PEORIA MAGAZINE May 2023

kids on the scale they had in the store. It was always such a family place and it’s remained that. “At your big box stores, the faces are always changing but at Presley’s, there’s a whole crew of employees who have been there forever. Whether it’s archery or a telescopic rod, that experience is invaluable.” While Tim Presley brought the store to broader prominence, said Lampe, he credits Kelly with developing online sales, another reason for the store’s continued success. In a 2017 letter to customers, Kelly vowed to offer the lowest cost items possible online while encouraging the public to visit the store to get even better deals. The industry has endured a number of trends over the years. For example, there has been a “big-time” decrease in fishing, said Kelly, with the exception of the COVID years, when fishing made something of a comeback. Meanwhile, “cheap, inexpensive items weren’t selling well last year but more

expensive items sold great. That tells me that lower income people aren’t fishing like they used to,” said Kelly. Beyond that, it seems fewer young people are picking up a rod and reel, he added. Interestingly, hunting has not slowed. “I think hunters are a bit more passionate than fishermen,” said Presley. Andrew Dearing of Peoria got into bowhunting last year. “I got some awesome help from the boys over at Presley’s,” he said. “They never talked down to me with my newbie questions.” Robbie Iverson of Ottawa first visited the Bartonville store in 2006 and said it’s worth the drive because of the store’s employees. “They treat me like family.”

but I’ll put my money on our people,” he said of the 25 employees, many of them long-term, who work the various departments at Presley’s Outdoors.

‘THEY NEVER TALKED DOWN TO ME WITH MY NEWBIE QUESTIONS’ — Andrew Dearing

Steve Tarter is a Peoria Magazine contributor who was born in England, raised in Boston, moved to Peoria to attend Bradley University and decided to stay. He has spent a career in journalism and public relations

That’s an opinion echoed by Jeff Lampe, a longtime outdoors writer who now publishes the Weekly Post and Prairie News weekly papers across a wide section of central Illinois. “I go back to the old store on Adams Street,” he said. “I weighed my first two

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