Why I started Elliott's Tackle & Rigging

40 years has taught me valuable lessons

The first time I bought a downrigger online, I got it home, mounted it on my boat, and broke it inside a season.

Wasn't the unit's fault. Wasn't the manufacturer's fault. It was the shop's fault — and mine for trusting them. They'd sold me the wrong cable for the salt I was running it through, recommended a release that couldn't handle a 12-pound cannonball at depth, and given me mounting hardware that started weeping rust the second the spray hit it.

When I called to ask about the warranty, the guy on the phone asked me what a downrigger was.

That's the moment Elliott's Tackle & Rigging started, even though I didn't know it yet. It just took me a while to actually do something about it.

Born and raised on the Olympic Peninsula

My name's Joel Elliott. I'm a Port Angeles native — graduated from Port Angeles High in '81 and never really felt the need to live anywhere else. The Olympic Peninsula has everything: salt water out the front door, mountains and rivers out the back, and weather that keeps the tourists honest about whether they really want to live here.

Forty-plus years of fishing this region, with side trips to Alaska, Canada, and just about every fly-in float camp I could talk my way into. The Big Three out of Port Angeles — King, Chinook, Coho Salmon, and halibut — plus lingcod when the seasons line up. High-lake trout in the summer when the salt slows down. And come fall, I trade the rods for rifles and a bow and head into the timber for elk, deer, and bear.

I'm not telling you that to brag. I'm telling you so you know that when I say a piece of gear has been tested on the water, I'm not blowing smoke. Forty years of testing. On real water. With real consequences.

Two careers that taught me what good gear looks like

Before this store, I had two careers that ended up being the perfect training ground for selling tackle the right way.

First was selling appliances and cars. You don't think about it that way, but when you're on the showroom floor for years, you learn exactly what bad sales looks like — the upsells that don't help the customer, the products with thin margins propped up by aggressive talk, the warranty fine print designed to wear you down. I saw enough of that from the inside to know I never wanted to do business that way.

Second career was building and remodeling homes. Spent years as a contractor, framing, finishing, fixing other people's mistakes. That work teaches you something specific: the difference between gear that holds up and gear that doesn't. A mounting bracket that looks the same as the next one over but is made from cheaper steel — I can see it. A bolt that's gonna back out under vibration — I know which ones. Salt corrosion patterns, fastener fatigue, what marine-grade actually means versus what it says on the label. That stuff isn't theoretical to me. I've replaced a thousand failures.

So when I tell you a Cannon Optimum holds up better than a knockoff downrigger, or that a Lee's outrigger base will outlast aluminum garbage, I'm not just repeating manufacturer claims. I'm telling you what a guy who built houses for a living can see when he picks the gear up.

What's wrong with most online tackle shops

I'm not gonna name names. But you know the kind of place I mean. The product page where everything is described in marketing-speak. The chatbot that answers your rigging question with an FAQ link. The 'expert recommendations' that are obviously just whatever has the highest margin that week.

It's not malicious. Most of those shops aren't trying to sell you the wrong thing. They just don't know enough to sell you the right thing — because they've never run it. The folks running the website are warehouse-and-marketing people, not anglers. They have no idea whether the swivel they're shipping you can handle a 25-pound chinook with a head full of attitude. They're just shipping it.

'Tested on the water' isn't marketing copy I made up. It's a phrase I've used for years to describe what separates real gear from gear that just looks the part. A piece of gear hasn't earned its place on the boat until it's been used hard, in real conditions, by someone who knows the difference. That's the standard.

Most online tackle shops are run by people who've never set a downrigger in their life.

So I'm doing it myself

Every piece of gear that goes up on this site has been run by me, on my boat, in real saltwater. Or hunted with, in the case of the off-season stuff I'll start adding down the road. Some of it I've used for twenty years. Some of it I've broken and replaced with something better. Some of it I bought, hated, returned, and would never sell to anyone — those don't make it onto the site at all.

That's the whole pitch. Curated by an outdoorsman who's lived this his whole life. No filler, no fluff, no cheap Amazon-grade junk pretending to be real gear.

If you've got a question about whether a particular reel can handle Chinook in heavy current, or whether you should run electric or manual riggers on your 19-foot Whaler, or whether the Cannon brake will hold a 20-pound ball at 200 feet — ask me. I've probably answered the question for myself already.

That's what's different here. You can talk to a captain. Not a chatbot. Not a customer service rep reading from a script. The guy who's actually run the gear, on a real boat, in real water that wants to break it.

What you can expect from this log

This Captain's Log is where I write down what I've learned. Trip reports, gear notes, rigging tips, stuff I wish someone had told me twenty years ago. Some of it's useful. Some of it's stories. Probably a little of both.

If you've been fishing the salt for a while, you'll recognize a lot of what I'm gonna say. Hopefully I'll still surprise you with something. If you're new to it, welcome — you picked a good obsession. Stick around.

And if you ever need something I don't carry, or if I'm steering you wrong on a piece of gear, tell me. I'd rather lose a sale than send you home with something that's gonna break on you.

Tested on the water. Built to pull. That's the whole deal.

— Joel

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About Capt. Joel Elliott

Joel Elliott is a Port Angeles native and 40+ year Pacific Northwest fisherman, hunter, and outdoorsman. After careers in appliance and auto sales and a decade as a home builder and remodeling contractor, Joel founded Elliott's Tackle & Rigging to bring his hard-earned expertise — and an outdoorsman's eye for what holds up — to fellow saltwater anglers. He fishes the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the San Juans, the Washington Coast, and Alaska, with regular trips to remote fly-in float camps in Canada. Off-season, he hunts elk, deer, and bear in the Olympics with rifle and bow.

Have a question about gear, rigging, or PNW fishing? Drop a note through the contact page — Joel reads them all.