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Since 1980 we have striven to provide the most up-to-date and accurate fishing advice in the Ocean City and lower Delaware areas. We provide the very best service to our customers and sell high quality bait and merchandise at reasonable prices. Our customers range from around the globe, from novice fisherman to expert sports fishing enthusiasts.
If you are looking for a friendly shopping experience with personalized service, look no further than Oyster Bay Tackle. Our knowledgeable and friendly staff are all avid fisherman... some of whom have been with us for over twenty years...who fish our waters regularly and are eager to answer any questions you may have. (Many of these folks hung around the shop so much, we had to put them to work!) Whether you are here on vacation or a "local" just getting off work, we guarantee you will leave our store fueled with information on how to enjoy fishing and crabbing in and around the beautiful Ocean City, Maryland area.
In 1980, the original Oyster Bay Tackle shop was opened by Irv and Juanita Mumford and two of their three children - Dan and Sue - and has been owned and operated by the Mumford-Foster family for more than 35 years.
Irv Mumford - the patriarch of our family and business - was a World War II Navy veteran who served as a quartermaster on a minesweeper that saw action in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. After the war, Irv's love of boats, fishing, and the sea brought him back to Ocean City, where he mated on charter boats and eventually met and married Juanita in 1949. Irv operated Irv's Boat Rentals, just south of the Rte. 50 bridge in the 1950s, and then Mumford's Marine Service in the 1950s and 1960s. Irv also worked at his brother Paul Mumford's - Paul's Tackle Shop - on Talbot Street in downtown Ocean City for many years before establishing Oyster Bay Tackle in 1980. For more than 25 years, Irv worked in his store alongside Juanita and Sue and his many employees. Well into his 87th year in 2012, Irv could be seen hauling bait and stock in his big white truck, chit-chatting with his co-workers and his customers during the season, and dispensing the wisdom only a lifetime in the business could offer.
Dan worked at Paul's Tackle Shop and then operated a bait and tackle shop in the Assateague State Park for nine summers. Sue also worked at Paul's and began writing her Drifting Easy fishing advice column in the Coastal Fisherman in 1978.
Juanita Mumford, when not packing lunches for her working family, managed Bayside Bait and Tackle - "up the beach road" - at 136th Street in Ocean City in the 1970s. After Oyster Bay Tackle opened in 1980, Juanita worked in the shop for the rest of her life, helping customers to enjoy fishing and crabbing in the local area.
Irv and Sue were well-known and recognized experts in the Ocean City sports fishing scene. Sue was an avid and expert fisherman, and she became a prolific fishing writer. In 2006, Sue published The Ocean City Fishing and Crabbing Guide to help her customers enjoy crabbing and fishing in the Ocean City area. With the advent of the Internet, Sue's weekly fishing report was read by thousands of online subscribers. (Today, Sue's husband, Bob Foster, continues the weekly fishing reports.) Sue authored fishing reports and articles for several publications - The Fisherman Magazine, The Beachcomber, The Entertainer and Oceana - and had been a contributing writer for The Baltimore Sun. She continued to write the weekly Drifting Easy column in the Coastal Fisherman until just a few months before she passed away in December of 2014. Her articles and fishing reports were enjoyed by thousands for more than 36 years and are still a source of information today. (See our Drifting Easy archives.)
Today, although Sue, Irv and Juanita are no longer with us, our family continues to own and to operate Oyster Bay Tackle. Dan, his wife, Liz, and Sue's husband, Bob, along with our dedicated staff, will continue to provide great service, reasonable prices, and friendly and knowledgeable advice and information.