Tipping on a charter boat? wtn

[Ace1st]

A friend of mine fished out of Oregon Inlet this past week and landed a Bluefin Tuna around 400 and some change. Great! But after decking the fish, they tipped the mate a couple benjamins. Its my understanding the mate or either the captain got his panties in a wad and didnt like the tip. Now my question is this, what should he have tipped? Is there a specific number for a Bluefin? What if he had limited out on YFT's, would that have been a different amount. What if they caught nothing should the mate get tipped nothing. Does catching one fish that is obviously substantial mean that the tip should be substantially higher. Somebody help me out, I certainly dont want to piss a captain or mate off when chartering a boat. What should one expect to pay as a tip? Historically, I have paid 15% charter price no matter what. I'm not sure what the cost of their trip was but I would think that $200 bucks would have been suffice for one big fish and a few dolphin. Let me know boys.

[knot for shore]

I always tipped based on the dollar amount of what the charter costs. 20% usually. I've never heard of tipped based on what you've caught or not caught. Performance really drives my decision on tipping to 20%.

[Roddy Hays]

You should tip for the boat and the service you receive on it, whether you catch anything or not. That's what you're paying for and you expect a certain standard to be met.

The fish are just a bonus. Even the best captains in the world cannot guarantee fish, nor the mates. I always tell my clients they're paying for the ride and the service, not the fishing.

What you wish to do over and above the tipping rate if you're happy with your catch is your own deal. If you catch something that someone could have sold for $50,000 I'd expect you to lay down a little more....

I've also known some people who tipped the crew at the beginning of the day ! This merely enhanced everyone's perception of what things should be and sometimes, just sometimes, ya got lucky again at the end of the day !!

[Tuna Meltdown]

20% Is what I do. Did they sell the fish? If so your friends helped them catch it and they made extra money anyhow. I own a boat and boy do I know about the hidden costs that most people would never think off. If they made money off of that fish then boat owner should have nothing to bitch about IMO.

[Sea Draggin]

15-20% is customary. I have had trips were I killed myself to get the party fish and received less. I have had trips where we didn't catch and got more. People are all different, so not much you can do.

[Animal 1]

Admittedly,I'm no expert,but did your buddy get to keep the fish?Normally,the boat would keep a giant tuna for later sale.I would not charter a boat without knowing their giant policy.

[Ace1st]

The fish was kept (Not Sold Commercially) and split up between the party and crew. I would have thought that it would have been sold commercially too, unless the season was closed or something, I dont know. From what I ve been told, the captain and crew was really pissy about the tip. I was a little taken back by that, especially in todays economic times. I mean why would you piss off clients by garbling over a few bucks. With fuel cost and all going up and up, I'm sure that charters are probably seeing a decline in fishing clients. So why make it worse on yourself in the longrun. These guys will never charter that boat again. You know, a lot of guys save their money all year to go fishing in destination like Oregon Inlet, who knows maybe they scrounge to come up with the charter fee itself, they may not have a whole lot to tip in the first place, and two hundred dollars is better than fifty. But they lost a client over it, and for what another hundred. Man i'd rather know these guys would book me again next year than piss them off and lose them forever. JMO

[tryn2wn]

The fish was kept (Not Sold Commercially) and split up between the party and crew. I would have thought that it would have been sold commercially too, unless the season was closed or something, I dont know. From what I ve been told, the captain and crew was really pissy about the tip. I was a little taken back by that, especially in todays economic times. I mean why would you piss off clients by garbling over a few bucks. With fuel cost and all going up and up, I'm sure that charters are probably seeing a decline in fishing clients. So why make it worse on yourself in the longrun. These guys will never charter that boat again. You know, a lot of guys save their money all year to go fishing in destination like Oregon Inlet, who knows maybe they scrounge to come up with the charter fee itself, they may not have a whole lot to tip in the first place, and two hundred dollars is better than fifty. But they lost a client over it, and for what another hundred. Man i'd rather know these guys would book me again next year than piss them off and lose them forever. JMO

These guys work hard for little money. If you can come up with $400 for a trip find another 60-70 for the mate or stay at home.... Do the math there is no money in the charter bussiness. How would you like to work all day for no pay ??

[hosstader]

What about the fuel surcharge? Do you tip 20% on the base price of the charter or the total bill?

[Persistence]

Fished Oregon Inlet 2 weeks ago. We had agreed on 50 per man ($300.00) tip for the mate before we even left the dock. We were confident that would be a minimum tip as we were on a great boat. We also brought extra food/drinks for Capt and Mate.

We ended up boating 5 Yellowfins, 8 Dolphin and 250 pound Bigeye that took a long time to boat. The crew worked real hard on that Bigeye(3+hours...until 6:30pm, we got back to the dock at 8:30pm)...we upped the tip to 100 per man and did not think twice.