We charted our trip January 21, 2017. I am not writing this anonymously as they can verify my review by that date.
Firstly, the vessel is extraordinary. The first mate Zane expert. The issues we had were as follows: We booked a 3/4 day trip with an option to buy a full day--confirmed with Captain Karen weeks prior. We discussed with Captain Geno, the night before and morning of the charter, our goals for fishing. We wanted to target bigger fish farther out, we talked about bait options, location options, our experiences on a different charter the day before and where we hooked up on that trip. Despite our pleas, all we did were the same figure 8s inshore.
After a half day with zero fish caught, they pulled up the gear, shrugged, and said "it's usually better". OK, and to be clear, I'm not dinging them for our not having caught fish--that's fishing. In his defense EVERY captain wants to put his boat and customers on the fish and I have no doubt their intentions were just that, but there was ZERO communication during the entire 4 hours. The first mate was on the fly bridge at least half the time. We saw the captain when we boarded and when the charter ended only. Nobody explained what they were doing to put us on the fish. We were provided no options and no communication until they pulled up the gear.
We thought that was actually the first good sign and that with gear up and hours left we were steaming to a new location. But as we saw the inlet of the intracoastal in front of the bow we realized they were steaming to port. When I finally got the first mate to understand that we booked a 3/4 to full day charter and now most of the way home we decided it was best to just end the trip. Very frustrated and disappointed.
With 3/4 or a full day as originally agreed, we would have felt better served if we rolled the dice offshore and even if we didn't hook up, they would have provided the type of charter we booked and discussed with them twice in advance.
It was a lovely $800 boat ride... read more