I've been on fishing charters before in Texas and in California, and I realize that fishing can be…read morehit or miss. There was a tropical storm heading towards Tampa so it was causing a lot of rough waves, and the fish really weren't biting. I didn't knock off any stars for that since the guides have no control over if the fish are hungry or not.
This was a 6 hour trip. We spent 2 hours driving out to the deep sea... and 2 hours back. Honestly, the boat is rather slow compared to others I have been on, but perhaps that made it less rough in the crazy waves. No one got sea sick. We also spent a lot of time driving around trying to find fish, so really, thumbs up to Captain Ryan and his first mate, Jesse, for trying. We probably fished for an hour total.
Captain Ryan spent the entire time driving the boat. He and Jesse were both very nice and pleasant. However, when a fish actually took the line while trolling out, the first mate, Jesse, took the line. I thought he was going to offer the rod to someone in my family to reel it in (which is what always happened on other charter boats we've been on). Instead, Jesse just kept reeling it in and fighting the fish. Ryan came out of the cockpit to help Jesse. He got the fish, but I didn't pay $1000 to watch the fishing guides fish! Even if my dad or my son had tried to reel it in and lost it, it would have still been a great memory and fun experience for them. But alas, no. We never were offered the opportunity.
Also, I was excited because my son and I both caught our very first red snapper (the only two fish we caught on the trip). Mine was barely a keeper; his wasn't. Typically on other charters, the guide helps take the fish off the hook (which Jesse did), and then offers for us to hold our catch to take a picture with the fish. But Jesse never did. He tossed mine in the cooler. Ok... that's fine. I figured we'd take a photo with all our catches at the end of the trip. Well, my snapper and the bonito Jesse (the guide) caught were the only two keepers. So when we arrived at the dock again, I saw Jesse take the snapper out of the cooler and off the boat. I thought he was going to lay it down somewhere and we would get a group photo. In the mean time, Captain Ryan asked if we even wanted to keep the bonito. He was like, I've never eaten it, but I hear some people like to. OK, well, if you didn't think we would want it, why would you keep it in the cooler and not toss it back alive? Seems like the guides were fishing for themselves again. Anyways, my family got to take pics holding the bonito fish (even though we didn't catch it). By the time we were done, Jesse came back with butchered fillets of the red snapper I caught. Big NO NO.
Jesse - first, you should have asked us if we even wanted to have it filleted. Some people like to cook the fish WHOLE, bone and all. Some like it on the half shell. We preferred ours whole, but again, he never asked so we only got small butchered fillets. I say butchered because my young son could have filleted the fish just like Jesse did. It was not neat and clean. It seemed like he wasted a lot of meat. If you don't know how to fillet a fish, then please DON'T.
Overall, I would give them 5 stars for trying to find the fish and for being nice. But this rating isn't based off that. I would give 2 stars for the way Jesse fileted the fish and 1 star for Jesse bringing in the bonito and not offering for any of the customers to try to reel it in. Average... 3 stars.
I would NOT recommend them at all.
