About Sportsman's Outfitter & Marine

Sportsman's Outfitter & Marine was established in 1995. Over the years, we have evolved from a full-line outdoor sporting goods dealership featuring Boats, Engines, Hunting, Fishing, Camping, and Archery equipment; to our business today focused on new and used boats accompanied by the parts and accessories to go with them. Sales and Service go hand in hand at Sportsman's Outfitter & Marine, which as most boaters in Kansas City already know, that is NOT the typical model of our competitors.

We originally were founded as a full line exclusive Tracker Marine dealer, but we parted ways with Tracker Marine (now White River Marine) Group starting back in 2010. You may ask us about that any time you wish. One great advantage for us is that we have been privileged to represent several other respectable lines of boats along the way. This gives us some fairly unique knowledge when you come to us needing service or seeking to purchase your next boat. We are very proud to carry the very best products from Lund, Crest, Harris, and Bayliner, all powered by Mercury and Mercruiser. When possible, we even have been offering wakeboard boats from Heyday. However, we can expertly compare and contrast anything that we offer versus Premier, Triton, Tahoe, Sun Tracker, Ranger, Landau, Tracker, Lowe, Four Winns, Suncruiser, Sea Ray, Maxum, Glastron, Princecraft, Cypress Cay, Sun Catcher, Rinker, Crownline, Nitro, Palm Beach, Stratos, Yamaha, Boston Whaler, G3, Caravelle, and many others because we have knowledge of those brands through our collective experience.

The world turned into a fairly harsh place back in the late 2000's for those of us who make our living selling leisure. There are permanent scars on our industry from the great recession. We are proud to have persevered through some very big changes. Most of the individual dealers and even several of the actual brands of boats we used to compete against are simply gone. Today, in major markets like Kansas City, you will find just a select few independently owned boat dealers and then typically one or more “big box stores”. In the mid-2010's the industry saw a steady albeit slow improvement and things stabilized. We completed our move from our original store in Lee's Summit to our current location in Belton in 2013.  We have grown steadily and added new brands of boats over time in the new store.

In 2019, we acquired an additional 3.5 acres of property next to our campus bordering I-49 with the goal in mind of providing secure storage with year-round 24/7 access for our customers. It took a bit of time to get it developed and ready, but once it was completed we quickly filled our storage lot and we currently are able to accommodate between 90 and 110 units annually. We have acquired more of our surrounding property to give us the option to further increase this capacity in the future if needed. There are tremendous benefits to storing your boat where you can get it serviced during the season as well as winterized and shrink wrapped during the winter.  Call or email us about availability.

More recently when covid took over every aspect of day-to-day life, originally we feared another scenario like we found ourselves in back during the recession. Those worries proved to be unfounded. After the original uncertainty of what day to day life would be like started to wear off, we found people flocking to the recreation industry in numbers not seen since the turn of the century. Not only boating, but all outdoor industries were hit with unexpected demand as families looked for safe ways to recreate during a time when vacations, youth sports, and even in-person school and work were simply not an option. For a few years, low inventories and rising values for both new and trade-in boats became the norm. The country changed and the economy shifted, and it will still take more time for the supply chain to recover from the demand that was created not just in the marine industry, but virtually every major facet of manufacturing. To this day most businesses including the service industries are struggling with a shortage of labor. The auto industry is still manipulating the supply of vehicles, but available inventory at the better dealers in the marine industry has recovered and everybody has plenty of boats in stock again. We are grateful every day for the blessings we enjoy, the challenges of trying to do a better job than our competitors of providing our products and services are the BEST challenges to have. Our mission is to meet those challenges to the best of our ability...every. single. day.  

Some things have not changed. Our commitment is steadfast to offer the very best boats available to the Kansas City area and as importantly, back them up with the very best service department. The overall ownership experience matters at Sportsman's Outfitter & Marine. From the start, you will not find a pushy sales person here, nor will you feel the vacuum of a big-box chain type atmosphere. What you will find are friendly, polite, experienced professionals eager to help answer your questions and find the right fit for your individual needs. You will meet and work with a manager or an owner of our business, and collectively we will do whatever we can to help you. Our local, family-owned business relies heavily on repeat and referral customers, and we recognize that and do our best to earn those every single day. These stories are demonstrated in our online reviews, if you have not done business with us please do not hesitate to vet us and do your research. If you have done business with us we would love to hear your story, even if it means there is an area that we need to improve. The bottom line is that if there is anything we can do to help you that is even remotely related to the boating lifestyle, give us a call or stop by soon. As you have noticed, we have been growing. We love doing business in and continually improving our new campus in Belton, we are priveleged to have signed several prestigious new lines of boats, we are acquiring and developing more property around us for our year round storage and general operations, we are continuously adding talented new individuals to our outstanding team of employees, and we are very excited about the future of our company. We look forward to earning your business!

-Carl Johnson

Sportsman's Outfitter & Marine earned the NMMA’s dealer certification distinction, which assures you the very best boat buying experience available. This certification simply means the best processes and procedures are in place – and in use – with every single customer we are fortunate enough to work with. Very few dealers in the country have the resources and dedication to even attempt to earn this certification. We are proud to have completed the process and we are eager to help you and your family have a great experience buying, selling or maintaining your boat.