Gander Mountain Ghost Town

I was just in the Woodbury Gander Mountain at 2.00 PM. Now that Cabelas is in town, I was wondering how Gander would be doing.

It was a Ghost Town. Since that is the nearest Gander to me, I’ve been in there dozens of times. I’ve never seen that few people in that store. I counted and as far as I could see, there were 13-15 customers.

Obviously, this is not scientific, but I had a feeling the Cabelas in Woodbury would be VERY bad for the Gander. I’ve always felt that that location is too remote and tucked back away from anything.

But this may actually be a good thing in some regards. There was .22 rimfire ammo on the shelf. Wow. You won’t be seeing THAT at Cabelas.

Grouse

The only purchase I would make at GM, would be a 20 oz bottle of soda.
That store blows.

I stopped at Cabela’s in Woodbury yesterday. The place was packed! I returned an Internet purchase and stopped to look for some Berkley 12# XT Green. ….They didn’t have any. Out the door I went. Way too many people for me to linger around. Next time, I’ll be driving to Fleet Farm – or if I want to hit Cabela’s again, it will be in Owatonna from here on out.

I think Gander has a much better selection of lures. At least Rapala. The mini Cabelas cant do everything better.

You went to a relatively brand new cabelas, that is adjacent to a metro area with 3.5 million people, on a rainy Saturday.

You were stunned by the crowds?

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I think Gander has a much better selection of lures. At least Rapala. The mini Cabelas cant do everything better.

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Check out the raps at the Hudson Fleet Farm or 4 Seasons Sports in Red Wing.

Loads.

Isn’t Gander now a Firearms super store that dabbles in fishing?

I swore once cabelas opened that I would never step foot back in the Woodbury gander mountain again! That place sucks!!

Why you guys keep doing Gander Mountain is beyond me. It’s always the same results…………the place sucks.

IDO has sponsors (Joe’s & Mills Fleet Farm) that are near everybody in the metro. A short drive is well worth the piece the mind not to mention they help support the site.

When did they change their tag line for Hunt, Fish, Camp or whatever to “We live Outdoors”?

When they started their TV show of the same name?????

I’m assuming you meant Mills Fleet Farm?

I took my little dude on a field trip to the new Cabela’s on Saturday. I have to say that after going to the Owatonna store for the past few years, I was completely underwhelmed by the Woodbury store.

I’ll stick to Fleet Farm.

No, Fleet Farm is “We Love It! Outdoors”. Gander is “We Live Outdoors”.

Maybe it was just the jingle, but I thought the tagline was also Hunt, Fish, Camp. Maybe Gander still uses both.

This far more than I wanted to Google or talk about in regards to Gander, ever in my life again.

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I took my little dude on a field trip to the new Cabela’s on Saturday. I have to say that after going to the Owatonna store for the past few years, I was completely underwhelmed by the Woodbury store.

I’ll stick to Fleet Farm.

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I think Cabelas and Bass Pro Shops are better served with larger stores that are a little out of the way. Throw in some aquariums and big displays for the rest of the family.

I get about 80% of my tackle from Fleet Farm and the other twenty from little bait shops by the cabin.

They are building a new Cabelas by Madison (set to open late 2015 I think) and it iwll be about 5mi away from a large Gander. I’m curious how long Gander will be able ot stay open once Cabelas is there.

Depends on a lot of things. I am a long time Cabela supporter but there are several things they come up short on compared to Gander and Mills. At least the small Woodbury store.
I need to get in there for a second visit but it looks like they tried to do a little bit of everything instead of anything really right. No slam. Its cool but not like Rogers or Owatonna. I need to do more research.

We were at the new Cabelas on opening weekend. As expected it was a zoo. Even in the chaos we managed to find employees that new what they were talking about. Try finding that at GM.
They also had 22LR ammo

I like Gander for some fishing-related things. I really like their IM8 Guide Series rods, the Med/Light 7 footer is my favorite spinning rod and, in fact, I want to get another of these before they change them.

They also have a good selection of my favorite jigs, I lover the longer shank hook with the wire keeper and these are hard to find. The Fleet in Oakdale does not seem to carry them at all.

Gander has pretty decent clothing, but I tend only to buy if it’s on sale as the regular prices are high.

Guns and gun-related items? Forget it. Gander has been the absolute highest price on every gun I’ve wanted to buy in the last 20 years. I’ve always tried them and they’ve always been significantly higher than the next best price.

Ammo is the same. Gander’s regular prices are regular highway robbery. Sale prices can be good, but you have to watch carefully and often they run out.

I’m not married to any one store, different stores all seem to have their sweet spot.

Overall, my impression–and I freely admit this was based on a data point of one–was that the Woodbury Cabelas has hit the Gander there HARD. I’d hate to see them close up though, hopefully as the “new” wears off things will even out.

Grouse

I like the prices at Gander and Fleet Farm better than Cabelas for lures. Customer service will probably be the best at Cabelas though. Competition should be a good thing as Gander beat out Sportmans Warehouse in Woodbury a few years back.
Selection is poor at times for Fleet Farm, but I live a mile away so I go there first. If they don’t have it Gander usually has what I want. Btw, the Oakdale Fleet Farm needs to restock ripping raps big time.

I just don’t get why this site has a perpetual bash Gander post going. I stopped at your Cabelas Can Do No Wrong store last weekend in Rogers and every one of the 4-5 things I was looking for was just empty pegs. And they have to be the worlds most expensive outdoor store on top of it all.

In the end its nice to have all the options when you need something right now. Hopefully it wont take visiting 2 or 3 stores every time you need it. As always when you have the time the internet is a slam dunk when you know what you want.