It's a Family Thing

Since I can't remember names worth a dang, I will just use Mom, London and little Miss Pinfish. Chris booked a family trip, for a pretty large family. He took the Dad and older girls to the reef, I took Mom, London and little Miss Pinfish to the Bay.

Since it was a family outing and some of the kids required the Coast Guard mandatory wearing of the life vest thing, we outfitted the younger members with team West Marine ski vest PFDs. Stylish and comfortable attire in matching blue. As captain kiddie, I generally get the younger passengers, probably because I never bothered to grow up myself.

After hearing that my personal best pinfish in the bait net catch was 5 in a scoop, little Miss Pinfish proceeded to show me what dipping bait was all about. She tied my personal best twice, but never bested me. She did manage to put about 100 fresh live pinfish in the live well along with the couple of hundred pilchards.

With Alex mating, LMP and London caught the entire family dinners of Mangrove snapper and Spanish Mackerel. London, a statuesque, 3 foot 2, boated the largest Spanish and tied for largest Mangrove. Her Spanish was just a foot shy of equaling her height. We even forced Mom to catch a fish or two, though she was the designated outdoors photographer for the day.

The more adventurous family members managed the largest fish of the trips with a respectable 25 pound king mackerel while searching for Bodine tables. The wind did blow up a bit on them while Captain Kiddie and Alex munched on fried chicken watching LMP show us up in the cockpit. A true fisherkid, LMP enjoyed freshly caught fish fingers at Salty's while the offshore crew made their way back to the dock.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

P.S. It appears that the new light tackle gear situation is resolved for now. Not a big name manufacturer, but the gear works and is kid friendly, as in I won't freak out if one get released to the sea. More on that later.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Mangrove Francais

Francais is just French for French. If you take a refresh fish fillet, say from a 17 inch bridge caught Mangrove Snapper, season it with salt and pepper, dredge it in flour, then egg wash then seasoned flour. Then saute that in butter plus olive oil until golden brown. You are getting French with your fish. Then if you happen to saute some mushrooms, peppers and onion in the same pan, deglaze with a little white wine add some clam juiced with a touch of corn starch to thicken, you are getting a little more French with our fish. Seasoned with every step of course.

What do you have? What's for dinner, is what. Right now the Mangroves at the bridge are more than willing to get French with you. That is about the least expensive fishing trip you can make. You can do it on your own at any of the Keys fishing bridges, or hire an old guy like me to show you the ropes. With Chris' folks in town, Mangrove snapper is on the menu after our relaxing morning half day of catching. No monster fish, just tasty and respectable sized Snapper. Capt Jeff is going out this afternoon to catch the hero fish.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

It is All About the Money

Here is a news flash, charter fishing is about making money. This topic came up shooting the breeze with the captains at the dock. Why? Because they believe that all charters should have about the same sticker price. I think all charters should have about the same profit margin. It is a profit thing in my opinion.

The reason this subject comes up is because I have cultivated a blue collar clientele. I am a bit on the frugal side myself, I want the most bang for my buck, so I expect the same from by customers. I like eating fish, if I owned a working freezer that wasn't full of unrecognizable bait and chum, I would be inclined to stock up on fish that freeze well.

So over the years, I have gradually slid into an unofficial business agreement with my customers, "if you want me to charge less, expect to do more yourself." Being a cheap skate, er.. frugal, I can squeeze the bait, fuel and ice budget to death and still catch fish. That involves spending time catching bait on the trip instead of having it ready at the dock, using less chum by targeting stupider fish and not running to the Bahamas for fish I can catch at the bridge. Some people like that, some don't. Different strokes and all that.

The boat and me can make a good living on $400 a day. This is were the confusion starts, to me a day is a day and a fishing trip is a tide. It bores the hell out of me to sit for a couple hours knowing damn well the bite is going to suck. Since there is about 5 hours of productive enough tide to not bore me, that is a fishing day. In order to extend that productive time requires time and money, my time and the boat's fuel consumption money. So I call my trips, flexible full days. We go catching for $400 bucks, not catching costs $75 bucks an hour.

If the crew needs a mate on the boat, the mate costs money. Without a bump in the boat economy, that means productive fishing is more like 3 hours instead of five. I like my mates, but I also like making a living. No mate means more work for me, more money for me, or more work by the frugal customers. I am flexible and most fishermen I know do a fair job of cleaning fish and boats. I will step in if someone tries to butcher either.

When I had plans of starting my own charter, with my own boat, I was going to call this the "Grunts" special. Grunts can either be the target species or the sound I hear while the customers are cleaning the boat and/or the fish.

I also like to gamble a little and brag when I win. So if I think I have fair odds of making the kids at the dock look bad by bringing in bigger or fancier fish, I am inclined to do so on occasion. Kids do need to be reminded that the old farts can catch fish from time to time.

So what I need is a little consumer feed back. Is this too complicated so should I just charge $750 a day so I blend in with the kids?


Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Mike Can't Catch

Fly fishing aficionado Brian had to go back to the real world leaving his buddy Mike all alone with big ferocious fish that made is Chesapeake Bay tackle look a little wimpy. Yes, that's right sports fans, big fish made Mike work for it and his luck and gear just wasn't up to the task.

Mike has a slightly aging Mitchell spinning reel. It is a classic among classics. An estimated 90 pound fish toyed with Mike and his Mitchel for a while, but when the fish went into turbo mode, it got away. Mike also has a Penn level wind trout rod/reel with 14 pound test. For about an hour Mike and his trout combo felt the power of an unknown Keys species. During that hour I reminded Mike that the fish is not caught until it is along side the boat. After dancing around the anchor a few times, going around the boat a few times and chatting about chickens (I was going to raid his fried chicken lunch stash) something bigger than mike's fish made its move. The guy in the brown suit, Mr. Bullshark, ended Mike's dream of fishing glory. Mike did manage a Cero Mackerel, King Mackerel and Little Tunny (Bonita)in whole condition for the box.

Oh, Mike also has a Penn 4/0 with broom stick rod and about 50 pound test line that did not quite cut the mustard. I will let Mike tell that tale :) Anyway, Mike wanted BIG, he got BIG.
Update: Once the wind laid down, Mike found another guide to put him on some smaller fish :)

That is a nice Mutton he caught with Capt. Howard out of Captain Pips Marina.


Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Spanish Mackerel on the Fly

The wind started in the twenties early, so I recommended a later start. Mike and Brian, from the Maryland area agreed. We tried a close spot first because of the winds, no luck. So we headed into the wind back in to the Bay. We had already added a Danforth anchor on to the rock anchor, just to make sure we would stay put.

We started chumming about 10:30 and by 10:35 we had our first Spanish in the box. Not a big fish, in the 2 to 3 pound range, but enough to impress the crew. We used both pichards and live shrimp baits to start, then moved to spoons and finally, Brian broke out the fly rod.

I don't know what it is about fly guys, but they get all excited when they see their backing. Brian saw his backing three of four times on the five or six Spanish he caught. Pretty common thing down here, must not be so common up in Maryland.

Mike said he would send pictures of Brian posing, flyrod and Spanish in hand. I wouldn't hold my breath on that, but I will remind him Tuesday when we go in search of bigger Mackerel, the King, on the Oceanside, weather permitting.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Well, the Boat Didn't Sink

Long ago, in a place that seems so far, far away, a commenter on the Florida Sportsman Fishing Forum mentioned that the reports on the forum were all good, no one ever mentioned the not so good. I am a firm believer in never saying negative things about people or fishing trips. But, since honesty was requested, I compromised and say more realistic things about the less than stellar trips that happen at times. Most of the time there is some humor in the telling that makes up for the negative side of the truth which people seem to want, but rarely truly appreciate. Today, the boat did not sink :)

Bill and his lovely wife Chris hired me to fish with them on their lovely boat, which had thoughts about sinking, but decided not to. An unnamed worker for an unnamed employer working on a boat of unnamed manufacture, with twin brand new Suzuki outboards, forgot to dog down a hatch. It made for interesting conversation back at the dock and a rather slow day of catching. So fishing wise, we caught the largest Pork fish I have seen in ages, a large variety of small but very attractive fish and an appetizer size portion of legal Mangrove Snapper.

I would love to say that I was the hero of the day, but that honor goes to boat of unnamed manufacture and the brand new Suzuki four stroke outboard engines. The villain of the day is Karma.

After four straight days of absolutely gorgeous fishing weather and no customers. The weather report on Friday the 13th looked good for offshore on Saturday the 14th. With visions of tuna and cobia for dinner I awoke to 24 knots winds and no hot water. I blame the cat for the lack of hot water. Heck, I may as well blame the cat for the high winds. As I drove to dock with the cold winds buffeting the Tahoe, listening to the cheery weather report of 10 to 15 knot winds and 2 to 3 foot seas, I could only chuckle. Because of the winds, we changed plans, deciding to fish the Hawk Channel Rock piles for Lanes and other critters waiting for the bait to show and the winds to die. Then we may have a shot at the reef later. The current was not bad, it was horrendous! A surface current out the back of the boat and an under current straight up the anchor line. I brilliantly decided to head to the East in the sheltered channel to catch the Seven Mile bridge current to get the wind with the tide. That lead to the discovery of the boat's plans and later the discovery of the cause of the boat's plans, once we had returned to the dock.

After the boat was bailed out and things placed in reliable order, we headed to the Long Key Bridge, with two additional anglers who had discovered that fishing the reef was not all that great of an idea. They may have listened to the same weather report on the radio. With bait, live shrimp, enough for two anglers we arrived at the bridge with four anglers and managed to turn two anglers worth of bait into 3 keeper mangroves just before the current got right to catch many more Mangroves. I think this was plan G or H by this time and I did forget the bait situation somewhere around plan F.

So the short version is we went out and returned safely with nearly enough fresh fish for an appetizer.

The moral, dog your hatches, maintain a sense of humor and keep a cat around so there is someone to blame for bad Karma :) Tomorrow is another day, with another angler and with these winds, another bridge. Catching wise, we will probably do better, though the day may be a little less exciting.

Londonfisherman, this post is for you.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our boat not sinking 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas