A treasured tradition of tackle and tall tales

Buck White turned his love of fishing and Fort Pierce into a lifelong enterprise.
JOHN ‘DON’ RAFFENSBERGER

In business, a good name carries a lot of weight. It can also weather the test of time.

On the Treasure Coast, the name Buck White is synonymous with quality fishing gear sold by a knowledgeable and helpful staff. While Buck White, who in 1935 founded what is now known as White’s Tackle, has been dead for 54 years, his name remains a fixture on four stores that bear his name. As Whitney Joseph writes in Longtime Lure, beginning on Page12, White’s Tackle was also known for the tales swapped there and the friendships made.

When Buck White wasn’t in the store working, he was offshore on his boat the Dolphin or on Lake Okeechobee fishing for crappie. He firmly believed that moon phases affected fishing, with a waxing moon presenting the best opportunities. He passed on what he knew to his customers. His motto: “Fort Pierce has the best fishing in the world. Fort Pierce fishing starts at Buck White’s.”

White was born Albert James White on Oct. 5, 1910, in Fort Pierce to pioneer settlers in St. Lucie County. He graduated from Fort Pierce High School in 1928 and opened his tackle store in the P.P. Cobb Building just seven years later. He fought for his country in World War II and moved the store to North Second Street after the war.

As a boy in the 1960s, I delivered the local newspaper to White’s store at 521 N. Second St. It was large by tackle store standards, its greatest feature being an unvarnished wooden floor. Buck’s friend, the pipe-smoking Don “Raffy’’ Raffensberger, filled the store with the aroma of sweet tobacco.

I don’t remember much else about the store except the cast nets hanging on the north wall, arranged according to size. I eyed those cast nets every day I brought the paper in to him and luckily, at Christmas, I received the gift of one of them from landscape artist A.E. “Bean” Backus, Buck’s longtime friend and neighbor. To this day, I boast that I got my first cast net at Buck White’s. When my boys were old enough, I bought them their first cast nets from White’s, though it was under different owners.

The owners after White’s death in 1970 included his sister, Linnie Tamplin; Raffensberger; Raffensberger’s son, Donny; and Scott Crippen, who worked for Raffensberger. Under Crippen, the store was moved from North Second Street to a more visible location at 1106 S. U.S. 1. Crippen also opened three additional locations: in Stuart, Vero Beach and Jupiter before selling the business to Trey Smith in 2023.

White’s long line of successors all kept his name on the stores. It is a name worth remembering.

See the original article in the print publication

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