Quickie Update

Since the Seven Mile Bridge current is pretty important for planning tarpon and bridge fishing trips, I added the link to the Mosher Channel current prediction on the left side panel. It is just above the Moon Phase link.

No fishing reports today, but the weather is beautiful so there are boats headed out to the Hump and other offshore destinations today. I will try to find out how they did. The cold and rainy snap last week and the first of this week drove most of the customers off. There should be some tire kickers around now so maybe I can capture one. Nothing scheduled on the books until next week, then I should be busy for a while.


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

Long Term Weather Report for the Month of February 2012

For the guys north of latitude 30: Warmer that where you are. Sunnier than where you are. Better fishing conditions that where you are :)


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

The Cheap Charter Versus the Charter Adventure!

When I started fishing with Chris and Walkabout charters, I started off with lower rates than he is used to quoting. Since I have been doing this for quite a while, I know pretty much what works for my regular clients. They want to catch fish. While they would love to catch the mostest and biggest, they mainly are more concerned with the tastiest. I have no problem with that.

So the cheap or economy charter is bare bones but not a bait and switch charter. By bare bones, I mean that the range is limited to about 8 miles from the dock because fuel costs money and travel takes time, which is money. If I am pretty sure I can catch fish in that range I say so. If I think I can't, I say that too. I am pretty honest since my memory is too bad to lie. Other than the full moon or banana excuses, of course. I am even dumb enough to tell people before hand what the moon may do, the banana no, that is always the final backup excuse. :)

Another part of the cheap charter is gear. I am replacing my rods and reels with nice but not expensive stuff. So don't expect to see Shimano Stellas on custom Cape Fear blanks. Those cost a little over a grand a piece, If you want that kinda gear, bring your own, not on the cheap charter list of ingredients.

Bait is what is available. I catch my own bait most of the time, but I am not going to spend two or three hours chasing bait for the cheap charter. We catch our own bait on the trip and trade that up. Basic baits, shrimp, ballyhoo, and chum are of course included. If a customer has a line on some bait, bring it on, not a problem.

Tackle is pretty old school for me. I rarely use store bought lures or a lot of expensive stuff that most folk think are require to catch fish because they saw Roland Martin using it. Roland Martin's job is to sell stuff. My job is to catch fish. Most of the stuff works, I just don't think they work well enough to justify the cost. It is hard to beat live and "fresh" dead bait in my opinion, but lure can be fun, so bring your favorites if you like.

People that have fished with me know that I am not a stickler for many rule and I am a little vain, so if the bite sucks, I will bend my rules enough to not suck. If that is going to really get into my pocket, I will let you know, but most know when I have to go above and beyond and tip accordingly. After all that is what a tip is all about.

So after talking it over with Chris, $425 is the cheap charter rate. That is a half day rate if I am booked for the afternoon or the bite is off the hook, or about five or six hours if I am not booked or the fishing is a little slow.

The not so cheap charter rate is $650. There you get the heavier gear, we spend time catching bait and the range is more flexible. That is for about 6 hours to allow for more travel time in reason. Some times when the dolphin are way offshore, we may need to add a little for extra fuel and that would include a hump trip for tuna which is $100 more for fuel, since the round trip to the humps is nearly 60 miles. All that $100 covers is fuel by the way.

Most of these prices are to save y'all some money and me wear and tear. I am trying to limit my fishing days to around 6 hours or so. I have Chris for the guys that want the sun up to sun down adventures.

I thought I would post this just to make the rates more official. 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'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