In short, we caught eight fish (black fin tuna and skip jack tuna), however our captain was not a pleasant person to be around. We found him quite impatient, easily agitated, and largely antisocial. It was clear that Captain Teddy’s primary objective was to finish the job, get back to the dock and get paid. I would not recommend Fishing 242 charters for anyone with a family who simply wants to go out for a fun fishing trip.
Longer version… While on a family vacation to the Bahamas, we wanted to partake in a fishing excursion for some fun game fishing. We found Fishing 242 with Captain Teddy on Fishing Booker, and after reading the reviews, we booked a charter.
We left the dock at 0730 hrs sharp and headed out (note that there was no safety briefing, no offer of life jackets, nothing). It wasn’t too long before we found the birds and we were on the fish. Once the fish started biting, Teddy was quick to push rods in our hands to pull them in, however once the fish was in, he quickly removed the hooks and (literally) ran to put the fish in the fish box (we have video of him running). He never stopped for us to take a picture or appreciate the moment. At one point, we hooked into a nice fish, only to have the line cut (probably from a shark), which really aggravated Teddy. With a bit of temper, boat where he was swearing and visibly angry, he restrung the rod and got it back in the water about 45 minutes later.
The water was choppy when we first went out, and waves grew increasingly rough as time went on due to strong winds (not Teddy’s fault). We were being tossed around the boat and sometimes found it difficult to hold on. While trying to reel in a fish in the heavy rough waves, my 18-year-old son accidentally bumped the bail switch on his reel, which caused the spool to backlash and tangle. Teddy was visibly angry at this, which was reflected in his attitude towards us. He was able to salvage all his tackle and only lost around 100 feet of line, so it was easily corrected, but he was still angry for the remainder of the trip. We ended up cutting the trip short due to the rough water and returned to the dock over an hour early.
One thing that really bothered me was that Teddy did not offer us to keep our fish. It states on the Fishing Booker website that “Fish cleaning and filleting” are included. We’ve taken other fishing charters and have considerable experience with fishing. The other captains have always been very engaging and interacted with us extensively, so we were disappointed with Captain Teddy being impersonable, antisocial, and clearly not interested in making sure the clients had a good time!
In short, we caught eight fish (black fin tuna and skip jack tuna), however our captain was not a pleasant person to be around. ...