Sharing a charter is a challenge for anglers and the fishing captain. From this anglers perspective there was confusion regarding the booking. This in part may be due to communicating with three or more people from the charter company via calls, texts and email. Some questions went unanswered while other ones received different responses based on which person I talked to. The bottom line is they did manage to get 5 anglers confirmed and we did go out.
Everyone was on the dock early so Adam got us underway 10 minutes ahead of schedule. On that note we arrived back at the dock on time, just a couple minutes after noon.
Adam provided a tour of the boat, equipment and fishing strategy during the no wake portion of the trip. He took little time setting 5 rods out for trolling, including a deeper troll using lures. BTW: No one on this charter took the option of paying $100 for a dozen live goggle eye baits.
The first hour and half didn’t produce any hits. Adam began circling an anchored freighter where we picked up 8 or 9 small bonita which Adam later set up for live bait slow trolling. We also got a hit on the deep troll that Adam predicted was a sail fish but whatever was on the hook got off after a couple minutes. I also took the fishing rod after the surface lure was hit but managed to pull the hook loose with a hard jerk.
The slow troll with live bait didn’t work so Adam brought us over a natural, then man made, reef to deep slow troll a live bait hopping to entice a grouper. That didn’t work either.
About 2 hours into the charter an engine alarm sounded. Adam switched engines and explained the “change oil alarm” goes off ahead of the hours the owner wants them serviced. Adam complained the Suzuki outboards have been a problem since they were installed a couple years ago. For instance, the water exhaust (pisser) one engine but not the other. He mentioned that according to Suzuki technician “that’s not an issue” - “it doesn’t effect the engine”.
It would have been nice to take home a few pounds of fresh fish for dinners but that isn’t what happened. Adam’s attempts at finding fish were all good but they weren’t there . . .
Sharing a charter is a challenge for anglers and the fishing captain. From this anglers perspective there was confusion regarding...