rough seas but we were on top of the 🐟

We had requested to go tuna fishing and paid for a 12-hour trip.  This is the trip description “The waters off of Ocean City offer great action for Bluefin and Yellowfin Tuna. This season the charter is allowed to harvest a total of 4 Bluefin tuna. All boats are allowed at least 2 Yellowfin per angler. These trips are 12 hours from dock to dock.” However, what we got was significantly different.  We departed the docks at around 5:15 AM and returned around 4:00 PM.  We only trolled for tuna for about 45 minutes and we were in an isolated place where there were no fish as evidenced by the fact that there were no other boats around us. There was one boat on the horizon and it was not clear if they were tolling or doing something different. After this short period, the captain took us Tilefish fishing and we did that for about 2 hours.  At 12:18 PM the captain told us we needed to head back to the docks because we were 4.5 hours away.  We were able to see the shoreline around 2:20 PM and without prior notice the captain slowed down the boat and had the first mate set two lines for Ribbonfish.  We then trolled for Ribbonfish for about 45 minutes with no luck.  After this we continued to head back to the docks and arrived shortly after 4 PM.  At the docks, we offloaded our stuff and the Tilefish we caught, and the boat headed back out with another customer well before 5 PM, our scheduled return time.  We are not sure why this happened or how this second booking affective our trip.  It was disappointing that we were not able to make a serious effort at tuna fishing and that our trip was shortened by at least one hour.  The captain did not offer any explanation or reduce our fee by the shortened time.  We would not recommend this boat to any amateur anglers.  With respect to the boat, the Ocean City Girl, we did not have full access to it.  The bunks in the bow (five or six were cluttered with fishing equipment so they could not be used.  The lights did not work in the bow, and the general cleanliness was poor.  The bathroom could not support tissue paper, so the toilet was only partly usable.  The boat was very loud, and I would recommend ear protection.  There were 16 members in our party and seating was a challenge.  Both the captain and the first mate were friendly.  The first mate was very helpful and took time to explain the process and was very patient with the young children that were in our group.  However, the captain did use inappropriate language around the young children.

We booked a 4 hour trolling trip described as a “quick action packed fishing trip” with a focus on Blue Fish, Spanish Mackeral, King Mackeral, and the occasional Mahi Mahi.  Instead we arrived to the marina with news we would instead be going out for shark.  We had been told we’d be going out with Captain Jeff and first mate chuck but that changed as well.  Upon notifying our captain of what we had booked they attempted to oblige and the first mate put out a few trolling lines for us, however, it was apparent the plan was to go for catch and release of tiger sharks.  That dashed our hopes of feasting on an array of fish over the course of our week long vacation.  So much for the coolers we brought along.  We had 7 kids with us who were excited to catch fish but after the first two hours of puttering a few miles off shore with no action, no engagement from the captain, and no clear expectations other than throw in some chum and repeat it left them bored and hoping to return back to shore.  The final two hours we had kids sleeping in the boat and no action…not even a bite.  Never changed location, crew made no attempts to explain the bad luck; it felt like we were captives on a time out from an otherwise fun week away.  Worse was we paid $100 a head beyond 6 people for our group of 11 and it was clearly money poorly spent.  I understand there’s no promise of a catch, but when you spend well over a grand for 4 hours and don’t get what was promised and a mediocre experience it’s not only frustrating it’s dishonest.  I recommend you steer clear or at the very least check in about the prospects of action for the catch you paid to pursue.