1770 Fishing Charter

[agcoast]

The Mergards [James Cook and Larc owners] bread and butter was the James Cook charter vessel for 25 years but since the success of the Larc's [stands for.....lighter amphibious resupply cargo] tours to Bustard Head the poor old James Cook got put on the back burner.
Agnes Water/1770 tourism is having a bad year with rain/windy weather/fuel costs etc without bad reports from tourists.
Please address your concerns to the owners the Mergard family.
Des Mergard would be horrified to read this forum and no he would not have been on board that charter.

[bushbeachboy]

Agcoast if you know the man, maybe you should contact him and refer him to this post. I would like to see his reply.

[blue boat]

It is unforgivable that one operator brings the charter industry down 99% of operators will go th extra mile to assist their patrons.
This operator must not like his job he should just move on to allow the industry to grow with the people that have a passion for service to their clients

[TonyM]

The Mergards [James Cook and Larc owners] bread and butter was the James Cook charter vessel for 25 years but since the success of the Larc's [stands for.....lighter amphibious resupply cargo] tours to Bustard Head the poor old James Cook got put on the back burner.
Agnes Water/1770 tourism is having a bad year with rain/windy weather/fuel costs etc without bad reports from tourists.
Please address your concerns to the owners the Mergard family.
Des Mergard would be horrified to read this forum and no he would not have been on board that charter.

Thanks for the heads up agcoast, it's great to hear the Larc's are doing so well for them - I always like hearing of people doing well in business as I know how hard that can be to achieve.

So you are suggesting maybe the charter business isn't so important to them any more?

As a customer of MV James Cook I must say it was extremely dissapointing to recieve a response from the Mergard family (in response to our long list of items promissed but not delivered during the charter) basically saying that they had spoken to the crew and all the problems were now solved, sorry you had a bad trip, give us another go at full price next year and we'll blow you away (words to that effect)

It certainly seems to suggest to me that maybe the charter business isn't important to them, I can't see any other reason you would hear of customers so badly dissapointed for legitimate reasons and not try to rectify it in any way - especially not if repeat business or word of mouth is in your business plan for marketing?

[dogsbody]

The Mergards [James Cook and Larc owners] bread and butter was the James Cook charter vessel for 25 years but since the success of the Larc's [stands for.....lighter amphibious resupply cargo] tours to Bustard Head the poor old James Cook got put on the back burner.
Agnes Water/1770 tourism is having a bad year with rain/windy weather/fuel costs etc without bad reports from tourists.
Please address your concerns to the owners the Mergard family.
Des Mergard would be horrified to read this forum and no he would not have been on board that charter.

So are you suggesting that these fella's should have said nothing of their bad experience? C'mon now!

These guys did the right thing and did not name the charter until they took up their greivences with the owners. When they didn't get a satisfactory outcome then they named them. And so they should.

As for Des being horrified,,,, So he bloody well should be.


Dave.

[Apollo]

The Mergards [James Cook and Larc owners] bread and butter was the James Cook charter vessel for 25 years but since the success of the Larc's [stands for.....lighter amphibious resupply cargo] tours to Bustard Head the poor old James Cook got put on the back burner.
Agnes Water/1770 tourism is having a bad year with rain/windy weather/fuel costs etc without bad reports from tourists.
Please address your concerns to the owners the Mergard family.
Des Mergard would be horrified to read this forum and no he would not have been on board that charter.

Agcoast. Thnk you for the info on their business. Please reread this entire post again. We did address our issues with the owners and they effectly blew us off. We didn't name them until they had this opportunity.

We provided factual information on the trip in this post to allow others on this great site to be better informed about service providers to our industry before handing over their hard earnt $.

To infer that this post is harmful to their business is narrow minded. The truth hurts! What about the 10, decent hardworking blokes that scraped together the money and time to do this trip and left feeling we had been robbed!

You said that the tourism industry at 1770/Agnes Waters is doing it tough and I don't doubt it. Alot of businesses are facing a tough working environment, including mine, but the best way of continue to move forward is to not give your customers a reason to look elsewhere. We loved the place and have no reason not the come back to the area.

If they don't want to be in the charter game, then they should consider getting out. You were right that Des Mergard was not on the boat and I hope he is horrified - not by this post, but on how we were treated.

One other thing - we were not tourists- we were customers!

[trymyluck]

The Mergards [James Cook and Larc owners] bread and butter was the James Cook charter vessel for 25 years but since the success of the Larc's [stands for.....lighter amphibious resupply cargo] tours to Bustard Head the poor old James Cook got put on the back burner.
Agnes Water/1770 tourism is having a bad year with rain/windy weather/fuel costs etc without bad reports from tourists.
Please address your concerns to the owners the Mergard family.
Des Mergard would be horrified to read this forum and no he would not have been on board that charter.

I don't quite understand where your coming from with this reply.I tried not to bag them just notify fellow fishermen that they did not perform as required and they had been given a chance to rectify this.They choose not to take that opportunity and therefore I am not going to stand by and allow them to continue ripping fellow ausfishers off.We tried hard to avoid hurting the business but why should we subsidise their bad business practices but surely they must know that no one is going to keep quite about being badly done by.The old saying that do a good job and the customer will tell someone but do a bad job and they will tell everyone sure rings true.The best form of advertisement is word of mouth and if they had performed as they should have they would have received a large thankyou on here instead.
Our concerns were addressed to the Mergard family and their response was just as disappointing.
Mark

[agcoast]

Hey dont shoot the messenger......
I have no affiliation with this charter business but simply a local concerned by bad reports.
Address your concerns [personal and confidential] to Des Mergard[retired] not the business now run by his son and daughter in law. You may find you get a little more satisfaction.
Des owned and personally skippered the "James Cook" for 15 plus years until he handed it to his son.

[TonyM]

Thank you agcoast - one of our guys had a conversation with Neil Mergard earlier today and we are currently in discussion with him about our concerns.

Neil certainly seemed to be shocked at the extent of our concerns so hopefully there might be an opportunity to sort this out offline as was our original intent.

Regards,
Tony

[trymyluck]

Agcoast - We never intended nor tried to hurt the tourism industry of 1770, this charter operator is doing too good a job at that.Maybe you should take your concerns to the Mergard family instead yourself.
No one was tuned off 1770, in fact many of us have said that we have to bring our families back for a holiday, and if the charter had been as good as promised then we would have returned for it too.As Tony has said the Mergard family has been in touch, although it was Neil not Des Tony.You must have sneaked some of my drugs Tony( i'm currently struggling with a back injury).He has said yes our treatment was unacceptable and says he wants to fix it, so will wait and see what happens. Neil does seem interested in trying to resolve this issue and will report on final outcome, if there is one.
Mark

[Fish_gutz]

done the trip with some mates last year and sorry but it was shit! I`ll go into detail if anyone wants.

[garman1]

With the economic situation as it is, even if you were paying for a "cheap charter", wouldn't a skipper do everything you could to make sure "your" customers had a good time and wanted to come back again ..... with extra mates next time ????

If this charter has been "on the backburner" because of the other business, then turn the burner off...........................

If the crew are that disinterested with ensuring a "good time by all attitude", then maybe it is time they found a job on land............ money is too tight these days to simply put up with poor service.

Sounds like the crew have done it for too long and have the "been there done that attitude" or they may feel like they have been put on the "backburner" too and feel disheartened by it (no excuse)

A few mates and I have been chatting about charters and with this post I think we will wait and bide our time me tinks.

Good luck with sorting something out of this mess, this company has one more shot of pulling this shit trip out of the hole, perhaps putting a link of this forum on an email to them may give them an idea on what other "customers" feel about going on a charter like the one they provided !!!!!

Sorry about the long post, I work in retail and find the thought that a company that is not able to find a solution to a bad situation, inexcusable..............and has exceptionally bad business skills.

For what its worth anyway...............

Cheers Garry

[Whitey81]

First things first,
It sounds like you had a good trip, one of the most beautiful areas in AUS off 1770.

I can vouch that before the LARC the MV1770 was on the decline. Think red showers from rust in the tanks. That was the last of a series of annual trips for the crew, Des was running it then and it got worse and worse every year.

There is nothing wrong with skipper and deckie fishing, but as you are paying for the charter, its fuel, the bait, the fish usually get put in with the catch. Too think they were keeping it for themselves is absurd, its robbery.

I dont feel sorry for the owners as i believe this to be one of the best charter boats and regions 15 years ago, not today.

[trymyluck]

There is nothing wrong with skipper and deckie fishing, but as you are paying for the charter, its fuel, the bait, the fish usually get put in with the catch. Too think they were keeping it for themselves is absurd, its robbery

.



The few charters we have been on, when the decky or skipper fished it was always when there was nothing left that had to be done and yes most of them didn't keep what they caught.The skipper on the 1770 charter did not fish a lot in fact i only saw him fishing 1 day and he caught a monster red.While we all wished that it was one of us that caught it i'm sure, i don't think anyone begrudged him catching it.How ever if it had been the decky who had caught it, it may well have ended up catch and release.
Still waiting to see what happens with the owners but i guess it comes down to how much they value their reputation because the only way for our opinion of it to be changed is for them to lift their game and us to go again.That won't happen as a fully paid charter, once bitten twice shy.
Not holding our breath.
Mark
P.S Funny how they said this was a one off event but more and more people are coming up with the same stories about these one off events.

[Apollo]

An update on this - the owner contacted one of our group and assured us that he is concerned about the reputation of their business and the poor service provided on the original trip. He is well aware of this thread and is keen to make amends and rebuild our faith in his business to deliver a great charter. An offer has been made by him that involves him personally skippering the boat and an arrangement as to what payment will be made if any. We are currently considering the offer and if we decide to give it a go, we will be reporting on the trip - good or bad, thus allowing those on this site to make their minds up them.