For nearly fifty years, Mobile has had one dependable answer for anyone who hunts, fishes, runs, or simply wants quality casual clothing built for Gulf Coast life: McCoy Outdoor. Today the store sits on Springhill Avenue just off I-65, chock full of everything the coastal outdoors demands, and the man who has run it for two decades, Dubby Hannon, got there by the most roundabout route imaginable.
“If you have someone in your life who loves the outdoors,” the store’s reputation suggests, this is your place, whether that means a first hunting gun, a fresh spool of fly line, or a pair of running shoes fitted by someone who will not sell you the wrong one.
From the Locker Room to Government Street
Dubby Hannon was born in Houston while his father completed his residency at Hermann Hospital, and the family moved back to Mobile in 1957. At the University of Alabama, he wandered into a job at The Locker Room, a men’s clothing store in Tuscaloosa, without ever applying. “I never interviewed for the job,” he says. “I just started selling clothes one day.”
That accidental start became a career. After graduating with an advertising degree, he worked at the Locker Room in Montgomery for two and a half years, then returned home to Mobile and opened his own store, Wm. Moore, selling high-quality casual menswear, suits, and accessories. He later brought in a partner and renamed it Hannon & Williams. Then, like plenty of good retailers, he got tired of the business and left it to try other things.
Retail had a way of calling him back. A friend mentioned that Steve McCoy, who founded McCoy Outdoor on Government Street in 1975, was ready to sell. “I decided to go back to what I knew how to do, retail.” Hannon bought the store in 2002, when it occupied a stand-alone building on Dauphin Street across from McConnell Automotive, and inherited what every independent retailer dreams of: a loyal customer base built by a beloved founder.
The friendship between buyer and seller never became a memory. “Steve McCoy is a fountain of knowledge. I can pick up the phone and call him anytime. If he’s in town, he usually stops by a couple of times a week.” In 2006, the store moved to its present Springhill Avenue location, and business has been good ever since.
The Christmas Rush and the Covid Run
Outfitting stores live by their seasons, and McCoy’s busiest stretches double normal monthly business around Christmas. The staff is knowledgeable enough that the rush never overwhelms them. “We see wives and grandmothers buying for their husbands, kids, and grandchildren. Fathers are buying first hunting guns, and some are upgrading for their teenagers that have outgrown their first guns. Lots of camouflage,” Dubby says, sketching the December floor in a sentence.
The pandemic, strangely, was a boom. “Covid was good to us as far as sales go, we didn’t have to close. We saw people we’d never seen before.” With so many people unable to work, fishing and running took off first, then hunting and everything else, a two-year run that introduced a whole new generation of customers to the store. Target shooting surged too, which helps explain the ammunition supply chain that has still not fully caught up. In the shotshell world, Tungsten Super Shot, the dense non-toxic shot prized by turkey hunters, is a particular specialty, with .410, 28, and 20 gauge loads a big part of the demand.
Guns, Rods, and the People Who Know Them
The store sells mostly hunting guns, and its buying philosophy is blunt: “We don’t like to buy problems.” The inventory leans on proven names, with Beretta, Benelli, and Browning shotguns on the rack and Retay and Rizzini over-unders and side-by-sides for the wingshooting purists. The camouflage of choice is Sitka, prized for its patterns and fit. And the staff, in Hannon’s telling, is the real product: “We have really good gun guys. Everybody’s go-to gun guy is Stephen Parnell, with Ryan Dixon and Daniel Hughen coming up right behind him.”
Fishing runs year-round on the Gulf Coast, though warmer months shine, and McCoy Outdoor specializes in inshore and freshwater tackle. The rod and reel wall leans on the classics: Shimano reels, G. Loomis and St. Croix rods. Fly fishing gets its own corner, with Sage and Redington outfits, and customers can book casting lessons with staff members like Chip Deupree, a serious angler who teaches the craft. “What we try to do is know what our customers like and keep it in stock,” Dubby says.
Then there is the running department, a McCoy tradition dating to Steve McCoy’s ownership, when local runner and marathon enthusiast Joe Sims was brought in to head it up. Sims has become a fixture, and his rule is simple: he will not let you buy a shoe that is not right for you. He draws so many physician referrals that the shoe wall has become, by Dubby’s account, an important part of the business in its own right, built entirely on reputation.
Clothes for the Coast
Beyond the gear, McCoy Outdoor stocks a strong line of quality men’s sportswear, though Dubby is clear about the mission: “We’re not trying to be a menswear store, but offer a good selection of casual, ready-to-wear men’s clothes.” The racks carry Tom Beckbe, the Southern brand whose name is a play on the Tombigbee River, along with plenty of waxed cotton jackets and quilted vests. For women, the store carries Barbour, the beloved English line whose waxed jackets have become a coastal classic.
Walk in on any given Saturday and the scene Dubby describes holds: customers trying things on, checking things out, trading stories. “It’s always nice to see old customers and meet new ones too. I love to see folks find what they need and leave happy.”
Whatever the season, and whoever the outdoorsperson on your list, the advice from regulars never changes: go by McCoy Outdoor, say hello, and let the people who live this stuff point you right. You really cannot go wrong.