We planned our trip with only a few days notice. We were happy that Freebird had an opening and made our deposit. The night before the charter I received a text to change the charter from 10am to noon. Had to rearrange our day but we made it work. Was told John was our captain. Showed up at the house early. Our captain was Travis and he was nice. I said hello to John and his only reply was that it was going to be a rough windy day. It was windy, and of course we don’t blame a charter on the weather. It was a strange way of addressing the wind. Got on the water and I was informed that the trolling motor wasn’t installed so it was going to be harder to anchor. Was told that the boat was thrown together the night before. Our captain also told us that he didn’t know the area but that we would follow John. We did and we were able to get on the fish. Our guide didn’t know how to remove hooks so he would cut the line for each fish. Thought that was a bit odd. We caught over 25 fish and limited out. Overall the fishing was a good experience. Our guide was not aware of how to clean fish, and on the way back to the dock told us that it would take a few hours to clean the fish. And we could head back to our house and he would bring the cleaned fish to our house. We still owed a little bit of money and he told me to call John to arrange final payment. I called John and he told me to come back to the dock and that it wouldn’t take 2 hours to clean the fish. We drove back to the dock and John was no where to be found. Our guide had just begun to clean the fish and told us again to go ahead and go to our house and they will deliver the cleaned fish to our house. Communication between the two was not good and John seemed upset when I talked to him, even though we were following direction. We went back to the house and waited for the fish. We had dinner plans at 6 pm and we were told that the fish would be delivered by 5pm. At 5:30 I texted my captain Travis and he didn’t respond. A little while longer goes by and I called and texted John. John’s reply was “trailer blew a hud and at the marine repair shop.” No apology for not communicating nothing. I asked what that meant and he repeated himself. We just wanted what we paid for and expected we were dealing with a professional that knew how to communicate. John acted like a little child. I was embarrassed for him. It actually became a joke. Travis did finally communicate with us and said he would drop the fish off at our house. Mind you, all we wanted is what we paid for. We also left a nice tip of $150 for a 3 hour trip. Travis did finally deliver the filets at 7:30pm. 4 and 1/2 hours after the trip was over. We clearly weren’t a priority and they were awful at communicating what was going on. They delivered one bag of fillets for 25 fish. The fish were between 3lb to 8lbs each. And we got one bag. At this point we were glad to be done with their shanty business and very poor ran organization. I would not recommend using them and if you do, plan on getting attitude for expecting them to be adults and know how to communicate. I am perfectly fine with issues, but it’s very important to let your customers who are waiting on you what is going on. Would have been a simple phone call. And the attitude John gave me was embarrassing. We did however catch fish!

Lots of fishing and fellowship, worth every penny

It started with disappointment when we get there and find out that the captain with 27 yrs of experience is off that day. He was not busy with other guests. He was just not working. That was one of the selling points of a $500+ trip. Instead we got a guy that had only been in Alabama for a few months. He was a nice gentlemen and did the best he could but it was obvious that he had not been fishing here long. We caught a few whiting and a few other small fish. It equated to a glorified bream fishing trip with scenery. Extremely underwhelming to say the least.

Caught plenty of fish, Captain John was very knowledgeably of area and was very helpful and friendly. Will book again for sure.