Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Woodland Firearm & Supply recently moved to a larger location on U.S. 41 in Baraga, allowing them to expand on the selection of goods they already had for hunting, fishing and more.

BARAGA — Woodland Firearms & Supply has a new bigger location to offer even more of what people need for a good outdoors experience.

The Baraga outdoors store recently relocated from its longtime building on M-38 to one about two-and-a-half times larger on U.S. 41.

Owner Jason Chaudier purchased the store from a friend. Woodland worked from March to the store’s opening in August to fix up the building, which had once been a welding shop before sitting vacant the previous 15 years.

“I thought I’d be on M-38 forever,” he said. “But once this became available and I looked at it, I figured it was doable … there was a lot of work, but we finally got ‘er done.”

The building’s larger, and so is the property outside. That means they can store more things on-site.

Woodland already sells livestock feed, but with the additional space Chaudier hopes to get into heating pellets, deer feed and round bales for supplementary feeding of deer in the winter.

It all adds up to the store being able to build on its established brand: hunting, fishing, archery and feed.

“We’re going to expand on what we had, but definitely carry more of,” he said. “We already wanted to have more lures, more flashers for trolling, more this, more that.”

Woodland carries a range of arms, including rifles, handguns, muzzle loaders. It also sells and services bows and crossbows.

There’s plenty of fishing gear, including an extensive trolling section. And there’s supplies for outdoor ice fishing, deer blinds for hunting season, and more.

Chaudier opened Woodland in his garage in October 2014. A tutor at Baraga Area Schools, he went to gunsmithing class and decided to open a hobby shop in the summer when he wasn’t working. After a busy first summer, he quit his tutoring position and made the shop his full-time job.

The next year, he moved Woodland to the site on M-38, building an addition a year after that.

“Once we got to that location, we had a little bit more room, so we brought in some flushing stuff to fill in the slow times when there’s no hunting,” he said. “And then it just blew up from there. So it’s been good.”

Chaudier enjoys the camaraderie in the shop, where customers come in all the time to talk and weigh their animals. Woodland has a weigh station, and also serves as a bear check station for the Department of Natural Resources.

“I love being able to come to work and talk hunting and fishing with everybody,” he said. “You can’t beat that.”

Customers are liking the bigger location, Chaudier said.

“The other one was a little tight,” he said. “You got five people in there and it felt like it was packed, so we needed it. Everybody’s excited about us expanding the selections we did have.”

Woodland Firearms & Supply is at 508 U.S. Highway 41 in Baraga. It’s open from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.