While there are many aspects to starting, running and maintaining a charter fishing business, it is an ever evolving enterprise. Your business will be impacted by new and changing regulations, new fishing techniques, and a consistently changing marketing approach. Your job, aside from catching fish and entertaining your customers, is to stay current with all the changes that the future of charter fishing will bring.
It is my opinion that every charter captain should develop a specialty. Whether you are an inshore guide, near shore guide out to say twenty-five miles, or an offshore guide to the Gulf Stream, you should have a specialty for which you are known. For example, I was/am an inshore and near shore guide, but my specialty is inshore. More specifically, my specialty is red drum. Let’s look at this more closely. Using myself as an example, once dedicated to red drum, over time I came to understand the fish. That is in any weather, any tide, any moon I could/can be pretty sure where the drum would be and at what time. And, I also knew when they probably would not bite anything. While predicting no bite is not a good tactic with customers, you can turn it into a positive. Offer an alternate fishing plan to increase the chance of a positive result or if possible reschedule at a later date. Many customers will see this as you having THEIR best interests and enjoyment as a priority.
Even though you are known for a “specialty” in your chosen field, you must maintain a strong ability to variations that may, no will occur on any given fishing trip. An example would be you set up at a particular location for red drum; almost immediately your customer catches a nice trout and then another trout. At this point, it might be best to lighten up your tackle, switch to scented soft plastics and focus on catching trout. In such an instance, I doubt any customer will be unsatisfied. I always carried six rods, two for trout, two for flounder and two for red drum and tackle for all three. It was a lot of tackle, but gave me the flexibility to adapt to what the fish were doing. Remember, your customer wants his rod to bend!
Although it is highly unlikely that I have covered all you need to know about the charter business, there is one more thing I would like to suggest. You should develop a slogan that is unique to you. It should be in every form of advertising you use, on your stationary, on the signature lines of your emails and even on your vehicle. In other words, it should be everywhere. You will see mine below.
I hope that in many ways I have helped those interested in starting or improving a charter fishing business. At any point please feel free to contact me with questions or whatever. I stand ready to help and I wish you great success.
This is the fifth and final segment of several articles aimed at starting and maintaining a charter business for those interested in pursuing an inshore, near shore or offshore captain’s license and charter business.
Co-Author Capt. Rick Bennett, Ret.
www.rod-man.com
