Understand any stock in simple English
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Cabela's sells hunting, fishing, and outdoor gear to people who love being outside.
Cabela's sells gear for people who hunt, fish, camp, and shoot. Think of it as a giant outdoor playground that also happens to be a store — huge buildings filled with fishing rods, rifles, tents, boots, and boats, plus giant tanks of live fish and stuffed animal displays that make the whole place feel like a museum you can shop in. Most of its money comes from retail: customers walking into its big-box stores or ordering from its catalog and website. A meaningful slice also comes from its branded credit card, which pays the company every time a customer swipes it, and from its outdoor clothing and gear lines sold under the Cabela's name.
The company's story matters here because it is no longer independent. In 2017, Bass Pro Shops bought Cabela's for about $4 billion, folding a rival outdoor chain into its own family. That deal ended Cabela's run as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, which is why its market cap is now unknown — it is a private piece of a bigger private outfit, not a stock you can buy on its own. The combined business runs both the Cabela's and Bass Pro banners, sharing warehouses, websites, and buying power to keep prices down and shelves full.
Today the interesting part is how the brand lives on. Even without its own ticker, Cabela's still shows up in outdoor culture through its loyalty program, its credit card partnership with Capital One, and its huge stores that draw travelers off the highway. Its customers keep coming back because the stores turn shopping into a weekend outing, and because the gear is aimed squarely at serious hunters and anglers rather than casual weekend joggers. For a curious reader, the closest public ways to follow this world are the sporting goods retailers and gun makers listed above — they compete for the same outdoorsy wallet, even if none of them is Cabela's itself.
Saved answer · last researched 11 Oct 2026