Englund Marine, a mainstay in Westport since 1975, has relocated to a much larger location at the corner of Wilson and Montesano, allowing it to expand its showroom displays and quadrupling its warehouse space.

For example, the clothing area of the shop is four times larger than it was in the previous location, said store manager Paul Foster.

“Our warehouse has gone from 6,000 square feet to 15,000 square feet,” said Foster, which has allowed the business to have a lot more product available for its steady stream of commercial and sport fishers on location.

Englund Marine is a family-owned business based out of Astoria, Ore., with locations up and down the West Coast. Foster has been with the company for 28 years and has worked at the Westport location for about a quarter century.

The store does steady business throughout the year, but gets busiest during commercial and sport fishing seasons. The vast array of products the store carries can be adjusted to meet seasonal needs.

“We’ve got commercial crab in the winter, shrimp season in the spring and the commercial and sport salmon fishing in the summer,” said Foster. “So our items rotate in and out.”

Englund caters to every player in the burgeoning Westport fishing market, from commercial trollers and netters to sport anglers to local seafood processors such as Ocean Gold and Westport Seafood, tapping into a market that cracked the top 10 nationally in seafood landings in 2017.

“For a small port, that’s a lot of processing,” said Foster.

Foster credits the charter fleet for the success of not just Englund’s, but the local economy in general.

“We have got a really good charter fleet,” he said. “They do a really outstanding job bringing out-of-town people to the area.”

And with bottomfish season running during the “off-season,” between salmon seasons, the charters and Englund stay busy. A check of the Westport Weighmaster Facebook page shows a steady stream of lingcod weighing 30 pounds or better coming in throughout the spring. And with the salmon trolling season kicking off Tuesday, there was a steady stream of customers moving through Englund that afternoon.

The expanded showroom has allowed the store a lot more freedom display-wise. Gallon cans of paint that previously were hidden in the warehouse can now be openly displayed. Their wide assortment of fittings used to be sorted by size only; copper, stainless and other varieties used to be mixed in the same bins, forcing customers to sort through them to find what they needed.

Foster is particularly impressed with the new location’s hydraulic hose room. Englund can now supply a variety of hydraulic hoses to everything from the commercial fishing fleet to farmers — “anyone who needs hydraulic hoses” — and are one of a scant few locations in the region that does so.

The larger warehouse also has space for fiberglass cutting. At the old location, that chore could be messy and difficult — not so in the new space. And the larger showroom can house the large variety of rope, floats and traps used by commercial crabbers.

The growing tuna fishery has led to Englund enlarging its commercial and sport tuna fishing selection. Everything from hoochies to sport and commercial tuna poles takes up a full corner of the store. There are jigs for rockfish, flashers and everything else for salmon and a vast variety of commercial and sport hooks on site.

The construction of the warehouse is unique in its own right. Foster said it was built with concrete tip-up walls. The walls are poured flat on the foundation, one by one. When cured, they are lifted into place and fitted together, a very efficient method.

“There are maybe one or two others like it around,” he said.

The staff is small but hard-working and as friendly as you’ll find. While this reporter was in the store, each customer was greeted by name, and each customer knew the names of the staff. Purchases were made in a manner that more resembled a friendly chat than a transaction. Along with Foster, there’s new hire, Skip Johnson, in shipping and receiving, and Westport born and raised Billy Burns and Jennifer Forbes.

Englund Marine is located at 101 W. Wilson Ave. and is open Monday through Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during salmon season and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. outside of salmon season.