Balancing work, family, and other commitments has never been easy. But it sure helps if you love and enjoy your job. While it’s hard to find a charter captain who doesn’t love to fish, doing it for a living is far from simple. Being in touch with captains 24/7, 365 days a year, we discovered a lot about the issues captains face during the high season.
It’s not just captains who get booked back-to-back that struggle in high season. Captains face all sorts of problems throughout the entire year, and the high season just makes them all the more pressing. As we look forward to the next peak term, we thought we’d give you a rundown of the most common issues captains face, and some tips on how to deal with them.
Last-Minute Bookings
One of the biggest headaches of the high season is last-minute bookings. This is a difficult thing to deal with in the best of times, but arranging a trip for an inflexible customer can be a real nightmare when you’re all booked up.
Here, it’s also important to understand the customer’s side of things. When people are on vacation with their family, they’re likely to have a lot of other things pre-planned and will think of their fishing trip as a part of that overarching plan. Show them you’re willing and able to work for them and you’ll be golden.
Say your potential customer wants to book a 2:00–6:00 p.m. slot, but you can only do trips from 3:00 p.m. A good plan is to offer them a three-hour trip that will still work with their schedule, if they’re unable to take up the whole four hours.
Bad Weather Cancellations
Lousy weather is unfortunate, but it’s something you can usually fix easily by rescheduling. Unfortunately, that’s hardly an option when you’re all booked up for the next few weeks!
The key is to still try to provide a service to the customer. If you know a captain who would be able to take them fishing, recommend just that. Both sides will be grateful, and word of mouth is a strong thing.
If you’re just starting out, every good word from a customer is worth its weight in gold!
Stress
Stress is part of daily life in modern society, and dealing with it isn’t anything new in the charter business, either. Most stressful situations tend to happen before the trip is even due to begin. Whether it’s a mechanical failure, bad weather, inflexible customers, or something else entirely, it’s easy to get burnt out during the high season.
While everyone deals with stress differently, maintaining a positive attitude is a good way to get started. Captain Matt in Islamorada, likes to say that “We get paid to go on someone’s vacation.” It’s easy to forget about the perks of the job and focus on the problems – it’s just the way we’re wired!
Sloppy Organization
The best way to free up some personal time for yourself is to run your business like a well-oiled machine. One way to avoid problems and time-sinks is to keep your calendar up to date and avoid double-bookings.
This has the upside of maintaining a reputation for reliability, while also giving you some time for R&R. Your FishingBooker calendar helps you manage this with ease, and you can now do it on-the-go with our FishingBooker for Captains app!
Missing Your Loved Ones
Speaking of R&R, it’s too easy to neglect friends and family when you’re swamped with work. Regular contact with people you care about is very important for your health, but circumstances can make it more difficult – especially this year! Some captains even go out-of-state to run charter trips!
We’re fortunate to live in a time when things like video chat are readily available for those of you in a different location. But even something as simple as a phone call will allow you to unwind before going back on the water again. Of course, if you’re running charters in your hometown, don’t forget to make time for those close to you.
What’s the Key? Communication!
As with most things in the charter fishing industry, communication goes a long way to making your life easier. And your customers too! From clearly letting customers when you’re available to speaking with your loved ones, it’s all in the communication!
Even if you need to recommend a different captain to your customers, this can help your business in the long-run. All kinds of clear communication with them is positive. Help them out and, more often than not, they’ll return the favor through word of mouth or a good review.
When you look back on the season and the glowing recommendations from customers, you’ll know your hard work paid off.
Do you have any tips for managing high season? How do you make sure you don’t buckle under the pressure? Let us know in the comments below! We’d love to hear from you!
