Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What would people pay for a trophy

I'm almost embarassed to ask this but here goes. Many of you know that I'm retiring soon. Even though I'm going to be OK financially in my retirement I could use some extra income here and there. You know, for building new ponds, fishing trips, hunting trips, etc.. My wife may not think that these things are a good use of our retirement nest egg. Anyway, I figured that since I've put a lot of money and time into growing some pretty good sized HBG I might be able to make a little extra cash from my pond. Is that a forbidden thing amongst pondmeisters? My thought was to do some very limited trophy fee fishing. I think I would charge X amount of dollars to someone who wanted to spend 4 hours catch and release fishing my pond and then charge X dollars extra to take a large fish for mounting. In MN the state record HBG is 1lb 12 oz. I can currently guarantee anyone fishing my pond that they'll catch some fish over 1 pound and most times they'll get several fish at least 1.5 pounds. My largest fish weighed to date is 1 lb 10.5 oz. Here in my state you cannot register a farm pond fish for a record however. Anyone ever done this? Got any idea what would be a fair price to charge? Just trying to think of alternative income options that help defray the cost a bit. Plus, I'd like to prove to my wife that people will pay to catch large BG. She's thinks I'm nuts.

I think it is a great idea ~ I talk to people all the time that have pay lakes. I don't know how much they charge, but it seems to me to be a great way to make a little play money on the side.

See these.

http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=27

Forget the all potential business models; its very clear to me your motivation BZ. I'll show her.
Which IMO has lead to some fantastic stories.

No violation of the Pond Boss COE (Code of Ethics) as far as I can tell.

Thanks for the input so far folks. Ewest, I have read those documents before, good info. But I'm not really looking at making a regular fee fishing business with tons of customers. I just would like to cater to a few people who would like to catch the biggest BG of their lives and have it mounted. I have a small pond and maybe only 20 or 30 fish that would count as trophies. Here in MN I would guess 98% of fisherman have never caught a sunfish or BG over 1 pound. And I think next year I'll have some state record fish available. I had a friend come over this weekend to test out how many fish the average guy could catch in 3 hours. We had some bad weather come through and the fishing was about as slow as it gets on my pond but the guy still caught 12 fish with 5 of them between 1#6oz and 1#8oz. What do you think MNFish? I had a friend come over earlier this summer and he caught over 30 fish in two hours with half of them running between those same sizes. I just can't bring myself to eat the big ones and yet some day I know I'm going to find them belly up as they get older. I'd just like to find a very few people that would really enjoy catching and mounting one and be able to recoup some of my cost of raising them. But what would people pay? I have friends who think I could get anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a thousand dollars for the fishing experience and a fish. I'm certainly not going to give them away but at the same time I don't want to be greedy. Glad to here I wouldn't be violating any PB code either!

I don't have a clue what people would pay for trophy fish.

Quit being silly Cecil!

BZ,

I don't know how this would go over. Myself being a avid fishermen would not mount anything I caught out of a pond. To me that isn't real fishing it's fun fishing yes but in an controlled invironment. Sorry if that hits you sideways that's not what I meant to do that's just me and my opionion. I believe and a lot of avid fishermen believe if you don't catch your fish in an un controled invironment and water that isn't open to the public for anyone to fish then don't bother telling me about the fish you have on the wall. With that said it may still work but I don't think you will get the response you think you will. Don't get me wrong it sounds like a blast and it would be fun to catch the fish I would pay more for that than to keep one for the wall. You see to a real fishermen having a fish mounted on the wall and than telling someone you caught it out of 3 or 4 acre pond would be like killing a big buck in a pen so to speak. Just not really that impressive. Like I said this is just my take on it and don't be mad for what I am saying I am not putting your pond down or your awesome fish in it.

RC51

RC51:

I have no fish mounted on the wall as of yet.

The day I catch a huge trophy out of one of my ponds and mount it on the wall, I won't be saying "I caught this big fish."

I will be saying "I GREW this big fish."

BZ,

Can be done and it is done out west from what I hear in some exclusive trout ponds. What you need is an experience that is impossible to get anywhere else, as in not only the size of the fish but the premises. And you will need to add large fish from time to time, as some may die no matter how careful the angler is if he releases the fish, and they will get harder and harder to capture in a pond.

If it was me I would have more than one pond for different species and experiences, and production ponds elsewhere on the premises. I assume we are not talking about the run of the mill fish out pond here right?

I have people beg me to fish my ponds when they find out what I have and the size of the fish. Anymore I turn most of them down unless it's someone I trust in angler skills. The problem is some people can't land a large fish to save their life. For some reason they get kind of a "buck fever" and all common sense goes out the window when they get a large fish on. I had one angler loose five large trout in a row (most broke the line because he had the drag set too tight or didn't have a clue on tying the right knot), some floated up a few days later and a few were laying on the bottom rotted when I drained the pond. Needless to say he will never ever be back.

Can be done. Be creative, advertise, and eventually word of mouth will probably be your only needed source of advertisement.

Personally I'll stick to selling the frozen trophy fish to taxidermists all over the country. I can enjoy the experience of fishing myself at my own pace, and get paid for it. Top price so for one fish so far has been $200.00. I may be able to exceed that in two years if my brook trout get over 6 lbs.

Hey Greg,

Yeah now that's sounds more like it. I would mount one out of my pond to say I grew it and look what I can do for your pond??? Or something like that. That make more since to me for sure!

Rc51

BZ,

When new Pondmeister's show up here with questions, the first question the experienced Pondmeister's usually ask is "what are your goals?". I think any goal for building a pond is worthy if it's what you really want. I don't think any pond goals or activities are frowned upon as long as they're legal and honest.

Good luck on your venture.

bz,I would think you would have to ask yourself a few questions:

1. How much income would you earn on an annual basis versus and would it be worth it?

There are going to be extra costs associated with this venture from the get go. First I would suggest a telephone call with your insurance agent to find out what type of additional insurance would be necessary to properly protect you and your assets. I would also contact my attorney to find out what types of agreements would need to be drafted to facilitate such a venture. For example would the anglers be required to sign a "fish at your own risk" agreement or some similar thing. I have no experience with this type of business so I'm just tossing out ideas.

Even if you limit the number of people that you are going to allow to fish, this will change the character of your property and your pond experience IMHO. My experience has been that when people pay for something they feel some form of entitlement and generally you will feel some form of obligation. Will this change how you feel about your pond?

2. You indicate that you have 20 or 30 fish that would could as trophies, how would you sustain a fishery in order to keep the quality of the catch high? In other words what additional costs would be necessary in order to maintain a high quality fish population that would be a draw for anglers.

3. You probably already have, but read through the thread how much fishing is too much. There is some interesting information in that thread.

Provided you entered into this with a profit motive and took adequate steps to ensure that this would be viewed as a business rather than a hobby, this venture could make many of your pond costs tax deductible. Talk to your bean counter he/she will probably have some input.

These are just ramblings from a disorganized mind so feel free to disregard any and all information.

BZ - Here are my thoughts. My neighbor and I have been kicking the same idea around for awhile. We don't have the quality fish that you do but were getting close. I belive your right in that people would like to experience catching BG the size of a dinner plate. I also believe people would love to catch large numbers of nice sized fish in a condensed time frame. From my experience, we allow 15 to 20 people fish our ponds each year. Kids and adults. Experienced and inexperienced fisherman. Sober and drunk. Assume all fish caught will die.
I believe you could make it work, depending on your dollar expectation, if you had one fishing pond and multiple grow out ponds. Heres why I say that. Just like a pheasant farm. They release the birds you pay for. Using the same principle. Load your fishing pond with whatever number of trophy BG's along with nicer sized fish. Every fish caught comes out and every fish is paid for. I would assume the fish will die from handling, deep hooking, or simply get hook smart. From your growout ponds "reload" your fishing pond with the same number that was harvested. This way you keep your fishing pond full of lively trophy BG's, that are hungry and not hook smart all the time. Monitor the amount of trophy fish in your growout ponds and the rate of replacement to determine the amount of revenue you can generate each year.
For us we have decided, if we do this, we are going to target the business sector. Corporate day of fishing, fish cleaning demonstration, fish fry and such. Nothing for a company to write a $1,000 check for team building activity and a very unique experience. The proximity to the city is a huge bonus.
Any way just my thoughts.

Excellent thoughts, all of you. RC51, absolutely no offense taken. I asked for advice because I want honest opinions and information. The insurance and liability thing is something I hadn't thought of at all. Those are good points JHAP. Appreciate you comments to MNFish, you have obviously done some thinking on this already. The one thing I'm struggling with is while you all have good points I'm really not trying to make any long term business out of this. I'd just like to see someone get some enjoyment out of this besides for me and my friends and I'd like to see some of these fish get mounted for posterity. I'd do this while the fish last with no effort to make it last a long time. But I can't justify just opening this to the public and not getting compensation for my time and expense either. I agree with many of you, if it were me I'd only mount one of my own fish because I "grew" it. This really isn't fishing. That's why I don't have one mounted for myself. One thing that got me to thinking about this is a recent experience. I had an acqaintance who's Dad was dying of cancer. The son told me that his dad lived and breathed fishing for BG and had not been able to fish for several years. He asked if he could bring him over to fish my pond. Of course I was pleased to help him out. He and two brothers brought their dad over in a wheel chair and set him on the bank to fish. They fished for 4 or 5 hours, we had a picnic, and the dad caught a dozen BG bigger than he'd ever caught. He was all smiles when he left. He died the next day. It's hard to describe how grateful the sons were for one last day of fishing with dad and some great pictures of him with large fish. Maybe I should just look for people who are terminally ill to invite over? In some ways I've been like Mnfish, I have a dozen or so close friends and family who've fished my pond many times. The interesting part is that about half of them really appreciate the experience and the effort I've put in to give them that experience while the others just take it for granted. Hence my dilemna, wanting to see some people really enjoy and appreciate this but also thinking that since not everyone is appreciative of the free priveleges I feel like I also want to recoup some costs.

Here is one other idea BZ. If you love seeing appreciative people enjoy your pond and it sounds like you do just like me. Kids and less fortunate is where its at. Never had anyone with a terminal illness but that must have been one of the proudest moments ever experienced.
I had one dad from my work place ask me if I would allow his troop of boy scouts up to my place for a day. Kids could earn merit badges for variuos things one of which was fishing. I said no problem as long as all the boys raked pond weeds and hauled this firewood out of the woods. They got a great day and I was compensated with labor from 14 people.

JHAP,

That's some good infomation right there! Having people come to fish on your pond could lead to some serious issues couldn't it? I didn't even thing about the legal end of it at all and that's really where BZ needs to start if he is going to do this for money.

RC51

I like the idea of helping out the less fortunate, although I am unsure how a monetary compensation would be had. Hopefully the joy it would bring you would far outweigh any monetary gains.

That being said, maybe it would be possible to work out some kind of deal like Cecil had talked about and sell your fish to taxidermists. You could let people (obviously a smaller number that you feel worthy) fish your pond, and then any fish that look like they aren't going to make it think about selling those?

These are just my couple weak ideas, but maybe they can be a jumping off point for something greater. Just trying to figure out a good way to gain compensation while still helping those in need.

That is an incredibly moving story. Pond Meistering at it's finest.

RC, unfortunately many people do not take enough time to think through legal issues and consult with an attorney. IMHO, when starting any new business venture one of the very first meetings should be with an attorney and a CPA, and preferrably both together. Legal liabilty should be one of the major topics.

Anytime you bring the public on to your property you have the potential to raise liabililty issues, and, at least in California, if the people that you are bringing onto your property are customers (Invitee) then the business owner owes the invitee the highest "duty of care" which includes taking every reasonable precaution to ensure the invitee's safety. So when a customer is on your property it raises the bar of potential liability. When a business visitor (or employee) is on a property the landowner also has an absolute obligation to repair any dangerous conditions on the property and to warn any business visitors of hidden defects that have not been repaired. This is very diffent that what is required by merely having a friend on the property.

Generally a different form of insurance must be purchased when you conduct business on a property, call your insurance agent and discuss this.

I'm a bean counter, not an attorney, so please, please contact your attorney when considering any new business venture. In addition I'm only familiar with California, so please check the laws in your paticular state.

Thanks again all. I'm still thinking on this. The problem I have JHAP with discussing any venture with a lawyer is they have nothing but bad news. I've contemplated the legal issues of business ventures before and did consult with lawyers on those. The answer I got went something like this:

1. You better put signs up that state people will engage in this activity at their own risk, and you better have everyone sign a waiver.

2. You better not put signs up like that because it will open you up to a law suit, after all, the sign signifies that you know there is danger to your customers, and you better not have people sign a waiver because it also signifies you are aware of the risks.

So when I asked what should I do? The answer: You better not even think of starting a business with any personal risk involved because there is no legal way to protect yourself.

Big help huh?

bz you talked to the wrong lawyer.

+1

I'm not trying to discourage you Bz. I'm a business owner myself. I know it can seem overwhelming considering all of the possibilities that could happen when in all likely hood none of them will happen. That being said all it takes is one lawsuit and your mind will be forever changed.

I agree with Ewest, if that is the advice that you are getting then you are not speaking with the right attorney. But that's just my goofy opinion.

I just can't see how it would pay to get an attorney, probably have to get insurance, all to just make $1K or $2K! That's all I'll probably get out of this plus the fun of seeing people have a good time. I just don't want to make a long term deal out of this just an opportunistic deal while I have the big fish. I'm thinking right now that if I try this I might just be very selective about the clients and take my chances. Maybe have them sign a liability waiver at most.