Fish Tale Boats celebrates 30th anniversary
Fish Tale Boats is a modern success story all about family and hard work developing a business into one of the great boat dealerships in Lee County, and one of the last family-owned dealers.
It was 30 years ago that the late Bruce Fricke established Fish Tale Boats on Fort Myers Beach, after working his way up through the marine business. A native of Illinois, he moved to Southwest Florida with his family in the 1970’s when they brought their drapery business to Naples. He then started working as a boat rigger and forklift operator on Fort Myers Beach, before moving into sales, and ultimately making the leap to acquire the Fish Tale Boats dealership with his wife Diane from its prior owner.
Two decades later, the family would move the dealership to Fort Myers on an expanded lot size of seven acres where they are based today off Tamiami Trail where a former car dealership once stood.
They now own the largest Robalo dealership in the world, situated in the boating destination of Southwest Florida. They have earned that distinction each of the last seven years.
A 21-foot Chaparral SSI OB boat stands high up in the air, greeting visitors and passersby along the property fronting US-41. “When we moved here, it became an icon,” said Travis Fricke, a son of the late Bruce Fricke. “People notice it,” he said.
The dealership is run by Diane Fricke, and operated day-to-day with her two sons, Travis and Justin Fricke.
“Thirty years ago, we set out to build something that would outlast us — a place where people trust the name on the door and come back to us for their next boat, and their children’s first boat,” said Diane Fricke of Fish Tale Boats. “That trust is everything.”
Diane and her late husband Bruce moved down to Southwest Florida from Illinois in the late 1970’s. Bruce began working on Fort Myers Beach at Fish Tale Boats, which was located at Fish-Tale Marina at Santini Marina Plaza. Now they have three locations. In addition to their main dealership and service center in Fort Myers, they operate out of Bonita Bay and Naples. They have about 40 boats at their Naples location, and about a half dozen or more boats usually on display at Bonita Bay. Their Bonita Bay location services the boats based out of there.
Their services centers are among the major advantages the dealership offers. They also have a mobile service which will pick up the boats of customers anywhere and bring them back to the yard to be serviced if needed. They have four to five vans on the road each day which will attend to service calls.
More than 100 boats are spread out across the lot, from 10 footers to 45 footers. Among the top sellers on the lot are the 25-foot Robalo R257’s. Other popular boats include Grady-White center consoles and dual consoles. “They are versatile for the area,” Travis Fricke said. They can be used for cruising or fishing. Some of their biggest and impressive boats are the 38-foot Grady-White 375 Freedom dual console and 386 Canyon center consoles. Each is equipped with 1350 horsepower engines.
A large portion of their customer base is from Cape Coral. “This is the epicenter of boating,” Fricke said. “Florida is such a large boating market.”
Today, Fish Tale Boats represents some of the most respected names in the marine industry, including Grady-White, Robalo, Chaparral, and Premier Pontoons, across three Southwest Florida locations and helps steer the entire recreational boating industry. That work has earned them recognition as a 20-plus-year Grady-White Admiral Award winner, the manufacturer’s top honor for excellence in sales and service.
Fish Tale Boats is also a Yamaha Pro Elite Plus Dealer with the highest certifications and on-site Yamaha-trained master technicians of any dealership in Southwest Florida. The owners test out all of the boats.
All of the company’s employees are encouraged to get on the boats they sell, to understand them better for customers. Upon purchasing a boat from Fish Tale Boats, they will deliver the boat at no charge. They also have a boat club that helps customers to learn more about their boats while also promoting boating as a social activity. “We want people to enjoy the boating lifestyle,” Fricke said. They also bring in safety speakers and prominent fishermen to educate boaters who are new to boating or new to the area.
They are considered among the best boat dealerships in Southwest Florida, and one of the few locally that are still family-owned and not corporate.
Travis Fricke started in the business in a similar way to his dad, working on the boats from a young age. As a teenager, he spent many days on Fort Myers Beach cleaning them, before moving onto sales and answering phones. Now he helps oversee day-to-day operations of the dealership and service center.
“When you buy from a big national chain, you’re a number, and after the sale you’re on your own,” said Travis Fricke. “Here, the family that owns the place knows your name. We come to your dock, we make sure you’re confident on the water, and we’re still there years later. That’s what thirty years of doing it the right way looks like.”
The main dealership in Fort Myers is nestled in amongst trees that helped protect them during Hurricane Ian. There was no damage to any of their boats and just some minor damage to a wall. “We count it as a blessing,” Travis said.
“We believe our community deserves the very best, which is why we partnered with a selection of distinguished boat brands–leveraging our national reputation for sales excellence to deliver an unmatched ownership experience to our local market,” said Justin Fricke.
Fish Tale Boats employee about 50 workers, some of whom have been with the company for decades. As part of the company’s commitment to their customers, they have their staff available to assist those who purchase a boat from Fish Tale Boats from the first day to every other day they own one of their boats. Whether it is helping customers to navigate the use of their new vessels in those early days, especially those who may be new to boating, to attending to any servicing needs the boats have over their lifetime, Fish Tale Boats is dedicated to their customers, Travis Fricke said.
“It’s a hands-on family business,” he said.