Making & Sharing Memories

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. We totally get that. That’s why we work hard to make it easy for our guests to receive quality pictures of their time at Aikens. Our pro-staff guides are equipped with digital cameras and photography tips so that they can tastefully photograph your Aikens Experience.

The best part for guests? Our team collects all your photos, reviews them and creates a customized flash drive with all the trip’s photos to give to every single Aikens guest. It’s all part of the package: You go home with high-def photos of your best catches, moments and even action shots––a great keepsake to bring your memories to life.

“I love looking back at photos from vacations. I get so into taking pictures it drives my family crazy sometimes, but then we have great pictures of the places we’ve been,” said Tony Capecchi, of Woodbury, Minnesota, who visited Aikens this past July with his father. “In our basement we have all these collages on the wall of various trips we’ve taken that are special to us. The photos I got from Aikens made for a great collage, plus I printed out a large print of Dad and me.”

Tony said that even though he and his dad go fishing together a ton, they have very few pictures of them both together because one of them typically has to be behind the lens snapping the photo of the other one holding a fish. Now he’s grateful for quality photos of both dad and son together in the boat.

Tony also appreciated another photo tradition we do at Aikens: Providing every group with an 8 x 10 glossy photo of their group at shorelunch or a scenic lookout.

“On a cruise ship they always have that staff photographer taking your picture and trying to sell it to you for way too much,” Tony said. “And I’ve been to a couple places where you can pay $500 or more to have a professional photographer join you for the day’s activities and snap photos of you. It’s awesome that Aikens provides the photography, and gives you the full flash drive so you have all the images to save on your computer, plus they give you a really nice blown up image in an Aikens folder.”

Tony was surprised when he saw the group photo again in the mail this fall.

“We’ve started sending each group leader a postcard with their group photo as another way to say thank you for choosing Aikens,” Julie said. “We think about each group as we wrap up the season, so this is a way for us provide a personalized thank you card. We pick one funny or memorable picture from their group’s photo folder to create the postcard.”

And if you need proof to show your buddies back home that trophy fish you caught at Aikens, we’ve got you covered.

“We also started mailing guests postcards of their Master Angler catches,” Julie said. “When we’re closing up the tackle shop for the year, we look at each picture on the display wall and send it out to the guests as a reminder of their moment.”

Tony received two such trophy postcards this fall, both for burbot, surprisingly.

“My wife was really surprised when she saw the postcards in the mail. She had assumed I made the whole thing up,” Tony joked. “Actually, she was just really impressed that Aikens did that personal touch.”

On the flash drive, Tony also received photos he didn’t even know were snapped.

 

“Our guide took some candid photos of Dad and me that turned our really cool, plus some pictures showing our shore lunch in process and some action shots of us fishing and even me jumping into the lake when we went swimming,” Tony said.

“In my family, I’m usually the one looking through the camera lens and asking people to pose. Having our guide thinking of good shots and taking photos of us freed me up to just relax and enjoy.”  

Isn’t relaxing and enjoying what the Aikens Experience is all about?