Verle's celebrates 75 years in 2023

Recently Verle's Outdoor Recreation hosted a business after hours where they served Olympic Mountain Ice Cream Root Beer floats and a selection of locally made items including chocolates from Northwest Expressions and meats and cheeses from Home Meats. The food and company were great, but also fun was the story told by Verle's son, Arnie, on how the store became to be.

It's all thanks to worms. Lots of them. In 1948 Verle & Bernice Schreiber traveled to Portland to visit friends. Here their friends introduced them to a very healthy population of night crawlers (worms) that could be picked at night from the Colwood Golf Course in Portland. Verle and Bernice loaded up containers of these creepy crawlers and returned to Shelton where news quickly spread that they had the very best worms for fishing. As word spread they realized they needed even more worms and enlisted their Portland friends to send containers full on the bus. The worm business grew.

It wasn't long before Verle's Bait became a trusted mainstay for every outdoor enthusiast in the community. Verle and Bernice converted their garage into a small tackle shop.

To the tackle they added rods and reels, hunting and camping gear, outboard motors and boats. About the same time Verle was ready to retire in 1979, his son Arnie was ready to switch gears and make a change in his life, too. A year later, Arnie officially become the second generation to own and operate Verle's Bait.

With Arnie at the helm, growth and change were the order of the day. By the time the store celebrated its golden anniversary in 1998, a third generation, aboard full-time, and the store had become Verle's Sports Center & Marine. Today, Verle's is bigger and better than ever and shows no signs of slowing down.

Celebrating the 75th anniversary, today Verle's Sports Center & Marine is one of the most respected marine and sporting goods stores in Washington. Through all the growth and change, Arnie is proud to say that there are some things about Verle's that will remain the same – it was, is and always will be a family owned and operated business, now with the next generation in the business with their families. They also still have the best worms.