Fish Tales

Some of the highlights this week:

Lynda is booking people regularly for the 2022 season now. Space is probably about 25% full for the 2022 season. We think people are more willing to plan out so far into the future because they know there is no risk of canceling or moving dates with us.

We have had to become a little stricter on deposits for holding space though; $250 is all that is required to secure your next fishing trip to Doc’s.

Lisa got all of the Christmas cards and pictures out just before Christmas. A few of them came back and needed better addressing. If you came fishing with us last year and did not receive a Christmas card and your picture, let us know and we will update our records and try to rectify it. We love having such an extended Doc Warner’s family. Thank you for being a part of that special place we call Doc’s.

Mark had some data entry to do on the food orders from last year. The spreadsheet where we track things has gotten pretty good at predicting quantities to purchase for the coming season. The only real challenge is when the menu changes and then trying to figure out the impacts on the old data. We often remark that it would easy if we had weekly deliveries when we see food delivery trucks driving around.

Kristina and Mark have also started the preliminary work on staffing. Already they have reached out to some of the staff from previous years to see who is interested in coming back. Along with that work, the forms and paperwork for hiring are getting refreshed. They have also spent some time working on the interview questions to take into account lessons learned from this last year. The interview processes are under a tight timeline as Mark will be leaving mid-March to begin work on projects at the lodge.

It has been a busy week getting back into the swing of things after the Thanksgiving break. Lisa worked over the break to get Christmas cards out to our guests. It is always fun to cull through all of the photos from the summer to select all the personalized pictures. Lots of good memories get revisited. We hope you all enjoy your pictures from last season.

Lynda had the phones over the holiday. She said it was obvious that people had time to slow down and visit with family members about upcoming vacation plans. It took her a couple of days to get all the updates, reservations, and changes input into our systems. She has also been diligent in rooting out who is holding space and who is really coming. Her efforts are slowly starting to chip away at the weeks that have waiting lists.

Mark has been wrapping up much of his ordering. The rest of the plumbing parts for the new sewer system showed up this week. He has also been making progress on our master document for orientation that we call the Room Book. He expects to have the final touches on it in a week or so. This has been a several year project.

On Thursday, at our request, Kristina arranged for a food tasting event. The purpose was to see what changes we can make to the lodge menu to improve the quality and consistency of meals. Our team was hosted by some of our guests who work there and we were treated with everything from breakfast to lunch to dinner ideas. We plan to have Kristina work closely with their chefs to come up with some new offerings at the lodge. We are excited about the opportunities in that area of operations.

Looking back on the week, it feels like we touch on fewer than 10% of the activities we are engaged in. Selecting those we think are most interesting can be a challenge. It takes a surprising amount of moving parts to make Doc’s the place we all love.