Prime Openings and Discount Trips

State of the booking world: By Brian Gies – 

Given the current state of the world we are bombarded every day with stories of financial loss, job loss, and the likes. There is no doubt the media has overinvested in this misfortune and they seem pleased enough to keep the bad news pouring in. Naturally, much of our time with you, our valued clients, is spent talking about this topic. Many of you have expressed concern as to how our business is holding up. We sincerely thank you for taking the time to ask. Your interest in our well being means a great deal to us. And, like everyone else we are nervous.

But truth be told, Fly Water is doing just fine, actually better than that, we are doing great. Yes many of our clients are cutting back or taking a year off entirely. However, we are receiving a higher degree of referrals than ever before and unfortunately because many of our top lodges are having a tough time, we have more prime space to offer our clients. The net effect being that we are having our best year ever. Improbable? Yes. Appreciated? Without question. Long lived? Who knows? But the bottom line is that we remain overwhelmed by your support. Thank you.

What exactly does this have to do with discounts and prime openings? Well, the follow up question to how Fly Water is doing tends to be how are the lodges doing and if we think they will be offering any discounts. The answer to that question is that we are associated with some of the best guides, lodges, and outfitters in the industry and on a whole they seem to be doing fairly well but they are all feeling the strain of these challenging times. Not to get too deep into the economics of outfitting but the bottom line is that most operators work 80% of their season to break even and the last 20% gets them through the off season. Profits are often spent on new boats, planes, brochures, websites, and ever increasing insurance premiums. Make no bones about it, avoid all aspects of the fly fishing industry if you are looking to get rich. But, for those of us committed, it is a great way of life and few of us would have it any other way.

Back to the point. The point is that there are more discounts floating around now than ever before and we are also finding unprecedented openings (not discounted) in some of the best weeks at the very best lodges. So what should you, the traveling angler, do about it? Well I will try and explain, or give you advice from our point of view.

The simple explanation is this. If there is a lodge you have always wanted to visit during a certain time but have never been able to get into, let us know. Odds are better than ever, we can make it happen. Or if you have a flexible schedule and can deal with short notice airline bookings, this is a great time to bargain shop. Great deals are out there and we are making a point to search them out. Right now two things are happening. More people than ever are walking away from their non-refundable lodge deposits, and lodges are generally finding it hard to fill the last 20% of their season. What you should know is many, but not all, of these discounts are on dates that occur during their shoulder seasons. The exception to this is when anglers walk away from deposits on prime weeks.

We have had a number of people ask, "Why should I book early when I could wait for a better deal?" Good question. The questions we ask in response follow: "How badly do you want to go on the trip?" "Are the dates good and do they fit well with your schedule?" If so, then we recommend you lock it in and put it in your schedule. As your advocate we strongly suggest that if our outfitters were to offer a discount on non-cancelled trips the week our clients have pre-booked, that they should in fairness pass that discount on to our clients. While we cannot guarantee this will happen, we can say that we have great relationships with our outfitters and more often than not have found them to be fair and reasonable in these awkward situations.

The bottom line is that we all are working exceptionally hard to get through these times and most likely we are working too many hours and stressing too much over things that are somewhat out of our control. Our advice is that now more than ever might be a great time to just go fishing.

Thanks again for all your support and we will look forward to talking soon.