Caught fish all day, never a dull moment

We paid for a marlin fishing trip, but the ship mate laughed at us. They were very nice, and prorated our cost because a storm came up.  We were tossed all over the boat, and my husband hurt his shoulder in a fall.

Contacting the captain to verify the trip and get detail directions to the dock and boat was hit and miss.  After four calls, I finally managed to contact Cpt. Watson and he provided verbal directions late the evening before our 0530 departure.  Once we found his boat, he told us to load up our stuff and we could go.  After driveing past the jetties, we fished for bait for about an hour ( I did ask to buy bait but none was available) to get enough to go off shore.  Three hours after leaving the dock we finally dropped our first line to catch some fish.  Although the first two location were not productive, we finally manage to find a spot with some red snapper.  Caught our limit in short order. Then the Cpt. said we were moveing to another spot. . . He never asked what we wanted to catch…. just fish here and catch this.  !  The mate was young and tried his best to accomodate, but at 17 had few communication skill. Fished offshore for about to hours, then back to the dock.  We tried to politely critique the Cpt. and the mate, but they seemed more intrested in taking pictures of the few fish we caught than listening to anything we had to say.
Very disappointed for the price charged.  Yes we did catch some fish. . . but that’s why we hired a “professional”(?) charter.  Guess there is no standard other than catching a few fish?  Not my benchmark!  Titian

The captain & first mate were experienced and knew how to get on the fish.  We caught our limit of white and vermillion snapper.  However, the other aspects of the trip presented some annoyances.  We booked online, and the website gave the wrong address for the boat (210 E Hwy 98, instead of 210 Harbor Blvd).  At 5:15am, we were a bit lost trying to find the boat. The boat is named for the owner’s deceased father, and includes a memorial painted on the window.  I appreciate the sentiment, but the boat is a floating mausoleum.  It was obvious no repairs or updating to the interior had been done in years. The captain requires his fee in cash.  No mention of this on the website - it was a bit awkward at the end when I didn’t have enough cash - he accepted a check.  It’s 2018, and everyone has a PayPal or Square account. If you don’t mind all those annoyances, he does know how to find the fish!