On Sunday afternoons, when his children wanted to head out to the family farm pond, Chad Docsh first had to go on a fishing expedition for bait.

Country stores with plenty of worms and crickets on hand that were common during his childhood had become essentially extinct. And a drive to Grimesland or Kinston from his Ayden home tended to eat up a good chunk of a day.

Rhett Butler/The Daily Reflector (ENLARGE)

Chad Docsh recently opened Burl's Bait and Tackle in downtown Ayden, giving local fisherman a convenient spot for live bait and equipment.

"It was turning into a Sunday afternoon search for bait instead of fishing with the kids," Docsh said.

So he began testing the waters of opening a bait and tackle shop. He took "mental notes" of the number of boats he saw around town. He tuned into conversations at Bum's restaurant. And he cast a few questions to the locals, looking for a few nibbles.

"All the response I got was real positive," Docsh said. "I kicked it around for another year or two. I've got three kids and a wife (to support)."

The tug to give it a try eventually reeled him in, and Docsh opened Burl's Bait and Tackle on Second Street in downtown Ayden. Burl is a nickname he picked up during a card game with friends — and it stuck.

"One of the boys showed up late because he was at the house with his little girl watching Rudolph," Docsh recalled. "And it just struck him as funny that I looked like the snowman from Rudolph with my beard and mustache."

The snowman's voice in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is that of Burl Ives.

"So they kind of tagged me with Burl that evening," Docsh said. "I didn't think much about it."

Until a few weeks later downtown when he was greeted with a "Hey Burl," then again as he was crossing the street before the parade at the annual Collard Festival.

"Eventually it just kind of spread," he said. "You can either try to fight it or just go with it. At least it wasn't something unflattering."

Docsh said he considered about 10 different names for his store, "but it always came back to Burl's."

Diving into a new career meant leaving his family's crop consulting business, which he had a hand in for some 25 years — part time while in school and during the summers, then full time for about nine years. The retail world is not foreign ground — his family operated a Western wear store in the 1980s after moving from Florida to Grifton. He also worked at Ayden Golf and Country Club about four years.

"I kind of grew up in a retail/farming environment all through school," Docsh said. "I've always enjoyed retail. Most of the jobs I've had during the school semesters was generally in a retail environment. ... I'd just as soon do it as anything else. You get to meet people, and everybody's got an interesting story."

Docsh had contact with plenty of potential customers while traveling a multicounty area in eastern North Carolina as a crop consultant. The more he heard about the challenges of finding bait and equipment, the closer he came to providing a solution.

"I got to travel countryside quite a bit," Docsh said. "And most of those guys like to fish. That job kind of gave the opportunity to talk with people in surrounding counties about where they were having to go to buy."

When Docsh decided to make Burl's a reality, he had his eye on downtown rather than having "just another metal building" on N.C. 11. Plus, he's always been drawn to historic buildings and older architecture.

"At one point in my life I thought I'd want to be an architect," he said.

Timing worked in his favor. A corner location at 514 Second St. just across from the new fire station became available and needed minimal work — just some cleaning, paint, pegboard and display cases. The building, originally a drug store in 1902, has been the home of numerous businesses including a grocery store, karate studio, Christian karaoke bar and second-hand store

"I really wanted this building," Docsh said. "It's a great location, it's a corner location. It's not the busiest street downtown, and guys are going to be coming up here pulling boats. There's plenty of parking. ... It's just easy to get in and out of."

Docsh is using about 1,300 of the building's 2,000 square feet downstairs as showroom space but figures he eventually will have to knock out a wall to open up a back room now used for storage. He's well-stocked with rods and reels, hooks and line, and live bait. He started with worms and crickets but said he will have night crawlers, minnows, worms and likely will add frozen bait for saltwater fishing.

Docsh also stocks rain gear, Burl's T-shrts, sunglasses and playing cards. He said he is considering adding an apparel line this summer.

"My initial list of products that would be good to carry was 80 miles long, then you start kind of culling out things that don't quite fit with what you're mainly trying to do and products that are going to be way too expensive," he said. "I got it kind of narrowed down. There's a few things I'm going to add that will fit."

Docsh said he initially relied on experience and the knowledge he gained researching products but quickly realized there is plenty he still has to learn.

"I thought I had a pretty good working knowledge, and then one of my reps gave me this catalog," Docsh said, plopping a 3-inch-thick catalog on the counter. "There is a pretty good learning curve, but when I started kicking this idea around a good three years ago, I was just paying attention and researching online. ... But anybody that does a tackle shop, they really just need to talk to who their customers and see what they're going to use and what they're going to want."

At least he's solved a problem for the next fishing trip to the farm pond with his children.

"I'm not doing this to try to run anybody out of business or compete heavily with anybody," Docsh said. " I just kind of felt like there was a need for somewhere to get live bait and a good selection of artificial lures and rods and reels that somebody can actually tell you something about them."

Mike Grizzard can be contacted at mgrizzard@coxnc.com and 329-9580.