In Business: High School Brothers Supply High-Quality Fishing Tackle With Juice Baits

Fishing Opener in Minnesota is just around the corner. Two Brainerd brothers are gearing up their bait company’s inventory for the busy tradition coming up this weekend.

Brothers Kyle and Tyler Bahr have always had a passion for fishing. In 2018 they thought, why not turn that passion into a business?

“When we came up with the bait company it was like, we know fishing a little bit so why not try to help other people grow their passion for the sport,” said Kyle Bahr.

The Bahr brothers, two students at Brainerd High School, launched Juice Bait Company, a bulk fishing-tackle business, right out of their parents’ dry cleaning shop.

“I thought, ‘oh, this will be good, some learning experience for them, something for them to do,’” said Kyle and Tyler’s mom Carla Bahr. “But it’s definitely grown into a lot more than what I was expecting.”

Juice Baits sources their inventory from a wholesaler, and then the bait is individually packaged by the brothers.

“The biggest thing that makes us unique is that we do a lot of our stuff in bulk and there’s not really any big companies out there that sell in bulk,” explained Tyler Bahr.

Juice Baits can be found at bait shops in Bemidji, Brainerd, and Grand Rapids, and also in the new Gander Outdoors in Baxter.

“The Bahr boys used to shop at this store back when it was the old company and they would walk away disappointed because we never had the baits that they wanted,” said Baxter Gander Outdoors store manager Cory Frantzick. “So these two kids, being the entrepreneurs that they are, went out and found a way to create their own baits.”

Juice Baits has grown much more than they expected in the year that they have been in business.

“We started off just doing a lot of stuff here at the shop. Then we got an online store that we started mainly just around here in Minnesota, and now we’ve stated to send stuff out to Massachusetts, the Dakotas, Montana, all around the country now,” added Tyler Bahr.

“The amount of inventory and stuff that they’re dealing with is just – you should see my basement, it’s just, it’s exploded,” added Carla Bahr.

The Bahr brothers are not sure what the future holds for them past high school, but they know that it will have to do with fishing.

“We want to become the next Big Bite Baits is what we really want to do, kind of pay for our way to college and see where it takes us from there,” said Kyle Bahr.

“I think if they want to they could stick with this and make something pretty successful out of it. Of course if, you know, college is the path they want to go down too, then I think with their drive, whatever they want to do they’ll be successful at,” said Carla Bahr.