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Lawyers and politicians are still among the regulars at Karem’s, and politics and rumors out of Frankfort continue to be favorite subjects between sips of beer. “What goes on in Karem’s stays in Karem’s,” Jury deadpans. Chatter around the two large tables competes with the scratchy eeks of caged crickets and the constant hum of a compressor cooling two minnow tanks.

Regardless of the noise, regulars still pack in on U of L and UK game days. And during Jeffersontown’s annual Gaslight Festival, crowds gather outside every evening. “It’s like homecoming,” Jury explains. “Everybody knows Karem’s and they meet here before moving on.”  With the parking lot fenced off, Jury creates a stand-up beer garden and says he’ll easily serve 3,000 people before the festivities end.

Jury says he isn’t worried about competition from Cabela’s, the recently opened outdoors megastore, even though Karem’s – with its 800 square feet of worn-smooth concrete floor – could fit inside Cabela’s 110 times. “We have different business models,” he says. “It’ll be good for us. Bait still turns the wheel. The more people fish, the more business we get.”  

Business is indeed good: sport fishing today is a $40 billion-plus industry.  And, as with leisure-time pleasures such as horse racing and bourbon sipping, Louisville and environs have played a pivotal role in angling’s growth.

No more than a two-hour drive from Karem’s, Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region gave birth to modern bass fishing when, in 1810, George Snyder, a Paris, Ky., watchmaker, built the first baitcasting reel.

In the years that followed, a tight-knit group of watchmakers centered in the Frankfort area improved upon what became known as the “Kentucky reel.”  The Meek, Milam and Gayle families operated the longest-lived and the most prolific of these firms. Built using bench-top lathes and cutting tools, their baitcasters had the precision of time-pieces, featuring multiplying gears, German silver, and jewel bearings. Only the wealthy could afford their price tag, about $1,000 in today’s currency.