What a great experience with Captain Travis on the river going after smallmouth.  He is extremely knowledgeable, great with his gear and an all around good guy to spend 7 hours on a boat with!  Do not hesitate to book an outing with SOA Charters, you will not be disappointed!

The day for our anticipated salmon trip was here. Met at the dock early only to have to boat. Messaged captain half hour later and he said he was overbooked and unable to take us until afternoon. A big disappointment since it was our last day on the coast and we were up at 5am.
12:30 came around and captain Travis pulled in. We waited another half hour for him to go buy more bait. Finally on board at 1:30 with no introduction by captain, no safety briefing, no explanation of what to expect, etc. He was very knowledgeable but very intense. His job was to get us where the fish were biting, and he did.
We’re listening to Coast Guard radio about high surf at the mouth of the river and we became a bit concerned, yet we continued. A simple explanation from the captain would have been nice.
Overall, our captain did his job about getting into the fish.
Maybe because the other fishermen were returning customers and he was a little thrown that we were added last minute, the captain forgot about a safety briefing which we believe to be important and he seemed ill-prepared. There were also rusty tools and hooks strewn about. An hour of the six-hour trip started slow, but we ripped thru the incoming swells and found the fish.
Felt bad for one customer who lost his fish and the captain seemed to belittle him for not following his shouted instructions. All guests got what the came for. Sadly, their charter was $100 less because they booked direct. Well know next time.

Definitely an enjoyable charter plenty of crab to be enjoyed after our four hour trip. We didn’t get any rockfish bite so captain was determined to get us on anything that could bite so he switched us to salmon.  Captain and his deckhand very nice and cordial would very much recommend him to anyone that has never chartered before or those that have!

Our family had a fun trip fishing out of Winchester Bay with SOA and Captain Travis. We easily caught our limit of Rockfish and we got some crab too! They were very patient in teaching us how to use the fishing rods. And the best part was that they cleaned and bagged up all the fish for us when we got back to the dock!! I would definitely recommend fishing with SOA!!

I don’t recommend going out in the ocean for crabbing. Unless you have a big boat. And consider the weather.