Where Does A Fishing Lodge Operator Go On Vacation? Gary Moeller Leaves the Frigid North for Anglers Inn

Last week you read about some of the offerings that Gary Moeller and his partners provide at Ballard’s in Minnesota and Canada, but he’s a fisherman at heart, and loves to check out new places. We met when he took a large group to Anglers Inn’s Lake Picachos operation, and I circled back to find out what he thought – both professionally and personally – about the experience. 

HPFC: What made you decide to take a group to Lake Picachos? 

Gary Moeller: You know, I've honestly never done the Mexico thing before and I've always been intrigued by the potential of it. I've traveled to many, many places over the years but just hadn't checked Mexico off the list yet. I've always heard about the incredible bass fishing in Mexico. Being from Lake of the Woods in northern Ontario and Minnesota, smallmouth bass fishing is one of my favorite things ever to do. I figured that the opportunity to go there, during the late winter, early spring, would be fun. I also thought I could find a bunch of other guys that would like to do it. I just kind of put it out there for everyone and the planning part of it came together.  

HPFC: How did you hear about Anglers Inn? 

Gary Moeller: A really good friend of mine comes up to Ballard's Black Island Resort every year. He’s just an avid, avid, rabid fisherman. He's there three times a year, usually for a week at a time, spring, summer fall. I was talking to him about this potential to go to Mexico to do this bass fishing and he said, “Hey, you got to check out this Half Past First Cast website. I think these guys know what they're talking about when it comes to bass fishing in Mexico.”  

That's how I found out about the potential for either a Lake El Salto or Lake Picachos fishing trip. It was a word-of-mouth thing through a friend of mine that spends a lot of time checking out other places and potential areas to go and fish.  

We were talking originally about maybe going to Toledo Bend, maybe we'll go to Lake Fork, maybe we'll go Okeechobee, just throwing a lot of locations out there.  

And then after talking to him, he said, “Just take a look at Half Past First Cast and check out Anglers Inn, because that’s the place we should go.” 

HPFC: How many were in your group? 

Gary Moeller: Oh, we started out with maybe a dozen to start with and then it just kind of grew. And by the time it was all said and done we had 18 people signed up to go, a nice-sized crowd. To me, that was a big part of growing the group, I just wanted to try to get the whole camp to ourselves. This is very similar to what people do with our Ballard’s Black Island property. Same deal, we've got 20 beds and if you can kind of just take over the place for four or five days, it really makes it even more unique to be able to share that experience with everyone that you've invited. 

HPFC: As a resort owner, do you think you have different expectations than the average customer? 

Gary Moeller: Great question. That's part of the reason why I do these trips every year is because I really never want to “settle (at my own resort).” I want to see how other people are doing things. I've been to Florida, Montana, Arkansas, Texas, Belize, Costa Rica, you name it. I've done a lot of trips and part of the reason I go on these trips is I want to see how other places are running things. I want to know if we missing anything. Are we doing it right? Where are we at? I kind of want to gauge what is happening in the industry. And I'm telling you this Lake Picachos thing, first time with the Anglers Inn crew, those guys down there have reset the bar. It was impressive.  

It was everything that you talked to me about. Everything that we saw online on your website, all the videos we watched on YouTube. Our expectations are huge going into something like this. I kind of take it with a grain of salt, obviously, because I'm in the industry but once we got there and settled in, I realized almost immediately that you know what, this is the real deal. And these guys, they're doing it right down here. 

HPFC: What did the staff do particularly well? 

Gary Moeller: To me the coordination of everything and you were a huge part of that. It’s not just showing up, you're on an international trip. We need to know how to get there, where to go, when to be there, who's going to pick us up, just a lot of details that I think might be intimidating for people. But when you have folks like yourself and the others that work in Mexico at the airport and at the lodge, they really streamline it.  

It's point blank: you need to be here by such and such a time. Here's probably where your flights are going to come out of and here's how you're going to get here. Then we're going to have these guys here to pick you up, they're going to transport you right to the camp. The guides are going to be there ready to go. We're going to get you checked into your rooms. I mean, everything that you told me, these things are all falling into place. There's no guesswork with it.  

And when you get that sense on day one that these people are prepared for this, this is what they do, this is what they excel at, then everyone just immediately relaxes, because they know that, okay, we're going to be taken care of for the rest of this trip. 

HPFC: How was the food? 

Gary Moeller: Unbelievable! Did I gain weight? Wow, absolutely. You know, it really reminded me a lot of what we do at our Canadian camp. It's the American plan but they mix it up. You're getting this incredible breakfast every morning, with a lot of choices on what you want to have. Then when you come in during the day, they've got a lunch prepared for you. Then as far as the evenings go, once you get off the lake at night, it was steak night, Mexican fiesta night or seafood night. With a lot of options and plenty of food, you're not going to go hungry. It was definitely top-notch. Everybody was very happy with the meals. And that's a big part of it, that's what I try to do, like I've said, I’ve been in the industry a long time and you can make up for some slow fishing days in a hurry if you're putting out a big spread of food at every mealtime. 

HPFC: What was your favorite meal? 

Gary Moeller: I would have to say the seafood night. That shrimp deal was unreal. I'm a big seafood fan myself but when they had the shrimp out, cooked three different ways, and then yeah, let's just go ahead and throw some lobster on the side there also because that's probably going to be pretty good to go with it, just WOW. The desserts -- the pies, somebody must have sent a message earlier telling someone that I'm a big fan of the pie. Never met one I didn't like and we had pie every night and it was tremendous. 

HPFC: How was the fishing? 

Gary Moeller: It was good. You know, honestly, I appreciate you being very forward with me and telling me what we can expect by the way of Lake Picachos because I had taken a good portion of these guys on a trip with me a year prior with a lot of expectations of catching fish and it just didn't happen. I know that happens sometimes, you don't measure the trip by the number of fish that you caught and we always seem to have a good time. Being together and having fun, that’s what it’s about.  

When we talked about going to Lake Picachos the big selling point was, “Let's just get back to the basics because we just want to catch some fish and have some fun.” We're not largemouth bass fishing guys. I mean, literally, I took 18, not novice fishermen, but novice largemouth bass fishing guys, who fish for a lot of smallmouth, pike and musky. So now, oh my gosh, I'm in Tackle Warehouse online and I'm ordering all these crazy baits that I've never heard of, and I don't know how to use them. The goal was, for me, as you know as someone that kind of helped orchestrate the trip, just wanted to make sure that we would catch some fish and numbers of fish.  

What you told me about Lake Picachos was the selling point, and it's 100% true: You're gonna go down there, and you're gonna catch a lot of fish, point blank. And I think our biggest fish of the week was maybe 8-pounds, which was decent. Now our expectations going in was, Hey, guys, we're gonna catch probably a lot of one, two and three pound fish and then all of a sudden when we're catching some fours and fives. Now everybody's high fiving and we're having a lot of fun. 

HPFC: I want to know the most productive fishing lures for the bigger fish? 

Gary Moeller: Gary giggled and giggled and giggled - I can tell you one thing. I got a lot of them that I brought home with me that never made it on the water. Again, I'm not a largemouth bass guy, I don't know what you gurus refer to it as but I can tell you I had on a big ass hook with a lizard and a bullet weight in front of it. We were fishing deep water, that's where we found the bigger fish.  

One afternoon I was with my buddy, fishing here and fishing there and then the guide pretty much just ties us up in this cluster of trees where it's deeper. I'm guessing we are fishing in 18 to 20 feet somewhere in there and now for the next three hours all we're doing is fan casting all the way around us and catching fish, virtually nonstop. And a lot of nice, what I would say, not exaggerating, quality three-to-four-pound fish. That was the best three hour stretch that I had during the four days of fishing.  

[Gary stopped and asked, “What do you guys call that when you do that?” He knew that presentation, with the weight, large hook and lizard tied on the way it was called something specific. As soon as I said, “Texas rigged,” he responded, “Yes, yes, that’s right.”] 

Gary Moeller: So, there you go. We did a little bit of wacky fishing in the mornings. The fish just didn't want to really do much on the topwater. I think there again, it depended on the guide that you fished with as to how you fished and what you fished. I fished with six different guides because I wanted to kind of hop around and fish with everybody in the group as much as possible. But I felt like the early morning, the wacky deal I did with a guide a couple of times, we really did well on the wacky fishing.  

This whole deal about garlic chartreuse paint. I don't know where that came from but I'm all in.  

Here's the funny story, I didn't buy any of that stuff. I thought you were crazy, oh, come on. There’s no way, I'm not going to do this whole garlic chartreuse dip thing. I'm not doing it. These fish are either gonna bite or they aren't. So, I get down there and I find out a couple of my buddies bought this stuff. They're like, well, it was on the list so I got it. So now I'm thinking to myself, is it really for real? And now I’m like, wait a minute, are they catching two to my one right now using that stuff. Then a couple of the guides start pulling it out of their pockets and they're using the dip and I'm thinking all right, I'm getting on the juice. That's all there is to it.  

I ordered 12 bottles of this stuff last night, I’m not going to lie. I'm going to start using it this summer. Like everything that I do, I'm going to be on the juice. I'm going to see if it works on Lake of the Woods.  

HPFC: How about for numbers of fish: Was it the same things? 

Gary Moeller: The guides I fished with, I felt like we had our best numbers with the with the lizards and the wacky Senkos. We didn't really do a lot of crankbait fishing with the guides I fished with but some of the other guys, they did a fair amount of crankbait fishing. But I think more so as a group in general, and it's probably just because of the time of year that we were there, where you just kind of have to be prepared for whatever. And maybe if we just showed up two weeks later, they would have said, hey, you need this or hey, you should have brought that along. Everybody had plenty of tackle, so it was no big deal, we had tackle to share and everybody was fine. Thank you for those great recommendations. 

HPFC: Are there any of the lures that you expected to use that you didn't use? 

Gary Moeller: Well, there, again, you're talking about a bunch of guys that really haven't largemouth bass fished at all. Everything was pretty new to us. I mean, literally, that's the first time I'd ever Texas rigged anything in my life. It was a learning curve but the other cool part too, was having the guides show you how to do it. Let them be a part of it, although communicating with them sometimes was not the easiest, but when you're a fisherman, you just kind of figure it out.  

They show you, even if they maybe don't speak English the best, they're still able to point, go through your tackle and grab what baits they want you to use, then point you in the right direction of where to cast and show you how to fish that bait. It doesn't take long for success to happen. They speak fishing. I thought that was really cool to build a little more rapport with some of the guides, to be able to talk to them more. On the other hand, it was very, to me, very authentic also. This is what they do for a living, they're good at it, and communicating just however you can do it to figure out how to catch fish. I mean, it was pretty cool. 

HPFC: Anything about the service that was particularly noteworthy? 

Gary Moeller: I think the organization of it, from A to Z, as someone who's in the hospitality industry. I mean, you just really want to be able to let people show up and take care of everything from start to finish they definitely have a template there that they've found to be successful.  

From the time you arrive, to helping you get your fishing portion of it organized, with your rods, your guides and boats and making sure that just without any doubt, you know, from one hour to the next what's going to happen. There is always someone on hand to point you in the right direction or tell you what you're going to be doing next. I’d say they really have it, they're doing well. I would say it's very comparable to what we do, you start with the fishing, that's first and foremost, and everything else you build around it. 

HPFC: Anything you would change to enhance the experience? 

Gary Moeller: Honestly the only the only thing that I can think of and I know that it can be a pain because of the international location, we talked about it a little bit amongst our group but to me, the only other step they could make that would finalize that deal for them would be to figure out the tackle part of it.  

I just know for people, like my group specifically, that don't do a lot of largemouth bass fishing, a good portion of that stuff we brought home we're never going to use it again. There's obviously hoops that you have to go through to import all those things and it's going to cost you a little more money but the comments I heard from my group members were they would probably pay more if they knew that everything would be here for me and then I could just use it. It would just be one less thing to worry about. That's what we try to do with our Canadian camp because we're fishing multispecies, muskies, walleyes, bass, pike. We literally tell people show up with your clothes, your toothbrush and your underwear and we're going to take care of the rest. So, if that was the one thing I would tell that gang down there to do, try to figure out some way to make that tackle thing all-inclusive as well. And then it's a home run. You got it. 

HPFC: Will you go back? 

Gary Moeller: Oh, absolutely. Yes, the guys were already talking about it before we even left. This is a group of people that like to travel and they like to experience new things. I think the one thing we all agreed upon is that we want to come back and we want to do the combo trip. 

I’ll take that as a 5-Star Review for the team at Anglers Inn, including yours truly! If you’d like to experience what Gary’s group enjoyed, email me today and let’s get the ball rolling.