Had a good fishing trip. Caught a citation albacore, and was the only boat with Mahi Mahi on the dock!

Booked a 6 hr nearshore. Had reached out to the captain at time of booking regarding not going for full day gulfstream but nearshore for 6 hrs. I shared that we preferred to chase Cobia and mackerel to bottom fishing. He agreed.When we got to the boat, the captain informed us that we would be bottom fishing and maybe trolling for mackerel.  That the Cobia were all in the Chesapeake bay at that point. We never did troll for kings.
This was a bit disappointing since I had inquired about chasing the larger species and was ok with not catching a bunch of fish. But, would still prefer to try for them.
The captain and mate were very nice and personable! But, spent a bit too much time screwing around with anchor lines and even doing some fishing themselves. Captain and mate were fishing while paying customers were sitting without a rod in hand.We lost several fish due to the first mate being busy with anchor line and not attentive to fish hooked up and at the boat. In my opinion, the equipment was not in good repair. Bail springs broken, missing hooks on rig for most of the day, and some other small issues.
We only had squid on board for bait! No other options if the fish weren’t biting on that.
All in all, we had fun because we had a great group on the boat! But, after chartering boats for many years, this will not be a boat that we return to.
Again, very nice captain and mate! Just was not on par with any other boat we have been on.

My son and I went out for six hour trip, and we had a blast, captain and mate were very friendly and helpful.  We caught King Mackerel, bonita, blue runners.  Was a good trip and great service.

We used very small pieces of bait fish, rather than whole bait fish. Yes, elephants eat peanuts but fish do not. I’m not an expert but it just felt like we were using bait fish pieces to catch bait fish for the next customer.  I was left wondering why. We did land 1 large red drum but nothing else significant. I later in the day found out one fisherman fishing on a pier nearby landed 20+ drum in a day. Also everything felt transactional and rushed, not quite the experience I expected . Think I’ll save my $800 bucks (obligatory 20% tip) next time and fish the pier or shore. High price vs value mismatch