I paid $1950 with a $250 dollar tip. What we got out of this was a trip out approx 60 miles one way and 14 red snapper which two were kept by the captain……

What we didn’t get-

1.  A general run down of what to expect so he doesn’t yell at some of the people on board because they’ve never been red snapper fishing.
2.  Enough bait since we kept being told we would run out of bait if we didn’t do this right.
3. What we paid for since I was under the impression we’d be fishing for more then red snapper on this 10 hour trip. Once we caught our limit of red snapper we then dropped two lines trolling for something but that was it before we called it for the day.
4.  I wasn’t advised we’d be splitting the days catch with the captain since we did pay for the trip and in my opinion he was given a decent tip.

I know I could have just paid the amount and not left a tip but since we did make the 60 mile trip I figured it was earned but definitely won’t be using him again. He tends to talk to grown men like they are children- the guys I was with are definitely not ones to take much and I didn’t want things to get out of hand so I’m glad they didn’t take it to heart.

I’m not sure if cleaning the fish was included or not in the price but make sure you clean your own or get someone you know to clean yours. He had a guy he called “Trixie” who “cleaned” our fish but it seems he left more then we took home.

The end.

I wish I would have read the negative reviews instead of just the positive ones before I booked this trip.  After much research, I picked this one because of the positive reviews, boy did I make a mistake.  This was our 6th private chartered fishing trip so it’s not like we are inexperienced and don’t know what we are doing, and we wanted to try a new experience and booked a nearshore 5 hour trip.  When I booked, I answered all of their questions and wrote a little note saying our experience with fishing and what kind of fish we were interested in catching.  We aren’t naive, we know that your chances of catching fish are slim so we don’t have high expectations for that part, really we are there for the whole fishing experience.  So disappointed that our experience was watching the captain cast out one, rarely two, lines and not touch a pole until we took turns trying to reel in a shark as he would only go behind the shrimp boats looking for sharks.  We did not sign up for a shark only experience but after seeing what type of bait he had and the hooks on the 6 poles, we quickly figured out that was what we were going to get unfortunately.  After an hour of doing only that, my husband very politely asked if there were other fish we could fish for and I asked if we could throw in a couple of more lines so the adults could get more hands-on experience and boy that was the wrong thing to do.  Captain Shannon immediately answered in a very sarcastic manner and said we could just go back home and not do this at all.  He was extremely rude and defensive and we immediately felt stuck in a bad situation with him holding the reigns.  Like I’m going to drop over $1,000 just so he can take us back to the marina and drop us off.  He was very good at knowing where the sharks were and how to catch them and we all participated when one took the line, yet it was somewhat disturbing how he spoke to us and barked out commands when we were trying to reel them in.  Funny thing, we video-taped one time we caught a shark and showed the video to a member of our party who couldn’t go with us and he said, “Wait, did this guy really talk to you guys like that during the whole trip?  That is awful!”  It truly was and I apologized many times to my entire family for booking with him as our family was SO LOOKING FORWARD to this fishing trip for months, it truly is one of the highlights of our trip, and it was awful.  Not only did I work extra jobs for many months throughout the year to raise money for this fishing trip, which cost $900 plus $100 for a one-day fishing license for everyone, I felt like I had to do the right thing and leave a tip, which I so badly regret doing, because he was extremely rude, so I am mad at myself for leading him to believe he even deserved any kind of tip.  I will say, after a while, he asked a question or two and asked if any of us knew a good joke, but pretty sure he was only doing that because he wanted someone to write him a great review.  I could also say how two of the sharks we caught he got the photographer in “position” to take a picture and then cut the line and we had no idea why he did that or what was going on, and a couple of times the line broke and we could all tell he didn’t like it when that happened and then we were down to only getting to watch him throw out 1 line, even though there appeared to be 6 lines ready to use but he never grabbed any of those other poles.  If we asked him anything, like why did we not keep that one, he would give an answer but nothing more unless you asked.  At the end of the trip he had the nerve to speak directly to me and said I should write him a 5 star review.  Everyone was very polite to him and told him thank you for the trip and none of us argued with him or were rude at all…I read his responses to his negative reviews so I’m sure he will get defensive and say we did something wrong, but again, the only wrong thing we did was leave him a tip and book with him.  Never again.

I payed for my husband and 2 of his friends to go fishing for his 40th birthday but they weren’t impressed with the experience. The captain seemed irritated about the guys for getting hung up in the rocks a couple of times when it is the spot he told them to cast out at. They caught a shark and reeled it in all the way to the boat 3 times but the captain didn’t finish it off to bring it in the boat. They didn’t catch any fish at all. Which I understand it isn’t a guarantee and a storm just came through a few days before but one of my husband’s friends has been on other fishing trips like this one and said it could have gone differently. Overall just disappointed that they didn’t have the experience I was hoping for overall.