I booked a six hour in shore trip for myself and my grandson.  I called the night before to verify the exact location of the boat and to make sure there was place sit because I have a disability.  I talk to Michelle and she said Captain John and his wife would be meeting us.  That was the first mention that it wouldn’t be Captain Alex as described.  If I had read Captain John’s review before I would have declined the trip. John and his wife (his deck hand) were at the boat on time.  He asked what we wanted to do and told him we had fished deep yesterday and wanted to fish in shore, whatever he thought was the best.  He headed out immediately to go deep and he thought it was too rough and turned around even though all the other boats were going out.  He said we would fish by the big bridge we had gone under.  His wife (very pleasant the whole trip) said something about seeing lots of baitfish and asked John if he wanted to try and net some.  He said “no, that net cost $150.00 and I might lose it. On the way to the bridge she said it was just as well they didn’t go deep because they weren’t licensed to keep Red Snappers except on the weekends. We got back to the bridge and there were three boats in the area.  To me boats clustered usually means fish.  But he said he wouldn’t fish there and continued back inland.  By the time we dropped the first hook in the water we were 1 1/2 hours into the trip. We fished less than five minutes and lost three shrimp and he said “Pinfish, we’re moving.”  We located a spot where we finally caught 8 white trout pretty quickly.  Even though they were only about 9 inches long Captain John kept trying to convince us they “were great fish”.  They are not even listed in the species that might be targeted and he said there was “no limit” which tells me they border on trash fish.  He spent a long time on the phone with what he later said was a tax collector trying to collect taxes on two Charter Services he used to run and on three boats that he currently owned but weren’t water worthy. That conversation was the only reason we sat still long enough to catch a few little white trout. He decided we needed to go somewhere else and ran farther up the waterway.  There was one boat and John said that was exactly where he was going.  We went past it and drift fished for about 5 minutes and we were off again to some cove where the “fishing was great”.  We got there and there were two jet ski’s in the area and John wouldn’t fish there either.  Other places were too windy or there were too many pinfish.  There really never seemed to be any plan of where to find fish. I six hours we spent at least 4 hours riding from place to place.  I told John at one point “you can’t catch a fish if your lines not in the water”.
Michelle met us at the landing ramp to promptly collect the payment.  When I told her we spent 4 of the six hours boat riding she didn’t seemed pleased but made no effort to apologize.  I have fished with guides from Canada to Hawaii to both coast of Mexico and off the Belize coast.  I haven’t always caught fish but I always felt like the guide did their best.  If you are ever offered a trip with Captain John, save your money, rent a boat and just take a ride.

First, I should make it clear that Alex Brewer was not our Captain. Have not previously been “contracted out” on a charter, but seems like this is what happened in this case. We were not given any reason for this. Although booking a charter is all inclusive besides the tipping, our Captain complained about the cost of his live bait and quickly switched to synthetic. Overall, not the best experience I’ve had.