Thieves snatch £30,000 worth of bait boats from fishing tackle firm

Anglers across the country are being warned to be vigilant this week, following the theft of tens of thousands of pounds worth of kit from a well-known tackle manufacturer.

Over 60 bait boats worth up to £500 each were stolen from a storage warehouse owned by tackle firm GrandeSlam. Combined with a number of fish finders and smaller electronic items the total stock taken amounted to over £30k in what experts are calling an ‘extremely professional’ and ‘highly targeted’ operation – as Grandeslam’s Trevor Allen confirmed to Angling Times:

“The thieves who broke in knew exactly what they were doing and exactly what they wanted,” said Trevor. “They cut the phone lines, disabled the alarm system and forced open a fire exit to gain entry. They then walked past shelf after shelf of other kit to specifically steal the bait boats – the most expensive items we store in the warehouse.

“Our premises are not branded and you’d never know what was in here unless you’d been in here, which makes us think it must be a customer who’s visited us before.”
The company, based in Cheshire, is now asking all anglers to be on the lookout for anyone selling Atom Power, Shuttle and Wave Runner Power boats, as there is a good chance they could well be from the stolen stock.

“Anyone who sees one of these boats up for sale at a bargain price should be aware that they won’t be getting the deal they think they are,” Trevor continued. “All the boats stolen had serial numbers, so if they ever come in for maintenance we’ll know they were the ones that were stolen. Plus, as the thieves didn’t take chargers for all of them, whoever buys one will need to contact us to be able to use their boat anyway, and we’ll be looking out for those orders and asking for the serial numbers.”

Anyone with any information on the break-in, which occurred on the Barley Castle Trading Estate in Warrington in the early hours of May 11, should contact the local police on 0845 4580000