Jasper Bait and Gun Shop Finds New Owners, Preserving 70-Year Legacy

Jeff's Bait & Guns at 482 Second Avenue has outlasted chain retail expansions, recessions, and more than 70 years of shifting consumer habits since the Uebelhor family first opened it in 1955. When the most recent Uebelhor to run the store decided to sell, the risk was real: a specialty retailer that old and that locally rooted can easily close, taking its gunsmithing bench, seasonal bait inventory, and institutional knowledge with it.

Jeff Miley and Bernie Main stepped in instead. The two new owners grew up making the same trip to the downtown Jasper shop that their fathers made before them, and that shared history shaped their approach to the purchase. The deal closed this week, and their priorities reflect a caretaker's mindset rather than a new operator's instinct to reinvent.

Regular hours will continue without interruption. The full product mix stays intact: fishing bait and tackle, firearms, gunsmithing services, and the broader outdoor and shooting supplies that area anglers, hunters, and recreational shooters have relied on for decades. For customers who time purchases around seasonal ammunition restocks or spring bait availability, that continuity is as practical as it is personal.

The Uebelhor lineage at the shop stretches to 1955, when the family patriarch opened the original store. His son took over and ran it for decades before this month's sale. Miley and Main now inherit that relationship-first retail culture alongside the physical address, stepping into a role the community felt keenly: Jeff's Bait & Guns fills a niche no regional chain fully replicates, combining gunsmithing expertise with local bait supply and the kind of product knowledge built over generations of serving the same families.

For Dubois County's Main Street economy, the sale to two locally rooted buyers matters in concrete terms. Locally owned specialty retailers sustain jobs, maintain ties to nearby suppliers, and keep spending circulating within the county. A sale to outside investors or an outright closure would have stripped all of that away in a single transaction. This one preserved it.