SHAWANO, Wis. — With a tip of the net, Cory Kuhn emptied live bait into a plastic pail on Tuesday.
He was helping a pair of anglers at Kuhn’s Bait & Tackle Palace in Shawano, Wis., on a mid-February day where the temperature was pushing 50 degrees by 11 a.m.
It’s been anything but a normal winter — or normal business — in Wisconsin so far this season.
“My sales are down 75% of normal,” Kuhn said. “The problem is, in my business in winter is most of my income for the whole year. If that doesn’t happen, you don’t make that back up.”
This is the second winter a row with less-than-ideal conditions to attract people to Shawano Lake for ice fishing, Kuhn said.
“I rode out last year. Well, now it’s even worse this winter. I don’t know,” Kuhn said. “I think about that every day; 'how am I going to pay my bills?' Once it gets to summer, I’ll have enough income weekly to get my bills there, but you’ve got to take March and April.”
Still, Kuhn said the business lost over the winter is hard to make up.
“I’ve got to play it out and let it go from day to day,” he said. “Maybe for some reason this summer will be busier than I’ve seen in a lot of years. It’s the only thing I can hope for.”
Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced Tuesday that Small Business Administration loans are available to help businesses impacted by the mild winter.
Many parts of Shawano County that are normally white in February are brown this year. Areas marked as snowmobile trails are open ground, with no snow to speak of.
At the Cecil Diner in Cecil, Wis., waitress Hannah Feffer has noticed an absence of groups of snowmobilers in the restaurant all winter.
“I personally haven’t seen any of them come in this year compared to the last three years I’ve been here,” she said.
Feffer said regulars make up most of the winter business. A mild winter has helped that repeat traffic.
“We’re waiting for spring when the campground across the street opens up and we get a lot more business,” she said.