The Connoisseur 

Captain Matt took my family and I out on a great trip into the Gulf! We started out the day catching some small bait fish after seeing a beautiful sunrise on the water. After securing the bait, we went fishing for some Vermillion Snapper. While this is what we were primarily aiming to catch throughout the day, we also caught some Trigger fish and Squirrelfish while fishing for them. When Captain Matt saw some gulls diving and fish jumping, he rigged another rod to use some of the live bait to catch Amberjack. With his help, we were able to bring a couple of these into the boat with one being about a 30-pounder and the other having been bit by a shark on the way in (which was certainly a cool experience)! We unfortunately had to throw them back because they were out of season, but they offered a great fight. Captain Matt was very attentive to everyone throughout the day, constantly keeping everyone's hooks baited, pulling fish off the hooks for everyone, and genuinely just making sure everyone was having a good time. He was quick to move to a new spot when the fish weren't biting, and he was ready to listen and adjust his plan to what we all wanted to do. Overall, we caught 42 Vermillion Snapper we could keep, and I'd estimate we probably caught over 60 fish throughout our time on the boat! Matt filleted them all when we got back to shore, and even recommended a restaurant (Brotula's) that would cook the fish for us! We ended up with around 6.5 pounds of fillets and it felt immensely satisfying that the 5 of us who went out to fish were able to feed our full party of 10 with no issues. It was a fantastic experience, and I'll definitely be passing on Matt's information to anyone I know looking to do some fishing here in Destin!

We had some weather that morning that pushed the trip back a little bit but captain Matt stayed in contact with me and stayed on top of the weather. We went out around 1 and went and started catching bait and fish to eat which is what we were wanting to do and after we had got pretty much all we wanted for eating then we went after some bigger fun fish. I caught a 6’ shark probably 100 pounds or better and hooked up on a couple amberjacks and we think another shark. All in all this was a great trip and Matt kept us on top of fish. Great guy and we will be planning another trip. Hopefully soon😎

Captain Matt is an amazing captain. We never ran out of bait. He worked his butt off to make sure that we had a good experience. We caught so many fish we were worn out we hooked into several big fish unfortunately we was unable to land most of them, one of our members hooked into a shark and actually got it up to the boat. I would recommend this trip to anyone. Our boys haven’t stopped talking about. We had a great time. I’d like to say thank you to the captain, Matt. We look forward to doing this again. I would recommend this to anyone.

Captain Matt knows the waters well and kept us on fish for the entire 4 hour trip. Boated a lot of fish. Between my wife and I, I would guess that we caught 40 fish in 4 hours. Had a few large grouper on and they all got bitten off by sharks. But Matt kept up the hard work and was engaging the entire trip. I will definitely book with him again.

We had an amazing fishing trip aboard the Connoisseur! Captain Matt knew exactly where to go—he put us on the fish at several great spots throughout the day. His expertise and friendly attitude made the whole experience fun and stress-free. Everyone had a great time, and we’ll definitely be booking again. Highly recommend!