RIsing tide floats Fish Tale Boats to new heights

Rather than lamenting the one that got away, the family-owned boat dealership and service center cast its net to land even more business by, ironically, moving away from the water.

By Andrew Warfield
| 6:00 a.m. February 15, 2019
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From left, Justin, Diane and Travis Fricke have guided Fish Tale Boats through the recession, the 2010 death of patriarch Bruce Fricke, and a move inland where they found growth opportunity. Stefania Pifferi photo

Strategies

While many people who move to Southwest Florida to take advantage of the lifestyle would like to own a boat, nobody actually needs one.

That’s the lesson the Fricke family, owners of Fish Tale Boats, learned during the recession, a time when they also endured the loss of the family patriarch, Bruce Fricke.

But good times have been rolling the past five years or so, prompting brothers Travis and Justin, and their mother, Diane, to broaden the company’s opportunities. First, they relocated inland in 2017, from Fort Myers Beach to a 7-acre former car dealership on Tamiami Trail in Fort Myers. In early 2018, they opened a new showroom in Naples.