bit smaller these are the heritage traps so yeah one thing i noticed that you guys got a lot more ice fishing traps this year than than the last time i was down so you have the the lineup of heritage lineup of jack some ht's and polar tip-ups and yeah we try to get a little bit of everything you know a lot of different price points so that people have you know i had somebody call the other day and ask what the cheapest trap was 8.99 perfect there you go so this is kind of the back stock area people that have been here before know we have several big bait tanks out back i'm not going to show those today but they're like horse 300 gallon horse trough tanks and that's where we keep all of our back stock of suckers and shiners but this is what we've got offering for the rest of the stuff i've got different jet sleds here and i have some otter sleds so this is the the large jet sled that's available this year and then this one i believe is the largest otter sled that we carry the otter nice it's taller than you yeah taller than me one of those is definitely going home with me yeah different shacks this year um last year we had the otter h uh xth which we still have some those are the prices on those this year we have the otter vortex which is i believe the vortex is an insulated four different kinds of those the lodge the resort the cabin and the monster lodge and then we have the eskimos we've always had the eskimo three and the eskimo five is a three man a five man so this year the new one is this one again with that pla this is their 60th anniversary edition of their ice shack great oh plenty of pack baskets oh yes plenty of pack baskets again 28 inch 24 inch the auger drill plate that was real popular um a couple years ago we couldn't even keep them in stock so when you get a k drill for instance if you don't want to hold it on your drill like you're drilling you can set this up and then it holds more like a traditional auger normally 7699 right now 60 bucks the light flight that i was showing you out front is another drill auger 169.99 these are the new lithium 40 volt we're looking at 499.99 on that we do have some ions in stock the g2 10 inch and the g2 8 inch 679.99 and 649.99 the eskimo pistol again one that i showed you out front i recall that i was doing flips and tricks with it 169.99 jiffy 30 this is our everyday price 299.99 if you want a simple traditional gas auger that has basically stood the test of time i had somebody in here today that told me that he had his jiffy 30 since the the baby jesus had been born it's a time tested sturdy gas auger jiffy 30 is the kind of the the auger to go to if you're looking for gas auger i think i have three eskimo propane augers left possibly four if i count the one out front i so i think four 359.99 on those this is the old k drill right now we're running the 189.99 price so that's the first version of the k drill this is the newest version of the k drill it's eight and a half inches instead of the seven and a half it said eight but it was more like a seven and a half seven and three quarter hole so this is eight and a half 229.99 another version of the strike master this is a 24 volt eight inch and that's 379.99 and then we do have eskimo gas augers i have the f1 and that one's 389.99 these are great prices well he just figured why not just keep the black friday pricing through the end of the year and you know if people are looking for something else we also do gift certificates so if you've got somebody that likes ice fishing but you're just not sure what to get them we do gift certificates if we see one in stock does that mean that you're down to one or do you have back stock or can you get a behind here see all those shacks right there oh wow look at all that that's all shacks right there nice so if you only see one in the shop it doesn't necessarily mean that i only have one if you're coming in just the bagel bait and you've never been in here before we have a huge yard so coming in with a snowmobile trailer uh is not an issue here we've got plenty of space you can just swing right around and most of the time that's what people do the fray bowl has their cooler and then angle has their cooler so these again it's a similar setup it has the air raider it has the net um just a different brand so this one that you're looking at here is a 19 quart i believe these ones right around the corner a little bit bigger oh and propane like right now we i you know have propane when the power went out i went to walmart to find some and they had none and i'm like oh i'm going to work i know i have propane so i can cook some breakfast we try to make things as convenient as possible for people you know we we do operate the the company called construction consultants is the main company so you know if you see us out here running around sometimes the door might be locked and it'll say out loading septic equipment back in 10 minutes just hang out and wait for us because you know we're out and around if we're here between eight and four thirty monday through thursday or you know the eight to six on friday we're here somewhere we just can't be in here with you and we like to give everybody that personal attention instead of being like oh yeah here you go i'm gonna go out and do this so pretty much whether you're going for a day ice fishing or a week long trip or stocking up for the season you guys have it all right yes yes and we've been known to have people come in and ask for 10 dozen smelts um we bag them we put oxygen in them and they go on their merry way and they're good for days all right guys that is a wrap on sabego bait and tackle check them out when you're down here give them a call if there's something you need i'm sure they can get it you know uh one thing we don't talk about enough is supporting local supporting your small guys because you know these are the guys that are donating stuff to the sabego derby they're the guys that are donating stuff to the youth derbies these are your rotary club members these are your local businessmen they pump a bunch of stuff back into the economy i know you can get stuff cheaper on amazon i know you can order stuff from china a little bit cheaper than you can get it here but amazon isn't supporting the local derbies amazon's not supporting the kids amazon's not supporting the community and amazon doesn't have the stuff you need when you need it that day so can please consider that type of stuff support your small local businesses stay tuned for more bait shops on across the state of main as i fish and travel around the state i'm going to stop in at the local shops and if the owners want to shoot a video we'll shoot a video and if there's any shops that you guys want to see or want to hear more about let me know put it in the comments let me know what you think about this shop and also let me know what other shops you want me to check out and review thanks for tuning in