About us:  I am a lifetime fisherman from Oklahoma, and all of my family have fished, but this was our first saltwater adventure. Had little idea about what to expect but we are an adventurous family. We camp, fish, boat and tube on the lake regularly.

Prior to our trip:. 
Prior to our trip, I called him once, and texted a few follow up questions and he answered promptly and his communication was very good.  I detected a bit of a sense of humor in our exchanges which was nice.

Boarding his boat:
We were NOT greeted with a bunch of rules or Do’s and Don’t’s when we boarded his boat.  We all said hello, loaded our ice chest, and we shoved off to fish. 

On the water: 
From the first moment, the trip was about what WE wanted out of our experience with Capt Mike, not his agenda. Unfortunately I had no idea how to tell him what we wanted, because it was our first time. So, we simply said we wanted to catch what is biting. I put in a “bonus” request to catch something that screams line off the reel if possible.
Capt Mike delivered!  I could write a whole fishing report but not enough room for that here.  He put us on fish right away with a couple of king mackerel, and lost a few good ones.
If you’re a fisherman, you will appreciate that he knows when’s to move locations when a hole turns off.  He has hundreds of fishing holes loaded on his locator, so there is no shortage of spots to hit.  And he hit holes that hadn’t been worked in a while, and weren’t near other a lot of other boats.

Service: 
Capt Mike truly cared about the comfort of my girls, and that they were having fun.  One of my girls wasn’t feeling so good at one point, and Mike picked up on it and checked in with her thinking she might be feeling seasick (but it was other issues). 
He re-baited lines faster than you can blink and he always served “ladies first” even when re-baiting.  He really stayed in tune with my girls to make sure they were having fun and were comfortable. As a fisherman, I was going to have fun no matter what.

Fish:
Too many stories to tell, but we caught our limit on red snapper (less the big one that got away), and we threw a lot of small ones back.  2 king mackerel, 1 false albacore, couple of trigger fish (not in season today), and my daughter hooked up on a large shark that she fought for 15-20min until the line broke (it was a thrill to watch her have this experience).  We had a lot of “big one got away” experiences as well. 

Summary: 
Mike is customer-focused and doing what he loves… showing people the fun of fishing!  A lifetime Destin resident, he knows the area.  He told us several times that his focus is to ensure we have a FUN experience, whatever that means for US.  He put us on fish and gave us good memories to take home. 

Book with Capt Mike Dates.  Great experience.
Capt Mike:  Very much appreciate you, sir.  I’ll be back some day.

We originally had scheduled an off shore fishing trip with Captain Mike for 6 hours. Unfortunately, we were not able to go out in the Gulf due to a tropical storm and so we elected to do Bay fishing. We weren’t expecting to catch much due to the weather conditions but my son and I love fishing and being on the boat so we were willing to take the risk. Thankfully, the Lord answered our prayers and we were catching fish left and right! We caught many speckled sea trout, lady fish, and a sail catfish. We had fun with Captain Mike and are glad that we made the decision to still go out on our fishing trip!

Captain Mike was a wonderful guide. He worked hard to get us our limit of Red Snapper . I had mentioned when I booked the trip that I had recently , within the last year and a half ,  had both knees replaced . Captain Mike went above and beyond to see to it that I was comfortable and that I had a good trip . He helped me onto and off of the boat . I highly recommend Captain Mike Dates of First Shot Charters . My wife and I will be booking trips with him in the future .

Captain Mike was awesome. He kept us on fish all day. This picture doesn’t do it justice. We were bringing them in all day. Unfortunately, we missed Red Snapper season or this picture would have a lot more fish in it. Captain Mike knew the water and knew when and where to move to keep us on fish all day. We definitely recommend him and plan to use him again.