| 12/17/2005 8:20:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Gerald Fowler is the owner of Neils Creek Guns and Ammo. The store carries a full line of hunting items, and in the summer stocks some fishing items. The shop is on State Road 7 in Midway. (Staff photo by Peggy Vlerebome) |
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New business targets hunters
Peggy Vlerebome
Courier Staff Writer
Gerald Fowler was listening to customers even before he opened Neils Creek Guns and Ammo. He read about an industry survey that showed that hunters prefer late afternoon and evening for shopping, so he set his hours accordingly.
He opened his business in the spring in a shop he built on the other side of the driveway from his home on State Road 7 in Midway.
“I always wanted to do it,” Fowler said. “It’s what I want to do in retirement.” He has worked at Arvin Sango for 17 years.
Fowler was raised near Dupont and is a lifelong hunter and longtime trap shooter.
He has stocked his shop with weapons for all kinds of shooting, from hunting and target-shooting to trap-shooting. He carries muzzleloaders, BB guns, self-protection handguns, clay birds and primers, along with various sizes and styles of rifles and shotguns for all ages and all sizes of people.
He also sells accessories such as scopes and scope mounts, some reloading supplies, bows and arrows, ammunition, camouflage shirts and other must-haves for a hunter. In the summer he sells live bait and some fishing tackle.
Whatever he doesn’t have in the shop, he can order.
“I try to give people what they want,” he said.
Fowler isn’t a dealer for any one company, so he can order a variety of brands.
If a person wants to get into hunting, Fowler advises taking the hunter education course the Indiana Department of Natural Resources offers. A course also is offered at high schools, he said, and basic familiarity is taught at special events such as a women-outdoors program that was held at Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge.
More and more women are getting into hunting and shooting, Fowler said, adding that some of the best trap shooters are women.
Fowler recently made himself a target rifle that uses a new size of ammunition. .17-caliber. The ammunition is very small, and Fowler said it travels flatter and faster — 2,100 feet a second — than .22-caliber. “I always wanted one like this,” he said as he showed the red and gray barrel. He can order those, too.
Fowler not only listens to customers, he also listens to his wife, Ramona. The shop has a sofa, a touch she suggested for when wives and girlfriends accompany a shopper.
The business is open from 4 to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. It is closed Friday and Sunday. The telephone number is (812) 273-0582. It is at 5755 N. State Road 7. His driveway is just north of the north end of the bridge in Midway.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Monday, December 19, 2005
Article comment by:
HENRY LARGIN JR.
I wish him well.
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