Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Building the World's Top Walleye Destination: Gary Moeller's 35 Years at Ballard's Resort

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Building the World's Top Walleye Destination: Gary Moeller's 35 Years at Ballard's Resort · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. As you listen today, let one
0:16
idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:20
today's guest is Gary Muller, super recently retired former
0:25
managing partner at Ballard's Resort in Minnesota and
0:28
Ballard's Black Island in Ontario on Lake of the Woods.
0:32
The resort began in 1961 with the Ballard family and to this
0:37
day remains family owned. It offers guided walleye trips,
0:41
cozy cabins and all inclusive packages for both summer fishing
0:45
and winter ice fishing. The team also plans remote multi
0:50
species fishing adventures at their boat and island property
0:53
on the Canadian side of the lake.
0:56
USA TODAY recently named Ballard's Resort as one of the
0:59
top 10 fishing lodges in the US. Guest praise its motto.
1:04
Large enough to serve you, small Enough to know You, and many
1:07
returned year after year. Gary joined the resort back in
1:10
1990 after studying at Central College.
1:13
He spent his early days in the office working the reservation
1:16
desk and learning as much as possible about the lodging,
1:19
accommodations, guided fishing services, restaurant and
1:23
beverage portions of the all inclusive resort.
1:26
In the year 2000, he became a business partner with members of
1:29
the Ballard family and remained so until his recent retirement
1:33
at the end of 2025. Today, he's still living on Lake
1:36
of the Woods, taking a gap year, perhaps catching his breath and
1:41
talking to us about his incredible 35 year adventure
1:44
that was Ballard's Resort. Before we get into all that good
1:48
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2:37
All right, back to our guest today, Managing Partner of
2:40
Ballard's Resort, former, recently retired Gary Mohler.
2:44
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:47
Absolutely Anthony, looking forward to having a little chat
2:49
with you. Let's do it.
2:51
So how did you first get started in the fishing resort industry?
2:54
Was Ballard your first? Stop.
2:55
That's a great question. You know, I went to Central
2:58
College as you mentioned, and of course graduating back in 19190.
3:03
The tourism industry wasn't really something that people
3:07
were talking a lot about at that time and it wasn't really
3:13
specifically the fishing per SE that I was interested in.
3:17
Obviously, you know, I, I did have a background growing up
3:20
doing a lot of fishing, a lot of hunting, a lot of camping, those
3:23
sorts of things where I came from.
3:25
But it could have been anything. I just wanted to get into the
3:28
tourism industry and I happened to know somebody that knew
3:32
somebody that thought they knew somebody.
3:35
And, you know, that's kind of how I I came to meet the Ballard
3:38
family. So it was an introduction from a
3:41
friend of a friend of a Yeah. Absolutely.
3:43
You know, back in those days, a lot of these resorts, especially
3:46
the smaller ones and even the larger ones were family owned
3:50
and operated. And when you talk about
3:52
families, I mean, there could be husbands, wives, kids,
3:57
relatives. I mean, so it was really hard to
3:59
get your foot in the door. I didn't want to, you know, show
4:03
up and you know, play the role of bartender or dock hand or
4:08
kitchen staff or I was really looking for more of a assistant
4:13
manager or management type role at a resort.
4:18
And obviously fresh out of school with very little
4:22
experience in the industry, it was very hard to find some place
4:26
and I got lucky with the Ballard family, there is no doubt about
4:30
that. It was the right place at the
4:31
right time. Wow.
4:33
So this was your first job right out of college?
4:36
Wow. Yeah, absolutely.
4:38
It's it, it, it's was kind of a a Cinderella story for me, so to
4:42
speak. It just happened to work out
4:44
that they were looking for somebody and I happened to come
4:48
along and and yeah, so things got rolling that way.
4:52
So tell us, what did Ballard's Resort look like when you first
4:56
came on board back in 19190 as you put Yeah. 19190 Well,
5:01
they've been at it since 61. You know it's a the family
5:05
started it back then. It was a obvious, you know, it
5:09
was a smaller resort back then. I'm going to say we had probably
5:15
half the cabins, you know, the accommodations, the beds that we
5:18
do now for sure. The fishing was on a much
5:22
smaller scale, specifically the charter fishing in the
5:25
summertime, the guide boats that we were running.
5:29
I think we had four boats at the time when I started the winter
5:33
fishing industry. The ice fishing was really just
5:36
kind of getting going on Lake of the Woods and we were probably
5:41
fishing, you know, maybe I'm, I'm going to say 30-40 people a
5:46
day in the winter time back then, whereas now we're fishing,
5:51
you know, A100120140. So it yeah, the the fishing
5:56
industry itself has grown exponentially on Lake of the
5:59
Woods over the years. Why is this?
6:04
Is it because just the industry in general has exploded or were
6:08
you guys pulling some particular growth levers that helped you?
6:11
You know that that's a great question.
6:13
One of the things that I was awestruck by when I first moved
6:16
to Lake of the Woods is that it literally was the best kept
6:20
secret, meaning everyone in the area was keeping Lake of the
6:24
Woods a secret. It's like what I I could not get
6:27
over how just tremendous the entire the region was,
6:32
especially the fishing. You know, you're talking about
6:35
1,000,000 acres, 14,000 islands, a lake that's 90 miles long, 60
6:40
miles wide and just unbelievable fishing.
6:44
Yet the numbers of people in the area, it was quiet and it was
6:51
very seasonal. And I think that struck me as a
6:57
challenge to, you know, get the word out about Lake of the Woods
7:02
and let people know like, hey, this place exists.
7:06
You need to be here. If if you're an avid outdoors
7:08
person and, and you love to fish and you want to catch trophy
7:12
walleyes, you know, this is the place to go.
7:15
And we just, I feel like together with myself and the
7:19
Ballards, we slowly started building in the right direction.
7:24
So what was your first role when you started there?
7:27
You know, I work closely with Joanne Ballard.
7:31
She and her husband Steve were the owners at that time and, and
7:36
they still are involved with the business.
7:39
And you know, she taught me everything from A-Z as far as
7:42
working in the office, taking reservations, you know, helping
7:47
me dip my toe in the proverbial marketing, advertising waters.
7:52
And, you know, it kind of just grew from there.
7:56
I got more and more responsibility.
7:59
I feel like put upon me as as you know, I, I kind of worked my
8:03
way into the resort and I, I really just was became very
8:09
passionate about Lake of the Woods and I still AM.
8:13
How did you get the word out there initially?
8:18
Oh, it's, you know, there again, you're talking, you know, back
8:23
in the 90s, I think that we relied very heavily on repeat
8:29
business. And so, you know, you would do
8:33
some advertising in magazines, you would do some advertising in
8:36
newspapers, you would, you know, do a lot of mailings to your
8:41
repeat customers. But we really didn't, I feel
8:47
like start drawing our business until the inception of the
8:51
Walleye Connection program, which happened in the, I would
8:58
say it was, it was either 96 or 97 and what the Walleye
9:03
Connection is. And it's a program that
9:06
actually, Joanne, you know, kind of tinkered with a little bit,
9:11
But it was more so in the winter business where she had come up
9:16
with the idea of trying to bring people to the resort on motor
9:20
coaches from the Minneapolis metro region in the winter time.
9:24
And it didn't quite play out as anticipated.
9:28
And I kind of took the lead one winter.
9:35
We had an early ice out, which was very unfortunate because we
9:39
rely heavily on the winter fishing industry.
9:41
And it was about mid February when we called it quits on the
9:44
fishing. And we're sitting here looking
9:47
at each other like now what are we going to do?
9:49
We don't start, we don't open again until the middle of May.
9:52
And it was that time that I basically got in my truck and I
9:56
drove down to the state of Iowa and I started knocking on every
10:01
door that I could think of and going from business to business
10:04
and trying to come up with an idea, a plan of how we could put
10:08
motor coach tours together and get people to Lake of the Woods
10:13
in the summertime and build our summer business and not rely so
10:18
heavily on the winter industry. So let me see if I understand
10:24
what happened here. You guys rely, or used to
10:26
anyways, very heavily on the winter ice fishing season and
10:31
typically that goes until when? Well, the winter fishing runs
10:35
from about mid-december until mid March.
10:39
That's pretty typical season. It used to be a little bit
10:42
longer than that. It seems like the seasons have
10:46
changed a little bit for us now we'll start fishing, you know,
10:50
as soon as we can in December. And, and we used to go all the
10:53
way till the end of March. But anymore it seems like by
10:56
about the middle of March, most people have had their, their
10:59
fill of the ice fishing. And then, you know, it used to
11:02
be in the summers when I first started, it was really a June,
11:05
July, August, you know, gig and, and maybe a little September and
11:09
that was it. And now it's, you know, at least
11:12
for Ballard's resort, we start fishing in the middle of May and
11:16
we're going to keep running hard right until the middle of
11:19
October, and that's really when we wrap up the season.
11:22
So we grew the summer business exponentially and those Walleye
11:27
Connection tours were a huge part of enabling us to do that.
11:33
Where, you know, we started small and a few groups here, a
11:37
few groups there, a lot of just, you know, just a lot of effort
11:45
went into making contacts and working with, you know,
11:49
corporate business, bank club groups were really big at one
11:53
time figuring out like how we were going to promote these
11:57
trips, where we're going to run them from.
11:59
So, you know, we started with a handful of trips and now we work
12:04
with the folks at Windstar Lines who are based out of Carroll,
12:07
Iowa. They do all the hauling for us
12:09
with the motor coaches. And you know, we're we're
12:12
starting in the middle of May and we're running till the
12:15
middle of October. And every Sunday we've got a
12:17
motor coach leaving from somewhere in the Midwest that's
12:20
bringing a busload of people to Ballard's Resort to go fishing.
12:24
And it's 1 tour a week. They come up on a Sunday, they
12:28
fish Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, they go home on a Thursday.
12:31
It's super all inclusive. The lodging, guided fishing,
12:34
meals, beverages, the works. All they do is show up.
12:38
And we really what we did Anthony, is we set up our own
12:41
travel agency more or less inside the business of Ballard's
12:45
where we handle all the sales, the marketing, the reservations,
12:49
the the travel arrangements. We do everything from A-Z and
12:54
it's been very successful for us.
12:57
Was there anybody else doing something like this in the
13:00
fishing space at the time? No, there, there was there.
13:04
Actually I shouldn't say there wasn't.
13:06
There was. I believe it was called Temple
13:07
Bay Lodge up on Eagle Lake. They were doing something
13:12
similar kind of along those lines, but they were a Canadian
13:16
based camp on Eagle Lake and they were targeting more in the
13:23
like Chicago, Milwaukee areas. So it was very, very much
13:30
different from, you know, from what we were doing.
13:32
We were focusing heavily, heavily on Iowa to begin with
13:37
because that's where I was from and I felt like I had a good
13:41
rapport with a lot of people in the area down there.
13:43
And then after that, it just kept branching out to where now
13:48
it's North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri,
13:52
Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois. I mean, we've got tours coming
13:56
from all over the place. And from the furthest point that
14:00
people are coming, how long is that coach right?
14:03
We do that. What are we doing at Topeka Run
14:07
that is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of like 1313
14:13
1/2 hours. That's our longest 1, you know,
14:17
I think 12 and under those are usually, you know, people are,
14:21
are pretty good with those and not a lot of Minnesota,
14:25
Minnesota people have a tendency to just drive up on their own
14:28
because it's, it's closer. And, and we do have a, a, a, you
14:32
know, just a great business overall with people that do come
14:35
up and visit on their own. The walleye connections are
14:38
really just kind of a feeder program that keep people coming
14:41
through the door non-stop, you know, summer after summer, and
14:45
it's great business for the middle of the week.
14:48
And how are you guys recruiting these people from each of these
14:51
different states, these different cities?
14:54
You know that part of it. I feel like it used to be that
14:59
we tried to use a lot of word of mouth advertising.
15:08
We would try to capture certain mail lists for different types
15:14
of businesses. But now that we've established
15:18
ourselves, I would say radio is our number one voice and
15:23
interesting. Yeah, we love the radio,
15:26
Anthony. I know it's it's probably
15:30
unusual to hear that, but. That's worked well for, you
15:35
know, attracting your client base.
15:37
And what's it like on the bus? Is there like, this party
15:40
atmosphere? Are people just like taking a
15:43
nap? Like just watching out the
15:45
window? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty, you
15:48
get a really mixed crowd. It it mostly in the summertime
15:52
with coach tours. It's it's a little bit older
15:55
crowd retired, you know, just the group of guys that, you
15:59
know, they don't want to drive up, they don't want to do
16:01
anything. They just want to show up and
16:03
go. Pretty relaxed atmosphere.
16:05
We get a lot of families like grandpa, son, grandson.
16:10
We also get a lot of individual people where I would say most of
16:15
our tours there might be anywhere from 10 to 15 people
16:19
that sign up as singles just because, you know, like, well,
16:23
Joe doesn't have a fishing partner anymore, but Joe really
16:26
wants to go and catch walleye. So he signs up for the walleye
16:29
connection with Ballards. And, you know, we give him a
16:32
private room to stay in and we fish with up to six people on
16:36
our charter boats. So you share a boat space and
16:39
and you meet people with like interests and you know, you come
16:42
up and you have a good time. And so are you traditionally
16:45
fishing from the boats? Do you park on a shore somewhere
16:49
and cast off from there? No, it's all for the most part,
16:52
it's all hands on jig fishing, so six guys.
16:55
That. Six people on a boat with a
16:58
guide and, you know, we're putting a minnow on their jig
17:01
and they're dropping their, you know, they're putting their bait
17:04
over the side and they're sitting there, just sitting
17:06
there and jigging the bottom with their rod and.
17:09
So it's not like a big castaway, it's just sort of right off the
17:12
edge of the boat there. This is very, very simple.
17:16
It's it's walleye fishing one O 1 and Lake of the Woods, AKA
17:22
walleye cap of the world. We do very well at it and at
17:26
it's, you know, let the lake sells itself and it's an amazing
17:30
fishery. So we're very fortunate to be
17:32
located where we are. So where do you rank in terms of
17:36
other walleye fishing camps? You know, there's other great
17:43
places to go walleye fishing as far as numbers of fish, size of
17:50
fish. I think it's very, very hard to
17:52
compete with Lake of the Woods on a year round basis.
17:57
And you know, as far as Ballard's resort goes, to my
18:02
knowledge, I don't know of anyone, especially in the
18:05
summertime, the season from May through October, that's doing
18:08
more guided fishing than we do. And we've taken it to a whole
18:13
nother level, been very successful.
18:16
And it sounds like this Walleye connection program was a big
18:18
part of that. But I don't want to gloss over
18:21
like what kicked this off because this came out of a
18:24
moment of crisis. Absolutely.
18:28
You know, I think that everyone in the area kind of stepped back
18:32
at that moment in time and thought, wow, what are we doing
18:36
here? We maybe need to rethink this
18:40
winter fishing industry and, and at least we certainly did at
18:44
Ballard's Resort. And myself, I just, I looked at
18:49
the, you know, the available space that we had to bring
18:52
people in during the summer during a guaranteed time when
18:56
you can put heads in beds, put people on the boats, catch fish.
19:01
You know, it doesn't matter whether you're here in in May or
19:04
September or August. I mean, if we catch fish every
19:07
day and you know, so there was a real opportunity there to grow
19:13
the business. And I had some some tremendous
19:17
people, some peers that were, were helping me and guiding me
19:21
and giving me great ideas. And, you know, I did a ton of
19:27
reading back in the day, just trying to get more and more
19:34
ideas about, again, how to, you know, bring Lake of the Woods to
19:39
the forefront of the fishing industry.
19:41
And so you had the Ballard family, as you know, mentors for
19:46
you. And I think you were saying
19:47
Joanne, you know, had tried something along these lines
19:50
years ago, not quite to the extent who else was kind of
19:53
giving you some advice and ideal coaching?
19:59
I became heavily involved in in radio and at the time a lot of
20:10
the stations. Were in the Midwest were owned
20:14
by the the Clear Channel, which is now iHeartRadio and I just
20:21
developed a close friendship with some of these market
20:28
managers or general managers of these stations.
20:32
And you know, radio, if you know radio people, they're always
20:37
promoting something. I mean, I they could sell ice to
20:40
the Eskimos, as they say. And, you know, they gave me a
20:46
window of opportunity and showed me what it takes to be
20:51
successful in radio. And at the present time.
20:56
They also shared a video with me.
20:58
And again, I'm going to date myself because if you know
21:02
anything about the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, at one
21:05
time they produced a video called The Fish Philosophy.
21:10
Are you familiar with that at all?
21:13
No, Well, it was something that I got kind of commandeered from
21:20
one of my contacts with Clear Channel and it basically talked
21:24
about, you know, how you work with your employees, how you
21:28
create a culture, You know, things like choosing your
21:32
attitude, you know, being there, being present with your with
21:36
your customers, learning how to work in more of a a playful type
21:44
atmosphere and really learning how to make people's day.
21:48
So I took, you know, I took heed to these things that were being
21:54
shared with me. Another thing that I did is I
21:57
started doing a lot of writing. Are you familiar at all with
22:03
with Roy Williams? Roy H Williams.
22:06
I don't think I am. OK, he wrote the he wrote the
22:12
wizard, the Wizard of ads. It's a trilogy.
22:16
It's a book, it's a trilogy. It's three books that I would
22:21
highly highly, highly recommend to any small business owner that
22:26
wants to be hands on engaged in their marketing efforts.
22:34
They also the Wizard of ads as as Roy refers to himself, also
22:39
has a e-mail that he sends out. It's called the Monday Morning
22:43
Memo, which has a great, great amount of information that he
22:49
shares for small businesses, how to advertise, when to advertise,
22:54
where to advertise, how to get your money's worth.
22:56
But you know, I, I took the, I took the writing very seriously
23:01
after I read those books because I felt like in advertising, no
23:04
one can explain your business or your experience better than what
23:10
you can. You are there 24/7.
23:13
You eat it, sleep it, drink it. You're trying to grow this
23:16
business. No one can write ad copy better
23:19
than you. No one can tell the story better
23:22
than you. But you have to develop that
23:27
art. You know, you have to work at it
23:29
and you have to say something different to people to get them
23:32
to pay attention. And so I give a, a, a lot of my
23:37
credit to my friends, which it back in that time were with
23:40
Clear Channel and now I heart and also, you know, doing the
23:46
reading, putting the time in and the Wizard of ads was big for
23:49
me. Another guy, John Spoelstra, I
23:54
don't know if you've ever heard of John.
23:55
His son coaches a little NBA basketball.
23:58
Anyway, John wrote a couple books back in the day.
24:01
One of them was called marketing Outrageously and the other one
24:07
was called Ice to Eskimos. And again, I was devouring a lot
24:12
of books at one time, just trying to get one or two good
24:15
ideas out of each read. John has a tremendous amount of
24:20
great ideas about his was a little bit more geared towards
24:24
sports marketing, but definitely usable in, you know, in our
24:28
industry. What's 1 idea that you pulled
24:30
from Roy? Roy Williams, the Wizard of
24:36
Advertising. Say something different.
24:40
Stop, you know, saying stop writing your ads with the blah,
24:44
blah, blah, blah, You know, say something outrageous.
24:47
I just wrote and I, I just wrote an ad copy yesterday for the
24:51
gang at Ballard's. They're going to do a 32nd spot,
24:55
I think, on WHO or somewhere in Des Moines.
24:58
And, you know, I, I talk about, yeah, I come to Ballards Resort,
25:03
lodging, gotten fishing, meals, beverages.
25:05
All you have to do is show up. Please bring one clean pair of
25:09
underwear. We accept novice to somewhat
25:14
decent fishermen at times. You know, so you, you just try
25:16
to say, you know little things that are just a little bit
25:19
different. That sets you a little.
25:20
Funny, yeah. Exactly, put a little bit of a
25:23
little bit of humor into it, but also, you know, remind people
25:27
that hey, from A-Z we take care of everything.
25:31
And for Ballard's Resort, you know, that definitely resonates
25:35
with our guests because when they show up up, they know
25:38
they're going to be taken care of.
25:39
They know everything is going to be all inclusive, no add-ons.
25:44
And in this day and age when you travel, at least for me, when I
25:47
get somewhere, I don't want to have to worry about anything.
25:51
I just want to go and have fun. What's 1 idea you pulled from
25:54
John Spoelstra, the father of that little NBA coach?
25:58
John was a John was a tremendous marketer in that he was always
26:04
exploring ideas about how to get more people to show up at the,
26:10
at the hoop dreams, at the basketball games.
26:12
And he, I felt like, if I remember correctly, looked at it
26:18
from like an inventory standpoint and that kind of
26:23
resonated with me when I looked at the amount of inventory that
26:27
we had available to sell, you know, comparatively speaking,
26:32
like when he had seats to fill in a stadium, he had a lot of
26:36
available inventory. So what are you going to do with
26:38
that inventory, Anthony? Are you going to sit on that
26:42
inventory and, you know, make nothing, or are you going to
26:48
formulate a game plan that you start here and you make
26:55
something out of that unsold inventory and eventually you
26:59
continue to grow it and you create demand for that
27:03
inventory? And he's got some wacky ideas,
27:07
but I took advantage of them and.
27:10
That's one wacky idea you put into place.
27:12
Well, we would send out, you know, we would send out direct
27:18
mail pieces we had again, I'm kind of dating myself, but and
27:23
you can still do it in this day and age, but at one time I was
27:28
purchasing mail lists for people who were avid in the outdoors
27:33
industry, specifically fishing. And my wife, who's a school
27:37
teacher has access to a lot of kids that are looking to raise
27:42
money. And I was bringing in classrooms
27:46
of people to the resort working. It was a fundraiser for them.
27:51
I was literally paying them to hand address envelopes, right.
27:58
You know, like, hello, Anthony, this is such and such from
28:02
Ballard's resort. I mean, it would be then we'd
28:04
have typed up information, but I was doing everything I can to
28:08
get people to just open up a piece of mail.
28:12
And it worked, at least at that time.
28:15
And, you know, the, the senior classes at Lake of the Woods
28:19
High School made some money because we paid, you know, we
28:22
paid them per envelope, I think to hand address, you know,
28:27
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them.
28:29
But that was one idea that I can remember.
28:33
And then making a just an outrageous offer and explaining
28:37
why you're doing it. Tell people the truth.
28:39
I think that's what, you know, John impressed on me is why are
28:43
you providing this discount to somebody?
28:45
Why are you selling this special package to them?
28:48
Well, it's because here's the deal.
28:51
We have a lot of inventory. We have a great product.
28:54
We think you're going to enjoy it and we're fairly confident
28:58
that you're going to come back once you experience this.
29:01
And that's kind of the mindset that we went into it with.
29:05
So Gary, how did the opportunity for you to become a partner at
29:09
Ballards come about? Steven, Joanne, who were the
29:14
second Gen. owners, owner operators at that time.
29:21
We're ready for a change. And prior to that, most of the
29:27
family members that had been working there had kind of, you
29:32
know, phased out and gone on. And it seemed like I was kind of
29:35
the only guy left in the building, as they say.
29:38
And we just had a tremendous working relationship.
29:41
They put so much trust in me, Anthony.
29:43
It was unbelievable. And they just, they were, you
29:47
know, there were such hard workers and so dedicated.
29:51
And they really again, just impressed upon me what it what
29:56
it took to, you know, run a successful small business and,
30:02
you know, being 10 years vested as an employee at that point
30:07
when the opportunity arose, when they said, hey, you know, we're
30:11
not ready to get out of this. It's obviously it's a family
30:14
business. We want to keep it going, but we
30:16
want somebody to, you know, step in and, and help us out more
30:20
than even more than what you are.
30:22
And they gave me an opportunity at that time to buy in and which
30:25
I wholeheartedly jumped at the opportunity and just couldn't
30:31
have asked for a, a better scenario.
30:33
And then you know, after that continued on for a few more
30:40
years and then their oldest daughter Jesse and her husband
30:44
Nick came back and and joined the business and eventually, you
30:50
know, they bought in as partners, which again, just best
30:55
case scenario to have even, you know, more help.
31:00
And you know, and Nick and Jesse now have fully taken the reins
31:04
and are continuing as as third generation owner operator.
31:09
So it's a it's a great success story for Ballard's resort.
31:13
I mean, you just kind of hit the lottery here.
31:15
First job out of college, right? You love it.
31:19
You got, you know, great bosses to start with and great business
31:22
partners. You guys got along so well.
31:24
He invited you in. And then you get to help hand
31:27
the reins off to the third generation.
31:29
I mean, well, there's things just lined up.
31:31
Yeah, there. There's definitely some
31:33
nightmare stories to be told, but a good friend of mine always
31:37
used to say pain has no memory. Always forget about the you
31:41
always forget about the bad things and the hurdles and
31:43
everything that you had to overcome and and it's always the
31:46
good things that that come to the forefront.
31:48
But you know, the thing that my partners allowed me to do in
31:54
2011, I felt like, you know, my role as being the, you know,
32:00
quote, UN quote, 24/7 office guy seven days a week, 365.
32:06
After doing that for 20 years, I kind of felt like, hey, it's
32:11
time to start doing some lake living.
32:13
And I, I, I talked the, the four of them into purchasing a
32:19
Canadian camp at that time, which we named Ballard's Black
32:24
Island, located on the Ontario side of Lake of the woods.
32:28
And we really took that property from, you know, a very, what
32:38
would I say? Again, you talk about inventory.
32:43
I there was a lot of availability when we bought the
32:46
place and we took it and we grew the business and we made a
32:51
connection for people between the Minnesota and Ontario sides
32:55
of Lake in the Woods, gave them an opportunity to do something
32:58
different. Stay on a remote Canadian
33:01
island, do some multispecies fishing for muskies, bass,
33:05
northern Pike, purge crappies, totally different.
33:09
If you look on a map on Lake of the Woods, you'd see that it
33:13
like, what is it? Probably 33% of it is in
33:18
Minnesota and then the rest of it is basically Ontario waters.
33:21
And that's where you find the 14,000 islands and the
33:26
multispecies fishing and same lake, but yet when you go from 1
33:30
border to the next across totally different fisheries.
33:34
And it's become a unique experience for our anglers
33:38
because now we can offer them the best of both worlds.
33:42
You want to catch trophy walleyes?
33:44
Absolutely. Let's go to Ballard's Resort.
33:46
Let's do the charter fishing. You want to go catch, you know,
33:50
a 50 inch muskie and have a legit shot at catching, you
33:54
know, bass, Pike, walleyes all in the same day.
33:57
All right, we're going to send you up to Ballard's Black Island
34:00
and you can do it there. The combo trip has become quite
34:03
popular for us now as well, where we're spending two days
34:08
fishing at Ballard's on the Minnesota side, stay for a
34:11
couple nights, then we go to the Canadian camp on the Ontario
34:14
side, stay and fish there for a couple of days.
34:17
So yeah, just keep growing the business, keep thinking of new
34:21
ideas. So what's the border crossing
34:23
like then? Very simple here for Lake of the
34:27
Woods. So we're located right on the
34:31
Minnesota, Ontario border. The nearest town is called
34:35
Bennett, Minnesota and if if people I'm sure you've heard of
34:38
International Falls, MN. The town of Badat is about 65
34:43
miles West of International Falls and that's where the South
34:48
end of Lake of the Woods is the Minnesota side of the lake.
34:51
So when you drive to Badat, that's where you go to Ballard's
34:55
Resort on the Minnesota side. If you cross the international
34:59
bridge at Bennett, Minnesota, then you travel up the east side
35:04
of the lake into the Ontario portion and you go to a small
35:09
area, a small town called Morrison, Ontario.
35:12
And that's where we have a private dock that we keep our
35:17
passenger boat and then our camp is about 6 miles offshore from
35:23
the main landing there at Morrison, Ontario.
35:26
Is there immigration control? Are people showing their
35:28
passport at some point? Oh, yeah, You, you're, you're
35:31
crossing a border. It's not like driving.
35:35
You're going. And it's not like they're
35:36
getting in a boat on the Minnesota side and then going up
35:39
to the Canadian side. You're crossing on the bridge
35:42
there, Yeah. No, you're, you're, you're
35:43
actually going through Canadian cut, you're going through a, a
35:47
Canadian customs and and immigration office to get into
35:51
Ontario and then doing the reverse on the way back out.
35:55
US Customs is there. And, you know, you talked.
35:59
We were just joking about, like, how lucky you've been, sort of
36:02
hit the lottery kind of a thing. And you're like, oh, yeah,
36:04
there's some nightmare stories. And we heard about one of them,
36:07
you know, when the ice disappeared in the middle of
36:10
February, you know, a month and a half early.
36:12
I wonder how did COVID affect you guys?
36:18
You know, I had a rule after we reopened the Canadian camp after
36:25
being closed for two years and not being allowed to cross the
36:28
border. I had a rule with every guest
36:30
that showed up. Anthony.
36:32
I said, guys, we can talk about anything except we're not going
36:35
to talk about the pandemic. But yeah, it was not good.
36:41
We the, the Minnesota based, you know, company, the Ballard's
36:46
Resort, you know, it was, it was the whole thing everybody went
36:49
through in Minnesota. It's like, are we open?
36:51
Are we not open today? We're open.
36:53
Yesterday we thought we were going to be open.
36:55
Now we're not. But now we, you know, it was all
36:58
over the place. And then eventually it worked to
37:02
our favor in that in Minnesota at least, other than fishing and
37:07
golfing and doing a few outdoor things, there wasn't a lot for
37:11
people to do. And we saw the state of
37:16
Minnesota come to life like we've never had before.
37:19
So in the summertime, I'm talking normally we run about
37:22
50% residents for visitors, 50% non residents.
37:27
And during the COVID years, those two summers, there was a
37:31
huge boost of Minnesota people, all the families, the husbands,
37:36
the wives, the kids. It's like, hey, everyone still
37:39
likes to fish, you know, except they they just haven't had time.
37:44
Now we have time to go. Timmy doesn't have soccer and
37:47
Sally isn't, you know, in dance today.
37:49
And we're not chasing all the things.
37:51
Let's go fishing. And so business was good for a
37:56
couple of summers during the pandemic at Ballard's resort.
37:59
Now, opposite of that was Ballard's Black Island on the
38:04
Ontario portion where we were in 1000% shutdown mode.
38:10
They would not allow anyone across the border, including
38:13
owners, couldn't even go see the property, couldn't do anything
38:18
there. And it was tough.
38:21
You know, I will tell you that to this day we lost about 35% of
38:28
our clientele. And I think I could honestly
38:33
report that the border crossing numbers are still down from
38:39
where they were back in 2019. Not as bad as it was, but when
38:48
we hit the reset button in those two years post pandemic, we had
38:56
maybe 40% occupancy that first season that we reopened.
39:01
And that was coming off prior to that where we were running at
39:05
100% sold out, you know, really hitting on all cylinders.
39:11
And it took us five years to get back to where we were.
39:16
And so, yeah, it was, you know, like everybody, I mean, it was
39:21
heartbreaking. You know, you look at what you
39:23
build and and then you just lose it.
39:25
But you know, I work very closely with a gal in the office
39:32
at Ballard's resort. Her name's Danielle and she's
39:35
also just a, a, a tremendous asset when it comes to sales and
39:40
marketing. Super hard worker.
39:43
We've been side by side in the office for many years.
39:46
And you know, we just started resetting our goals and we
39:52
realized again that, hey, we've lost 3035% of our customers.
39:57
They are not coming back to Canada, period.
40:01
And now we have to figure out a way to recruit new people.
40:04
And that's what we did. We went out and we got
40:07
aggressive and and made the phones ring again.
40:10
And so most of those customers that are coming to the Canadian
40:13
side, are they Americans or are they Canadian?
40:15
100%, we don't get any Canadian customers at all.
40:20
If you look at all of Northwest Ontario, you know, there's
40:24
hundreds of of camps and Outfitters, you know, places
40:28
that you can go. But the population of Northwest
40:31
Ontario where we're located is so small that there's really not
40:37
a population there that you can draw to for tourism.
40:42
So, you know, they're bringing in, you know, thousands and
40:47
thousands and thousands of people across the border
40:50
annually to, to fish these waters in our area.
40:55
Why do you think it took so long to get numbers back to
40:58
sustainable level on the Canadian side?
41:01
People just weren't comfortable crossing the border.
41:03
I think that's part of it and I think people got frustrated and
41:06
they just, they went and they found something else to do and
41:10
they realize that you know what, Lake of the Woods is great or
41:13
Canada's great, but not going to deal with this.
41:15
I'm, I'm really, I'm frustrated and, you know, just not knowing
41:21
from one year to the next what the rules may or might not be.
41:24
They went and found something else to do.
41:27
And, you know, they just kind of moved on.
41:29
And I had a feeling that that that was going to happen with a
41:33
certain percentage of them. And it did.
41:35
And at that point, you know, Danielle and I just saddled up
41:39
and we looked at, we looked at a map of different areas in the
41:45
Midwest and we grabbed our dart and we threw it on the board and
41:50
we said, all right, let's get some new people from here.
41:53
Where was here? Where'd you start with?
41:56
Well, I would have to say probably that probably that
42:03
Chicagoland area. Yeah, yeah.
42:07
And that's really another thing that we haven't talked a lot
42:10
about, you know what I mean? I could talk about the marketing
42:13
for hours just because it, it's always the unsolvable equation.
42:18
And to me, that was always the challenge that I loved, is
42:21
always looking for the next thing.
42:23
But with anything, with marketing, with a small
42:25
business, my advice to people would be, you know, don't go
42:30
with the shotgun approach. You really have to look at each
42:33
area specifically, find the audience that is looking for
42:39
your service or your product and expend as much energy as you can
42:45
in that area until you get a result or find out that, you
42:50
know, we just the right audience is not here.
42:53
But to me it seems like there's an always an audience.
42:56
It's just a matter of how do you find them?
42:59
How do you, how do you turn that rock over and find those people?
43:03
And so the messaging in Chicagoland is different than
43:05
the messaging in Topeka. Yeah, definitely.
43:10
With the separate businesses and with them being so much
43:13
different, we definitely target more multispecies fishermen.
43:18
When we talk about Ballard's Black Island, we're looking for
43:21
people that are a little more adventurous, that are willing to
43:25
go and stay on a remote island, even though it's, you know, very
43:28
nice. As far as the amenities, I mean,
43:30
it's fully modern, but it's just a little bit more advanced
43:36
fishing. Whereas say Topeka, KS, when we
43:40
put the word out that, hey, Ballard's Resort as motor coach
43:43
trip coming up, such and such a date, all you have to do is show
43:47
up and guess what? You don't have to know anything
43:51
about walleye fishing. We're going to put a pole in
43:53
your hand. We're going to put a minnow on
43:55
your hook for you. You're going to drop it over the
43:57
side to the bottom. You're going to sit there and
43:59
you're going to jig and you're going to catch fish and you're
44:01
going to smile and you're going to eat some fresh wild walleyes
44:04
and you're going to go home and tell your friends.
44:06
Wow, that was easy. So yeah, with the fishing, it
44:10
sounds like you're catching like good sized fish.
44:12
So this isn't a catch and release kind of a thing.
44:15
It's like, let's catch, let's eat.
44:16
Do people like pack them on ice and take them home?
44:19
Yeah, we do. I mean, we have, I would say,
44:24
fairly restrictive protective limits on Lake of the Woods.
44:29
The most that you can possibly take home with you is 4 fish.
44:32
And we're talking about, you know, walleyes that are 1617, 18
44:38
inches in size. So basically what we tell people
44:42
is, hey, we're going to catch a lot of fish.
44:45
Meaning like you and I and a couple buddies get on a
44:48
Ballard's charter boat for a day, Anthony, we're going to go
44:51
out. Hopefully between the six of us
44:54
that are on the boat, we're going to catch somewhere in the
44:56
neighborhood of 100 walleyes over the course of the day.
44:59
Out of that, you know, we're going to keep a, we're going to
45:03
keep, you know, one or two fish to eat in the evening when we
45:07
get back to the lodge. Or maybe we'll do a shore lunch
45:10
during the day where the guide will, you know, pull into one of
45:13
the islands and clean and prepare the fish and we'll have
45:17
a, you know, an old fashioned shore lunch or some people
45:21
depending on how far they travel.
45:23
Especially with the Canadian camp, I feel like we do a lot of
45:27
shore lunches there where people are eating fresh fish every day
45:31
and want to, when it comes down to, you know, am I really going
45:33
to worry about taking a few fish home?
45:35
Probably 50% of them at the Canadian camp are just opting
45:40
to, you know, eat fresh fish while you're there, enjoy the
45:43
experience and and go home without.
45:48
So Gary, what would you characterize as your superpower?
45:54
BS I don't know, have you read the have you read the marketing
45:57
BS books? Those were pretty good too.
45:59
I just remembered about though. I just remembered those.
46:02
I I've read those also. I can't remember the guy's name
46:05
that wrote those books, but I don't know.
46:09
I feel like, you know, as a manager and an owner, you, you
46:16
have to be passionate about what you do.
46:19
And that was certainly my case with Lake of the Woods and
46:24
Ballards Resort. I'm still passionate about this
46:27
area. And, you know, just spreading
46:31
the word and telling people, you know, like, look what we have
46:35
here to showcase. And, you know, as far as a
46:38
natural resource, you know, we can play a role in not only
46:42
protecting it, but also still being able to, you know, respect
46:47
it and enjoy it. And, you know, just do the
46:51
things that that come with fishing.
46:54
You know, our corporate business during certain times of the year
46:58
at Ballard's resort is tremendous.
47:01
You know, it could be a group of six guys, could be a group of
47:05
100 that book the entire resort, you know, for a weekend or or a
47:10
midweek trip. Just a, a unique experience that
47:14
if you've never done it before, I guess you really have to be
47:18
here to experience it. Just the, the, you know, the
47:24
immense amount of area of just nature that we are able to live
47:30
in every day and share with people.
47:33
You know, it's easy to be, it's easy to fall in love with, for
47:36
sure. So you guys have expanded
47:39
capacity, you've upgraded facilities and amenities, you've
47:43
grown into the Canadian side. What's next?
47:47
Where's the growth? What new projects?
47:49
What new upgrades do you have planned?
47:51
That's a great question for me. I'm taking a gap year right now.
47:55
That's what I told you before when I talked to you, Anthony.
47:57
I'm not sure what's next for me. Gary Mohler.
48:00
Right now I'm hanging out with my buddy Rusty Flathers and his
48:03
gal pal Sally Squats and Fishes. I mentioned that to you earlier.
48:07
I I couple years ago, I don't know for whatever reason I enjoy
48:12
writing for one. But I decided to start an
48:15
outdoor adventure series. So I got this dude named Rusty
48:20
Flathers and I started a website for him.
48:22
It's called Rusty flathers.com. Anyway, once a week I type up
48:29
anywhere from 800 to 1000 words. I post an episode.
48:34
I'm in season 4 right now. Like episode 19.
48:39
Rusty's kind of a hapless fictional character that gets
48:43
himself into a lot of sticky situations in the outdoors
48:48
world, whether it's fishing or hunting or whether whatever he's
48:50
doing at the time. And then his gal pal Sally
48:54
squats and fishes, has a tendency to come and bail him
48:57
out on more than one occasion. But the folks at Ballard's
49:01
resort, you know, they're going to continue on full steam ahead.
49:05
As I mentioned, we got Nick and Jesse there now, which are, you
49:09
know, third generation owner operators and I'm just so proud
49:14
of them and so happy for them to be able to continue on, you
49:19
know, doing what we, you know, doing what we're doing.
49:22
And I think just maintaining at this point, Anthony, when you
49:27
are recognized as one of the, the top leading fishing resorts
49:33
in the United States, you know there there's certainly a lot of
49:37
pride in that. And I feel like maintaining that
49:41
status and expanding our markets.
49:45
I mean if there was one thing I would I would hope for them is
49:48
that they continue to, you know, maybe not so much grow the
49:52
business as far as you know, numbers of people that visit or
49:56
the numbers of people that we take fishing, but expand the
49:59
business in that spreading out further than the Midwest.
50:04
And we've started doing a little bit more of that with the
50:07
Ballard's Black Island crowd on the Canadian side because there
50:13
are a lot of multi specie fishing people out there.
50:17
We get, we have an you know, we have an airport in International
50:21
Falls, MN which is about 60 miles from our property.
50:25
So it is possible for people to fly with Delta 2 International
50:31
Falls and then, you know, use the chauffeur service or we come
50:34
and pick people up or whatever to bring them to one of the two
50:37
resorts. And we're seeing more of that.
50:40
I we're slowly expanding to those, you know, further areas
50:45
where all of a sudden now we're seeing guys from Texas, we get a
50:49
family from California, we get a group from the East Coast, you
50:54
know, so but we haven't done any specific, you know, like
50:58
marketing as far as television or print or web or radio outside
51:06
of the Midwest. So maybe that's something that
51:08
they grow into in the future. Large enough to serve you, Small
51:13
enough to know you. What does this mean?
51:16
You know, that's something that Joanne Ballard came up with many
51:21
years ago and preached it to everyone that worked for
51:26
Ballard's resort. And it's really very simple.
51:30
And it's, it's, it's just knowing your people.
51:34
And from the second they walk into the building to the time
51:40
they leave. And it's harder, much, much
51:43
harder now that we've grown. So, you know, large, I talked
51:48
about, you know, the early 90s when we're running four or five
51:52
charter boats, you know, a day. And, and now we've got 17
51:56
charter boats and we're fishing, you know, 8090 a hundred people
52:01
a day. But, you know, we still know
52:04
them in that our guides know you and we have just a a tremendous
52:10
team of guides that are super professional, super personable.
52:17
They build their own business, you know, themselves based on
52:20
repeat customers. And, you know, so that's part of
52:24
how we know people, or how when someone walks through the door
52:28
and they're recognized by a bartender, or they're recognized
52:32
by someone who works behind the reservation desk at the front,
52:37
or they're recognized by someone who is, you know, waiting tables
52:42
in the dining room. That's how you're, you know,
52:45
large enough to serve you, small enough to know you.
52:48
When you make that effort to actually, you know, get to know
52:51
people. And I think when you have your
52:53
name stamped on a business like Ballard's do, that's always a
52:57
priority for you. I like it.
53:01
Gary, I just got one more question for you today.
53:03
But before I ask you, I want to do 3 quick things.
53:05
First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Gary
53:08
Moeller, we've got his e-mail address,
53:10
rightheremoeller@ballardresorts.com. And Moeller is spelled
53:13
MOELLERMOELLER at ballardsresorts.com.
53:20
And we'll have that in the show notes for folks if you missed
53:23
it. And if you're enjoying the show
53:25
today, a quick comment or review on your favorite podcast app
53:28
goes a long way towards helping others discover our show.
53:32
So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now.
53:35
And as a reminder, if you want to get more hospitality
53:38
employees, access to therapists, doctors and prescription meds
53:42
that, as paradoxical as it seems, actually increases your
53:46
company's net profits, reach out to us at AD back benefits.com.
53:50
So last question for you, Gary, a year from now, what is 1 very
53:54
specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?
53:59
That's a great question. You know, I very, I'm so it's so
54:04
early. I mean, I am not used to not
54:08
working 24/7 right now, which is the resort business and I, I
54:14
want to find something new that that I'm passionate about.
54:20
I don't know that that means, you know, working 24/7 like I
54:25
used to. Maybe it's something part time,
54:28
maybe it's a project, maybe it's, I don't know.
54:33
I'm leaving it open. I, it's been so long since I've
54:35
done nothing. Obviously spending time with
54:38
family is huge on my list because, you know, sometimes in
54:43
business that part can suffer, unfortunately.
54:47
And so, yeah, spending a lot of time with family.
54:50
But a year from now, I want to be able to say, you know what,
54:54
this is exciting. I'm going to keep doing this or
54:58
I'm going to start doing this. So I'm looking for the next
55:01
challenge I guess you would say. Well, I'm sure that you'll find
55:04
it in time. Gary Mohler from Ballards
55:07
Resort, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both
55:09
your time and your story with us today.
55:11
I really appreciate you being here.
55:13
Yeah, this has been fun. I your, your, your podcast is
55:16
awesome. I, I love the ability to, you
55:19
know, scroll through the menu and pick out the different areas
55:23
where you can listen to people, whether it's hospitality, you
55:27
know, like myself, or whether it's, you know, whatever you're
55:32
covering a broad range of people in the, in the business
55:35
industry. And, and I think it's fantastic
55:37
to, you know, be able to listen to other people's stories and,
55:41
and get their voice. And that's a big part about, you
55:45
know, how you can grow your own business, find somebody else
55:48
that's doing it that, you know, might be able to share some
55:52
secrets with you in it. And they don't have to be in the
55:54
same industry. They can be, you know, like for
55:57
me, it was people in radio that somehow it just kind of matched
56:01
up with, hey, this is what I'm going to do.
56:02
I'm going to grow the fishing business.
56:05
I appreciate all those kind words, Carrie.
56:08
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
56:10
podcast. Thanks for learning with us.
56:12
And if one thing stood out, try putting it into action today.