I’ll start with the positive: Chris (I think was his name) the 1st mate was great. He was extremely knowledgeable and clearly wanted us to catch fish. I’ve used many guides in the past all across the country and was impressed with him. He took his job seriously and really did seem like he genuinely wanted us to catch fish and have a good time. He explained to everyone what to expect, how to fight a fish and handle a pole etc.

Unfortunately, the rest was negative for us. They have 3 charter boats for the sportfishing. They put us on the first boat a little before 8am (our start time) and we sat patiently waiting for them to get the boat ready. While watching the crew get the boat ready, I saw the captain flick a cigarette he just finished right into the water next to the boat, and a crew member throw extra fishing line from a knot he tied into the water.

You’d think that people that rely on healthy waters for fishing would be a little more respectful of the environment. And for gods sake, if you’re going to litter and pollute, don’t do it so blatantly in front of your paying customers!

Once the boat was “ready”, we were about to leave when they realized the batteries for the boat were dead. So now it was time to switch boats. Good thing the battery didn’t die while we were on open seas. We switch boats and by 835-840 (start time was supposed to be 8) we were on our way out of the harbor.

We began trolling immediately for baitfish (to use as bait for the sportfish) and caught a couple. I realized this is the first time I’ve ever paid for a fishing guide and they don’t bring actual bait. “What if we don’t catch any baitfish?” I thought. We are already leaving way late and now we have to spend 30-45 minutes trolling for fish that were going to use to catch the fish that we actually want to be fishing for?

Once we were done with getting baitfish we started trolling. We had about 9 poles but only 3 were being used. Seemed like a waste. I’ve trolled with 6-8 lines in the water in the past on much smaller boats with less equipment. There’s 4 paying customers looking to catch fish but we only have 3 lines in the water…

We ended up only catching one fish total between the 4 of us. That’s not something that the crew can control but we would have had a much better chance if we didn’t leave late and didn’t spend almost an hour fishing for bait. Our time slot was 8-12pm, and I would say that at best we had a one hour window of lines in the water going for sportfish. We also figured that we might stay out an extra 30-45 minutes since we left late but no.

I wanted to like the experience but left disappointed. The 1st mate was great though!

Booked this trip on the basis its in Ft Lauderdale. Contrary to the address given by the site, its not, it’s in Dania. Spent $$$ trying to locate it in an Uber.
Caught 4 live bait along with a ton of weed (kept going round in circles in the same area with the sea grass all round us…..???) we used 2 of the 4 live bait caught, both got chewed up as a snack by the big guys. I’m no fishing expert but to me they seemed to get off the hooks way to easy. Next thing we turned for home. Personally, I didn’t get to touch a fishing rod

I made my reservation online on Sunday Jan 24 for the Tuesday Jan 26 trip.

I arrived on time a the dock and went to check in at the office. It was the man in the office that told me that neither of their two boat would be going out on Tuesday and that I should try to come back on Wednesday.

I told him I would not be able to come back on Wednesday and asked him to refund my trip. He told me he could not refund my trip because it was booked through Fishing Booker and they would have issue the refund. I told him unless the Captain canceled the trip there would be not refund. I told him I understood but the Captain had not yet canceled the trip.

It’s very disappointing with limited time on vacation that booking a trip is so very unreliable. It should not become a problem for the customer if the charter is unable to put enough people on the boat. I now see that booking a charter is simply a shot in the dark and very unreliable. This is not the way most people are able to schedule their vacation.