I took my fishing loving fifteen year old daughter out for a day with dad using Screaming Eagle Charters. First let me say that I found captain Herman Haddaway nice, friendly, and overall a good guy. While we only caught two fish the entire day and they had to be released due to being a tad to small the fishing was pretty slim pickings at the spot Captain Herman took us too for a six hour day in the blazing sun, meaning he never took us anywhere else but the same spot near a derelict buoy type light in the middle of the bay. I kept wondering to myself since no fish had been biting for hours why not try another spot? Our trip became pretty boring fishing the same spot all day long…

Oh well some fishing days are better than others and this day was not one of the better ones fish wise.

What I didn’t like about the trip was the total lack of safety and especially the messiness of the boat. What I am getting at here is Captain Herman (and his 1st mate son) never once pointed out where life jackets where, what we should do in an emergency etc. I can’t say I have a lot of experiences with small boat charters but not covering basic boat safety for passenger’s safety seems to me to be wrong. Note this short review is being written during the Covid outbreak; NO ONE on this trip cared about wearing a face mask which in my opinion should have been required or at least was stated as being optional on the boat when we first got on board.

A real drag of the trip was simply being uncomfortable. Due to the below deck area being totally filled with junk and bric-a-brac (tools, papers, boxes of fishing gear) and NO running water in the head to simply wash your hands of fish and your lunch was a big negative. You could also barely sit anywhere except for a tiny table opposite the captain’s chair. While there was a larger table this area was also filled with stuff as well as the seat around the table so you couldn’t simply sit down, take a break from fishing and eat or drink anything.

There were two ice chest you could sit on but these were on deck exposed to the hot sun (no sun shade at all) and woefully uncomfortable. Granted the trip was about fishing not sitting on our butts BUT after hours of fishing simply sitting down and comfortably relaxing a bit somewhere was not part of this trip.

In closing again, I liked Captain Haddaway but constructive criticism here is simply please clean up your messy boat and take pride in it for your business, passengers’ comfort and please cover safety before going anywhere on a charter.