Steve V. Purcell sold Larry’s Tackle Shop to Peter and Melissa Sliwkowski of Chappaquiddick. Mr. Purcell has owned the store since 2008, but worked there for nearly two decades before that.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Larry’s Tackle Shop has a new owner. He is the same guy who has been behind the counter and stocking the walls with fishing gear for years.

Steve V. Purcell has stepped from managing the store to owner and he did it with little fanfare back in March.

For him, this is the realization of a dream. Though he has managed the store for years, he has run it as though he owned it.

“I don’t know what I would have done without thinking about the store,” he said.

Over the years she has sold a lot of eels and given out a lot of advice about how and where to catch fish.

And last month Ruth Meyer, former longtime owner of Larry’s Tackle Shop and a quiet unsung hero in the fishing community, was inducted into the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby hall of fame.

On a rain-streaked morning last week, Ms. Meyer sat at her home in Edgartown and recounted a few memories. “I didn’t choose to run a fishing tackle shop because sales was my profession. I inherited it,” she said.

In the last weeks of the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, Steve Purcell got phone calls from around the Vineyard — and around the country. “They asked me, where was I?” Mr. Purcell said.