Communication Snaffu at Fletchers Today

[goose70]

Gas to get from Annapolis to Fletchers, only to be turned away: $6.00;

Cost of accidentally waking the wife at 4:45am, all for naught: we shall see, but it won’t be cheap;

Having police stop traffic for you as you exit Fletchers after having been denied a rental boat: priceless.

So, you see, everything has a silver lining.

I want to preface what I’m about to say by stating that I continue to hold Fletchers and the regulars who run it in the highest regard. I also think that the Congressional Casting Call, which is occurring this morning at Fletchers, sounds like a terrific event. I have no problem that Fletchers reserves all boats for this event on this day.

Having said that, Fletchers (Guest Services) needs to work harder on its communication about this event to its customers, and/or work harder to coordinate its boat rental policies on this day.

Flying Fish and others warned me that today was the congressional event at Fletchers, so I called over the weekend to see whether it would be open to regular shad fishing customers. The first gentleman who answered the phone assured me that it would be. Just to be safe, however, especially considering the long drive I make to get to Fletchers, I called again and expressed some concern about boats being available. I was told by whoever answered the phone that boats would not be a problem, but I should plan to be at Fletchers by 7am just to be safe.

So, I arrived at 6:45am this morning. Just about every – if not each and every – boat was at the dock. Very few people were at Fletchers and those who were where milling around some tents. Nobody appeared to be anywhere close to getting ready to get into a boat. Great!

Unfortunately, however, as I walked towards the dock, the gentleman directing traffic – who I believe was from the National Park Service – told me that I could not rent a boat if I was not with the congressional event. I explained to him exactly what I just stated, above. He was unmoved and told me to fish from shore, but under no circumstances could I rent a boat. He lectured me on how the event has occurred since the dawn of time, as if I should have been infused with knowledge of the particulars and known to disregard what the folks on the phone assured me. Under the circumstances, I cannot fathom why I could not at least have rented a boat for an hour, since they were sitting unused. Nobody else appeared to be even close to going out at that point.

Again, I want to emphasize that this experience has hardly soured me on Fletchers. It’s a great place and usually well-run. I simply make this post to warn others for next year who, like me, may have been unaware that this day is off limits to the average Joe. I also hope that word gets out to Guest Services, the NPS and to the Fletchers, themselves, to please ensure next year that everyone is coordinated on the boat rental policy so that customers are not needlessly inconvenienced, and to clearly spell out the policy on the front page of the website.

P.S. One other silver lining is that I’m in the office earlier than usual, which means I’ll get a lot done today (after I stop ranting on TF). Pass the champagne!

[ihatework]

Goose70-
That exact same thing happened to me a couple of years ago and ot was incredibly frustrating. Being at fletcher's with boats at the dock and not being allowed to go out made me nuts. Thanks though for your report. I hadn't seen that today was the day of the "casting call" and was about to sneak out of work. Thanks so much for saving me the frustration.

[Salmo trutta]

I still would have fished from shore. I've actually done better with the fly rod fishing from shore this year than from a boat. All the boat gives you is a little casting room but there are spots where you don't need it.

Stupid park police people.

I've been fishing fletchers in the past when that C. Casting call was taking place. I was even invited out on a row boat and had someone else do the rowing for me! Plus I ate some American shad and helped myself to the catered lunch. They must smoke a couple dozen Americans for that event.

[ihatework]

Now that I think about it the funny thing about the last time I went when there was the "casting call" was:

After much, much begging the nice people at fletcher's let us use a boat. I was with a buddy of mine who did media work. He had lied to his boss in order to get the morning off. When we finally got to fishing, some guy rowed over and from a very proper distance yelled he was from the washington post and would he mind if he took a picture of us for a story about the casting call. My buddy, who is a very mild mannered guy, started screaming curses at the photog and hising his face like a wanted mafioso. Very, very funny.

[Flying Fish]

Jeff: I'm sorry to hear of your bad morning. It occurred to me after I mentioned that I also had been told that regular people could rent a boat today that I wasn't told that by one of only two people I'd trust on the matter, either Ray Fletcher or Dan Ward. The people who told me that it would be possible to rent boats today were new hires.

I think Fletcher's owes you at a minimum a free boat rental, I mean it.

You certainly are welcome to come with me next time we're on the river together (we can even plan it), and I'll bring a fly rod for you to try (and use if you like it).

FF

[JMadert]

Nice gesture, Flying Fish !!

[chaz]

Jeff,

It certainly won't help now, and probably wouldn't have helped on Monday, but after reading your warning, I went to Fletcher's in the early afternoon prepared to launch my canoe. I stopped at the dock first, and Paula said they were renting boats to the public. She said that most of the C. Call people wouldn't be going out after lunch. I rented one and did about average' on hickorys. The water was still muddy, but clearing.

Info for next year.

Cheers
Chaz

[goose70]

Nice gesture, Flying Fish !!

Agreed. Thanks very much. I will take you up on it when I can. I unexpectedly went to Fletchers this a.m., but do plan to get back out at some point for Americans. Or if you have other flyfishing haunts in mind, I'm game for anything. I'm selling my big boat this year and plan to give Bay fishing a little rest and smaller canoe-friendly waters a try.

[Flying Fish]

Jeff: Great. I still have a boat on the bay. How did you do at Fletcher's this am?

FF