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By LAURA FRAZIER

lfrazier@tampatrib.com

Published: October 8, 2008

VALRICO - Back in the day, Cheryl Phelps was slapped in the face by an airborne mullet and forced to defend her family's campsite from a troupe of rogue raccoons - and those are two of her fondest childhood memories.

Phelps has boatloads of tales to tell about her adventures in and around the Alafia River near her parents' home on River Drive in Gibsonton.

Most days after school in the '70s, Phelps and her three sisters would dash home, grab a raft or some inner tubes and head for the river. Before setting sail to find friends and make mischief, the girls tied fishing poles to a fence and dropped baited lines into their backyard canal. Off the dock, they anchored traps stocked with chicken necks to lure blue crabs home for dinner.

"It was the perfect place for any child in this world to grow up," Phelps said.

Today, Phelps and her husband, Mike, live on high-and-dry Pine Street in Valrico, but they still venture to the woods and waters for pleasure - and business.

The couple recently opened 4Reel Fishing and Camping Supplies in Lithia Crossings Plaza, next to Stein Mart on Lithia-Pinecrest Road. The little shop caters to families fishing for necessities and novelties to complement their outdoor adventures.

There are rods and reels, tents and propane-powered stoves, inflatable boats, casting nets and bait buckets. Shiny lures to snag snook in the Gulf waters are bestsellers, along with a variety of soft plastic worms favored by bass in the brackish waters of the Alafia near Lithia.

Cheryl Phelps and her sister, Lisa Ordiway, who helps out at the shop, said their lifetime of outdoors experience gives them a good sense of what weekend fishermen and campers want and need.

A tent patch kit for sale might have come in handy 17 years ago, when the sisters took their then-young children camping at Fort De Soto Park. The group awoke in the middle of the night to find their tent under siege by a feisty pack of raccoons.

"They tore apart the seams trying to get in the tent," Phelps said. "The kids were screaming." She managed to fend off the would-be bandits by whacking at the walls of the tent with a frying pan.

The sisters agreed time spent outdoors with friends and family makes for an ideal childhood and indelible memories.

"You have one-on-one time, with no interruptions," said Phelps, who recently took her 3-year-old granddaughter, Trista, fishing for the first time.

"Now, whenever she sees a fishing pole she says, 'Take me fishing, Grandma!'"

4REEL FISHING AND CAMPING SUPPLIES

WHERE: 3430 Lithia-Pinecrest Road, Valrico

HOURS: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday.

INFO: (813) 651-5151 or www.4reelfishingsupplies.com

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523.

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