Hands down, Academy gets the gold ring.

We just had a Dick's open up here in the Austin/Lake Travis area. I checked it out for an hour, and I only shopped the sections of the store I can compare to Academy... fishing, some guns, some outdoor clothing.

Pluses for Dick's... they have Lucky Craft lures, a small selection, and some lower-end St. Croix rods in the 70-110 range.

Negatives for Dick's... No Shimano anything, no Falcon anything, no good-quality store brands that I could see, less selection of everything else than Academy. All brands in inventory were narrow in scope and shallow in depth.

Academy beats their prices on pretty much everything else.

Academy is generally the low-cost vendor in this area, anyway. All Falcon FTO boxes... my tackle system... are 9.99 there, compare to 14.99 at BPS and 11.99 at Cabela's.

BTW, Plano is now making the Falcon FTO boxes for Falcon. I needed to order some replacement latches last week and Falcon directed me to Plano.

Dicks used to carry some Loomis but it was the GL2 series. THe one up here has Shimano plus they have some decent clearance items from time to time--but I agree Academy is much better.

The worst by far is Sport Authority--even when they had decent stuff--their customer service stunk and the SA by Hulen here in FtWorth was about as organized as a flea market

Each store will cater to the area that service. If sales are good for each department, then they will expand on it to accomodate the buyer. It is called Supply and Demand.

You would expect one to have more fishing items if they were closer to the lake than one that is not.

Just like the Walmarts near the lake and on the coast. There fishing items do not compare to those that are not near the lake or are inward away from the coast.

Where is the Dicks located? I never even knew one opened here in Austin.

Dick's is in Bee Cave, in the shopping center at 71 and Bee Cave Rd (2244), right behind the McDonald's.

Personally, I so fondly remember Bee Cave when it was just a small outpost on the way to the lake, when there was very little except the lake out there. Sigh.

Yeah same here was not to long ago it was just that I am only 19 and I rember when it was just a stop light and a few gas stations. I hate driveing out that way now.

There is a coupon for 10.00 off when you buy 25.00 worth of thing at Dick's. It's in the TP&W regulations book page 13

Academy just put out some good prices. Eagle 320 for 139.99. I also like the handgun selection there.

Dicks sucks. No pun intended. Academy all the way.

Sure am glad Dicks opened a store in Bee Cave since Academy doesn't have one in the Lakeway area. At least I'll be able to buy line, hooks, etc. without driving all the way to the Academy on Brodie.

Academy's are more readily available for me.

both suck in my opinion

Academy

Definitely Academy...to me Dick's caters more to organized sports than fishing/hunting or at least the one in Flower Mound seems that way...

I have to think if they had to rely on sales from the fishing/hunting department they would be out of business in a hurry.

Checked out Dicks this weekend and Sports Auth.( old Oshmans) in southpark when they opened....they both are high priced/low selection stores.
One would think that a store would listen to their customers but that's not true from what I've seen (Academy included). Sportsmans Warehouse in Round Rock is the only decent store in the area IMHO. Mail order BassPro or the SA store gets most of my business.

It seems to me that Dicks is more into the organized sports stuff. They are definitely higher priced on an everyday basis. Floor staff knows nothing so do not bother asking. I thought that I could save a trip to Academy and pick up a spinner plate at Dicks. No such luck they will sell the big ticket item but forget about the accessories. Heck even WM sold spinner plates at one time. I was glad when Dicks opened I thought, good we will have some competition for the high overhead overpriced BPS. I will cherry pick at Dicks when they run ads and look for deals otherwise it is Academy.

Agree with Harley...and Academy is Texas based. They know what we want/need.

I shopped Dicks in San Antonio out next to Bass Pro Shop and it sucked. Me and my friends went into Bass Pro first and I was bragging on Dicks so we went over and checked them out. Hardly nothing in the way of fishing. More clothes than anything else. That store wont stay open for long with it next to Bass Pro.

Dick's is almost a waster of time if you are a bass fisherman.

Only down side of academy is I use a left hand reel so I buy the reals at dicks and the tackle at academy.i wish they would start carying more leftys I've seen at most 2 or 3 at each store?

I dont like Dicks....

only thing I buy at Dicks is Roboworms. and yes, it is a store for killing time in...... nothing of real interest for me- but if I golfed or ran track, I would be in heaven...

+1 Sports Authority is worse than Oshmans use to be. I rather go to Walmart, lol

Does anybody remember the name of the big sports store that was at Central and Royal Lane? They had a great fishing departmant. Lots of high end stuff and always had a bunch of good stuff marked down. I bought a lot there 8 or 9 years ago.