Behind the counter at the bait shop, an expert fisherman is holding class. He twists a fishing line into a carefully crafted knot, one of the few that won’t slip from the specialty leader. A father and son visiting from Atlanta look on intently, their eyes glued to the motion of his fingers.
He’s always been a fisherman, but he never intended to work full-time at his own family store. Two years ago, Joey Foronda was selling real estate, mainly Condotels. “It’s basically your own condo, but it’s run like a hotel,” said Foronda, 44, breaking into a natural sales pitch. “I used to sell tons of those.”
Today he sells bait.
One of many real estate agents who jumped ship after the housing market crashed, he has seen former colleagues go into all kinds of stuff. The hotel industry. Retail. Credit card processing. Foronda is the only one who landed a successful business marketing buckets of minnows and shrimp.
“Everybody thinks I was, like, some kind of market timing genius,” said Foronda, a resident of St. Pete Beach, Fla., nearly all his life. “I say, ‘Naw, not really.’ I just think it was a bunch of things coming together all at once.”
During the boom, his career was so successful that he decided to open his own real estate office. The search for more office space led him to the struggling Gulf to Bay Bait & Tackle on Gulf Boulevard. The real estate market was hot, but 2005 was a bad year for fishing. One of the worst Red Tides in years rolled into Tampa Bay that year, decimating the fishing industry and putting the squeeze on bait shops like the one Foronda bought. It had broad front windows and a wooden deck draped in with thick ropes. Foronda liked the shop because there was a lot of foot traffic and room. He figured he would keep the bait business open to help cover the costs.
“This place was almost completely empty, so I was going to turn half of this into a real estate office,” Foronda said. “If the bait shop paid rent, I’d get a free real estate office out of it.”
Foronda bought the shop in May of 2006, but a few weeks later, the housing market came crashing down. In Pinellas County, at least 14,500 homeowners have defaulted on their mortgages since 2006, according to Foreclosure.com. Neighborhoods on the barrier islands filled with “For Sale” signs. Lawns sprouted out of control. Foreclosure notices arrived. Another tide had turned on the central Florida coast, and for Foronda, this one hit much closer to home. With the Red Tide subsiding, and the housing market in shambles, the Condotel-moving real estate broker made a decision — he went full bore with bait and tackle.
Instead of bringing in brochures, business cards and floor plans, he let the shop do what it does best. He filled vacant space with the familiar tools of the trade: live shrimp, baitfish, T-shirts and tackle. Then came the customers — lots of them. Within weeks business tripled, a nd the bait shop was suddenly more than a way to pay rent — it was a way to make a living. And he was wearing sandals and shorts doing it.
“It’s real refreshing,” said Mike Bolt of Georgia, delighted that Foronda tied a tourist’s line for free. “Sometimes you can get treated like a number, but these guys are just awesome.”
But it wasn’t the bait and pro bono rigging that revived the shop. It was the T-shirts. Apparel brought in customers who didn’t care about fishing tackle. Foronda estimates that 90 percent of his business came from tourists during those first few months. Two years later, clothing is still one of his biggest sellers.
“There was such a void there,” he said. “I would get in as much merchandise as I could and it was like there still wasn’t enough. I made so much money in the first few months; I just kept selling and selling and selling. If business is this good, then why bother with real estate?”
Foronda’s two sons, both avid fishermen, also got onboard. Calvin, 17, works 40 hours a week during the summer managing the shop. (He cuts it back to 25 during the school year). Henri, 14, repairs broken rods on a bench behind the counter —people say he’s pretty good for his age – but most of all, he networks.
“Henri knows everything there is to know about everything. He gets (fishing) invites from everybody — every kind of boat you can imagine—55-foot Vikings all the way down to a bunch of 13-year-olds with bikes,” Foronda said.
Foronda spent 11 years in the retail industry as a buyer before he became a real estate agent, so he’s no stranger to trade shows. But when the boys travel to fishing shows with him, they have a way of sending him to the sidelines.
“Calvin is such a whiz with numbers that he can figure out the profit margins and that sort of thing. Henri is so technical he blows away all the vendors and sales reps for their own products. He’ll sit there and argue with them about gear ratios and alloy components, and he’s usually the one that’s right. So I basically let him do a lot of the buying and Calvin decides if it will be worth the money.”
It’s possible Foronda might get back into real estate some day. “When the market is good, it’s definitely the thing to be in,” he said, but it’s looking less and less like that is going to happen. He’s still trying to sell off the last of his rental properties, and when they’re gone, he’ll be out of that business entirely. He still has his real estate license, but he talks more about getting a captain’s license someday. The shop currently books charters for a dozen fishing captains, and the money looks good —starting at $350 for a four-hour trip. He loves to fish, and guiding tourists on fishing trips could be a good fit.
Foronda is planning to expand his shop eventually. He’d like to have a bigger place where they could sell kayaks, marine supplies, fish artwork and other merchandise that would appeal to tourists, and keep bringing in anglers.
As he stared through the front window of his shop at the fishermen loading fresh bait into their cars, Foronda admitted the success is not without sacrifice. He stands behind a counter, takes in cash and gives out good tips on fishing holes. And he ties knots he likely won’t get to rely on.
“Now that I have the shop, I don’t get to fish that much anymore,” he said.