Walk down the dock at Camper & Nicholson’s Port Louis Marina in St. George’s, Grenada, Google “sportfishing charters in Grenada,” or scroll through social media feeds on the same topic, and you’ll find Capt. Gary Clifford.

The Beginning of True Blue Sportfishing

Clifford is the two-decade-plus owner-operator of the Yes Aye and True Blue Sportfishing. It’s not what he started to do, but Clifford has loved to fish since his uncle gifted him a rod and reel for his 10th birthday. He started freshwater angling in his native UK. Years later, as Clifford planned a move to the Caribbean island of Grenada, he researched the recreational fishing scene. A short news article about a 100-pound wahoo caught a few miles off the island’s north coast got him hooked.

Moving to Grenada and Starting a Charter Business

“When I arrived at Grenada, I found that my neighbor, Cliff Wardally, had a 31-foot flybridge sportfishing boat, the Yes Aye, on a private jetty in his backyard,” Clifford said.  “It was previously named El Zorro Too and owned by the late Jim Edmiston (Edmiston, a California native, is famous for fishing around the world in the 1980s in search of a 2000-pound marlin). I ended up fishing several times with Cliff, catching my first blue marlin, sailfish, yellowfin tuna, etc.” Wardally later announced he was moving to Florida and hence the Yes Aye was for sale. Clifford had some money in his pocket and, as he says, was sufficiently ignorant of boats at the time, so he decided to invest and start his own charter business.

Building a Business from Scratch

“When I first started, my then-wife was working in a hotel, and I was able to get my foot in the door as a tour operator and they started to push a few guests my way,” Clifford said. “This was 1998, so most business came through tour operators as there was no internet and even cell phones were very rare. When Sandals opened in Grenada in 2014, my getting the fishing contract with them was a pivotal moment as it pushed my business from surviving but with a low profit to a consistently profitable one.”

The Magic Number for Profitability

A lesson Clifford learned along the way was his “magic number.” He found he needed to do 200 charters a year to be profitable. One hundred and fifty charters only maintained the boat and kept everything running. “At the beginning, I was worried that the ‘old salts’ would show me up,” he said. “But I soon found out that if I worked hard, I could keep up and even beat them on many occasions. Before I knew it, years had gone by, charter boats came and went and hey, presto, I am the old salt!”

Clifford is one of a fraternity of fishermen who has forged a career as an owner-operator of a successful charter sportfishing operation. Unlike many professions where the route to riches lies in a college degree, followed by a job with a company and climbing up the corporate ladder, no one path fits all and leads to happiness at the helm, plus bills paid, as a sole proprietor. In addition to hard work, being in the right place at the right time, and having a solid boat to do the job – plus catching fish – there are other factors crucial to making it in the charter fishing business.

Capt. Kevin Beach, a New Orleans native, started his career on private boats, first as a mate on a 112-footer and then captain on a 61-foot Hatteras. The downtime spent on maintenance and polishing the teak was okay, but Beach, like most eventual owner-operators, really wanted to fish more. So, he moved to Venice, Louisiana, and worked for a charter company, where he fished every day at the helm of a 26-foot Glacier Bay. Unfortunately, and perhaps serendipitously, it soon became apparent that Beach and the fleet’s owner didn’t see eye to eye.

Founding the Mexican Gulf Fishing Company

“I still thought of fishing more as a hobby than a job at that time,” Beach said.  “Then I started realizing that I was spending half the charter apologizing to the guests for how they were treated by the owner. So, another one of the captains, Billy Wells, and I decided to do our own thing as partners. Our goal was, and is, to be number one. It wasn’t about having the biggest boat or catching the most fish, but instead always offering the best service and best customer experience in our area. After all, for some, this is a trip of a lifetime and they drive hours to get here.” Beach runs a 42-foot Freeman Boatworks catamaran, Pale Horse.

Beach says he learned the importance of customer service as a teenager when he saved up to go on a hunting trip and was ignored by the guides in favor of the bigwigs in the camp. “As they say, if it was simple, everyone would do it,” he says, of the start of he and Wells’s founding of the Mexican Gulf Fishing Company (MGFC) in 2005. “At first, it was 12-hour fishing days, then cleaning up, doing any maintenance, finding time to eat, and then spending three hours on the phone. No one in their right mind is going to do this unless they love it.”

Growing the Business and Setting Goals

By 2010, business was booming. Beach outlined his goals and business plan in his head. He realized that he couldn’t do it all and still achieve his No. 1 customer experience goal. “Being a leader means admitting weaknesses,” he said. “I’m not a computer person. It isn’t my cup of tea. That was the weakest part of our business. But some people can do that, and they do an excellent job. So, we hired an office manager to handle the bookings and to create a website that wasn’t something cookie-cutter.  That meant we could focus on catching fish, giving high fives when we do, and making our customers smile.”

“You can’t buy a reputation, you only can build it,” says Capt. Fin Gaddy, who has chartered out of North Carolina’s Oregon Inlet Fishing Center since 2003, and aboard his custom Paul Mann 56, Qualifier, since 2009. It takes a vote by the other 30-plus charter captains at Oregon Inlet to let new owner-operators in. Fishing since age 12 out of Morehead City, catching his first billfish in 1983, and chartering out of Hatteras for nearly three years had earned Gaddy a solid reputation, a following of clients, and thumbs up from the other captains.

Earning Respect and Building a Clientele

“In the late 80s and 90s, the stereotype of a charter captain was that he drank, cursed, and was footloose and fancy-free,” Gaddy said. “It wasn’t a respected career. My father wanted me to follow him into the family business, in real estate. I remember getting busted in junior high at Hargrave Military Academy for drawing pictures of boats. In high school, my dad sent me clips from the catches out of Oregon Inlet. That was the major leagues, like the NFL, to me. Charles Perry and Sam Stokes were some of the world’s greatest captains and that’s where they were. After I left Western Carolina University, I moved to Nags Head and began mating for captains like Hank Beasley on the Top Billin’.”

A couple of years later, Gaddy bought his own boat and began chartering from Oden’s Dock, in Hatteras, before later heading up to Oregon Inlet. For many years, he also fished the world seasonally, including extended trips to Isla Mujeres and Central America. But the birth of his twin sons made him realize he wanted to be able to go home each night.

Charter Fishing Business Success Tips

“I have a group that’s just fished with me for their 24th year,” says Gaddy. “I think the secret is to never give up, to put forth a true effort. Check the baits. Change the ballyhoo. Don’t get into a rut. Don’t just go through the motions.” It’s also important to realize there’s no time clock in charter sportfishing, he adds. “I get up at 3:15 am every day, leave the dock by 5 am, and am usually back by 5 pm. But, if it hasn’t been a good day for catching, I’ll stick it out another hour. When the pressure is off an area, and a lot of boats are in, it can get productive. For example, one time when we stuck it out, we hit a grass line and caught 15 fish. That’s 50% more fish than the 30 we had during the regular hours. So, it makes a better day for the customers. It’s how to build repeat business.”

Engaging and Entertaining Clients

Sportfishing captains need to be entertainers. This doesn’t mean performing a Hollywood-style song and dance routine. It’s much more subtle, says Capt. Rob Richards, who owns and operates Offshore Adventures, with a 32-foot center console Mixed Bag II and the 40-foot Mixed Bag III, a  Luhrs Express, out of the Westin St. John Resort Villas, in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Richards may not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but his charter business has received top billing from customers for over 20 years.

“You can’t go quiet,” Richards said. “You need to keep the clients engaged if you’re catching fish or not. Tell them you’re going to troll or work a particular spot and if nothing happens after 15 or 20 minutes, then you switch it up, bottom fish, to get some action.  At the same time, you have to know how to read people. Look at them. Are they having a good time? Are they feeling seasick? Are they thirsty? We get visitors from all over the world here, so it’s important to have good people skills. You gotta take care of your folks and catch fish.”

Overcoming Adversity and Choosing Fishing

Richards, a Pennsylvania native who cut his teeth surfcasting for flounder and croakers each summer off the Outer Banks, attended culinary school when he figured he couldn’t make a living fishing. He moved to St. John in the early 1990s to chef at the now-named Westin. He quickly started mating as well on the 31-foot custom sport-fisherman, Gone Ketchin’, with Capt. Wally Leopold. Hurricane Marylin in 1995 blew both jobs away.  When business bounced back, Richards found himself having to choose between fishing or carving the elaborate ice sculptures for Sunday Brunch at Rockefeller’s Caneel Bay Resort. Fishing won.

“The General Manager at the Westin where I first worked was a big fisherman,” he said.  “He was on the board at the local bank too and helped me buy my first boat as well as the contract to charter out of the resort. Now, most of the business is repeat customers and word of mouth. We’re lucky that there are so many fishing grounds here, inshore and offshore, that we can keep clients engaged and entertained the whole time. I have lots of tricks up my sleeve and the tackle onboard for a variety of situations. That said, we fish. If they want to cruise around and sightsee or stop and snorkel, that’s not us.  We fish and we catch fish.”

Sidebar: Bonus ‘Don’t’ Tips to Success

“Don’t engage in price competition—this just leads to everyone losing—your price is your price. Cost your trip accurately based on normal fuel usage and overheads. Ensure that you always monitor your distance back to the dock so that you don’t find yourself having to make longer than normal runs back except under exceptional fishing circumstances.” – Capt. Gary Clifford, Yes Aye

“Don’t feel like you have to go out on a charter if the weather is bad. It may be the right thing to do businesswise because you’ve got bills, boat notes, and a mortgage to pay.  But if it’s extra rough or there’s a storm, be honest with your customers. Bad news travels faster than good news if you take them out anyway and it’s bad. It’s not always easy to do the right thing.” – Capt. Kevin Beach, Pale Horse

“Don’t make it personal and lose touch that your operation is a business. Just like you don’t treat a rental like a home, or Uber like your personal car, don’t lose touch and deck your boat out with all the extras. At the end of the day, both a Mercedes and a Crown Vic will get you where you need to go.” – Capt. Fin Gaddy, Qualifier

“Don’t forget that word of mouth means TripAdvisor and other social media reviews today. Good or bad, a review can be online for years.” – Capt. Rob Richards, Mixed Bag II, and Mixed Bag III

Another great article from our InTheBite archives is “Making Money WIth Your Boat”. A great read for those considering charter fishing.