I don’t take any pleasure in providing a negative review here. Capt. Vinnie apparently had been out with other clients very early that morning tuna fishing and had been successful. I understand that being a fishing charter captain is a demanding job and can be frustrating.
First, the positives:
1. Capt. Vinnie did eventually find schools of bluefish and striped bass feeding on bunker (menhayden) in the bay - a very cool sight to see! We cast big poppers and hooked-up with many bluefish and a few stripers. That was a blast!
2. Capt. Vinnie didn’t charge us for the trip! All we paid was the $50 deposit and a $30 tip.

The negatives:
1. We (the two of us) arrived an hour early at the boat dock behind the Vetro Restaurant. We put our stuff on the dock and watched & waited up on the porch & patio of the restaurant to see if/when anyone else arrived. I put my cell phone on “airplane mode” because otherwise the battery dies quickly (it’s an old phone). After not seeing anyone at the dock for about 40 - 45 min. I turned my cell phone back on and called Fishing Booker, and they called Capt. Vinnie. He called me and was mad because he’d been calling me to see if we were at the dock. He apparently doesn’t come to the dock until he knows customers are there. He blamed me for not answering my cell phone. I think a captain should be at the dock and ready to go at the scheduled time, as we were.

We had to get fishing poles from across the canal and get gas at a marina before starting our trip, and that took about 40 min. I was surprised that Capt. Vinnie didn’t have any ice in the boat, so I bought a bag of ice at the marina. Capt. Vinnie offered us a choice: spend about 1.5 hrs. boating to the mouth of the Hudson River to fish for big stripers, or boat about 45 min. to fish for bluefish, stripers, and Bonita along the coast. We chose the coast & bluefish to save time & it seemed more likely to catch some fish - and Bonita
sounded cool! We searched for schools of feeding bluefish for about 1.5 hours but didn’t find any. He called other boats fishing the Hudson and told us they were catching big stripers; not a good message for us!

We came back into the Bay, and after being on the water for about 2.5 hours we finally found some schools of feeding bluefish and started fishing. The spinning reel he provided me was in very bad condition - I had to manually close the bail, for example. At one point I noticed one of the treble hooks on my lure had disappeared & I mentioned it, but Capt. Vinnie said it had always been missing (it hadn’t). He didn’t replace or fix the lure. After I landed some bliuefish I was surprised that Capt. Vinnie just ripped the hooks out of the fish’s jaw (gruesome) rather than taking the hooks out with pliers, and he didn’t keep any water in the live well - he just threw the fish in there without any water. Bluefish spoil quickly so it’s important to keep them alive or on ice.

At one point my line broke and I lost a lure. Capt. Vinnie told me I needed to check the line often (blamed me). But the line broke up above where he’d had a swivel for a leader; the swivel and leader were gone too - not my fault. He also became frustrated and blamed my brother-in-law for failing to land a couple of fish.
Capt. Vinnie ended the trip after about 5 hours, not 8 as advertised. He said he wouldn’t charge us for the trip, but wanted a positive review. That’s not right.