Thank You, Three Rivers Marine!

[Don Wittenberger]

After I picked up my boat today, and paid the bill, I realized that I had forgotten to ask them to fix a broken side marker light on my trailer. So, I went back inside and asked the owner (sorry, I don't know his name) if there was any chance of getting it fixed while I waited. This was pretty close to 5 o'clock. There was, he did, and charged me only for the part.

Before I bought my boat in 2003, I spent a year researching different makes and models. I ended up buying a Tuffy Esox Magnum, which is designed specifically for muskie fishing, and is used by a number of professional muskie guides in Wisconsin and Minnesota. This isn't quite as simple as it sounds, though. I chose the Tuffy in no small part because of this small Wisconsin company's legendary reputation for quality and service. After taking delivery of my new boat, I took it to northern Wisconsin, where I discovered the electric motor didn't work. There was a wiring problem in the bow panel. I called the Tuffy factory at 4:30 PM on a Friday afternoon. They sent a guy 300 miles to meet me in a parking lot Saturday morning and I was able to spend that weekend fishing instead of driving back to Madison with a non-functioning boat. Their bill for that 600-mile roundtrip service call was "no charge."

It's not my purpose in posting this comment to promote a particular repair shop or boat brand. I do want to make a point. We often hear these days how you can't get good service in this country anymore. All too often, that's true. However, there are still plenty of small businesses around who go out of their way to prove they want your business by earning it, and they deserve credit for it. But it's not just that, there's more: Business people who go out of their way to give good service not only deserve our business, it's in our self-interest to patronize their businesses, in order to keep them around. Because we surely will need their services again.

I suspect that most of us, most of the time, interact with boat dealers and repair shops by being shocked by the size of the repair bill. It's true that everything welded, screwed, riveted, glued, or cable-tied to a boat costs a ton of money. There's a reason for that, of course. We're a small market compared to autos, TVs, and home appliances, and boat and motor manufacturers don't have nearly the economies of scale those industries do, so the tooling and engineering work and other costs have to be amortized over fewer units and each motor or part accordingly costs a lot more. But the dealer or the shop owner is the only guy we hand our money over to, so he gets the brunt of our frustration, even though a lot of that money gets passed on down the line to distributors, shippers, warehousemen, and manufacturers. If this is you -- and I admit that I've been like that plenty of times in the past -- just remember these are the folks who keep us on the water. Without them, we'd be fishing from the bank or a rowboat.

To most of us, prices matter, but I believe service quality matters even more. There are no Tuffy dealers in this part of the country, so I literally bought my boat by e-mail from a salesman I'd never met whose office was 2,000 miles away. I took a big chance by doing thing, and was plenty nervous from the beginning to the end of that transaction. I would be driving two-thirds of the way across the continent to pick up the boat and it not only had to be ready when I arrived but also all of the dealer's installation of the motor and other rigging work had to be done right because there would be no opportunity to return it to the dealer for correction of any mistakes. It worked out okay. Why did that salesman get the deal? Because he answered my e-mail inquiry, and returned my subsequent phone calls promptly, and didn't laugh at my idea of buying a boat sight unseen from 2,000 miles away, and understood my exceptional needs, and busted his butt to make it happen. It didn't go 100% smoothly -- nothing as complicated as buying and outfitting a new boat ever does -- but it did work out okay.

We all know these aren't universal attributes of all businesses. Some are better than others. For example, when I was in Eagle River, Wisconsin on my boat's inaugural trip, I stopped by a very large and well known boat dealer there to buy a RAM mount to secure my trolling motor. I bought it in their parts store for $54 + tax. I asked them to install it, which involved drilling 3 holes for the mounting screws in the fiberglass deck, a job I wasn't equipped to do myself away from home. They told me I'd need to make a service appointment and come back in 3 weeks. This was one of the dealers I had e-mailed about the possibility of buying a boat from them, and they never responded to my e-mail. So, of course, I went no farther with them and they didn't get the sale. They're very prosperous, so I'm sure they didn't need my business. On two occasions, they made sure I understood that I was too small and unimportant to be a customer of theirs, so believe me, I was more than happy to not do business with them. I'm sure glad I didn't buy my boat from them, because if it takes them 3 weeks to install 3 screws, I'd hate to depend on them to rig a whole boat for me.

If you want to succeed in this world, give your customers the service you yourself would love to have, if you could find it. If you have too many customers, then treat new ones like you don't have time for them, and that'll solve that problem.

I didn't really expect the guy at Three Rivers Marine to fix my trailer light. I hoped that, at most, he might be able to sell me the part. Again, thank you for above-and-beyond service. Yes, I'll be back.

[Don Wittenberger]

While I'm here, I may as well say something about muskie fishing in Wisconsin, in case any of you ever think about going there. There are muskie lakes throughout the state, but most of the top-tier muskie fishing is in the northern counties. There are three main areas centered around the towns of Eagle River, Boulder Junction, and Hayward. Vilas County, where Eagle River is situated, is home to many famous muskie lakes including Vieux Desert, North and South Twin, Big and Little St. Germain, and others. However, that area is connected by interstate highway to Chicago, so it's not like the old days anymore, it's easy to get there now, and today Eagle River and its environs are a gigantic tourist trap that caters to the moneyed crowd from the big cities to the south. They make their money off people who pay upwards of a million dollars for the posh summer homes that ring the lakefronts up there, and don't need trade from itinerant fishermen. It isn't just the boat dealer who doesn't have time for you. I couldn't get an oil change from the Ford dealer there without an appointment 10 days in advance, either. Summer is their busy season and you just can't get services on short notice in that town. You can, however, buy tackle or hire a guide there.

Boulder Junction, like Eagle River, is surrounded by a slew of big-reputation muskie lakes. It's a more laid-back town, but too small to get much there besides gas and groceries. Camp Holiday just outside Boulder Junction is my favorite campground in the entire state of Wisconsin. It's family-run, and unlike many northern Wisconsin campgrounds, they set aside about a third of their spaces for transient campers. Finding a place to stay can be a real problem in northern Wisconsin because high real estate values have driven many of the lakeside campgrounds out of business and many of those that still exist reserve all their spaces for long-time customers who park their RVs on the property year-round and come back year after year. I would say the majority of northern Wisconsin campgrounds don't have any transient campsites now, and you may have a real problem finding a campsite if you don't plan ahead, which can force you into expensive motels.

Hayward is Wisconsin's other muskie fishing mecca. I like Hayward a bunch. I was not only able to get my RAM mount installed there, but also got a new depthfinder installed, on a walk-in basis while I waited. That would be totally out of the question in Eagle River. Hayward is home to Pastika's, the muskie tackle retailer some of you are familiar with, and also to the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and Louis Spray's Moccasin Bar. Louis is gone now, and so are the mounts of his world-record muskies (burned up in a fire), but the Moccasin Bar is still in business and they have many wonderful fish mounts there, including Cal Johnson's alleged 65-pounder. The mount of Robert Malo's alleged 70-pounder can be seen at the nearby Dun Rovin Resort on the Chippewa Flowage. Besides the Mighty Chip, the Hayward area roster of lakes includes Court d'Oreilles, Big and Little Round Lakes, Teal and Lost Land, and a number of other first-rate muskie lakes. Hayward has everything you need, from campgrounds to tackle shops to grocery stores to laundromats and burger joints. You can have a first-class good time there, and you feel comfortable there because it's not touristy like Eagle River, it's a happy town full of regular folks like you and me. I'm not saying don't go to Vilas County, no real muskie angler can pass up the renowned lakes there, but Hayward is a much better place to use as an operating base for exploring and fishing in northern Wisconsin.