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Print versionGood Skippers, er, Captains, Stand out from the Crowd
Back in the late nineties, whilst running my old boat the ‘Tiburon’ from Plymouth, I was one of the first skippers to utilise and jump on the internet bandwagon but at that time nobody really knew what a powerful day-to-day tool it would become for business, let alone angling businesses.
We anglers like to eat, sleep and breath fishing, so to be regularly updated with current catch reports and pictures of big fish or good fishing, keeps us sane between the times we fish. I can also remember in times gone by, when to find out what’s happened we had to wait for the Angling Monthlies. And to find a good skipper, you either read a feature about them or were guided by word-of-mouth reports. Now please don’t get me wrong – I am not running down the magazines that support our sport, far from it. A magazine is in a class of its own; nor am I saying that word of mouth is bad... because it’s not – far from it, but today’s angling businesses have the most awesome tool at their fingertips to showcase what they do to thousands of people and tell the world just what they are all about!
To summarise, today’s angler who is looking to buy tackle from an enthusiastic and reputable shop, or book an experienced, friendly and keen skipper or guide, doesn’t have to look far. The ones that are genuine and full of beans about what they do, make full use of the internet and they stick out from the crowd!
By now all you guys must know that I’m pretty barmy about Tarpon and it is for this reason alone that I first visited the USA and for this reason alone that we organise trips for UK anglers to the Florida Keys through our www.fishinginflorida.co.uk experience. But there is another side to the Keys and a side that UK anglers don’t get to see all that often. Big Tarpon, Bonefish and Permit have been publicised the world over when it comes to Florida Keys fishing, but as with all places around the world, in the Keys you have fishing and local’s fishing. So on my last trip to the Keys, I thought I’d book myself some local-style, freezer-filling fishing. And my Guide, Chris Johnson - wasn’t hard to find online!
Chris owns and runs Sea Squared Charters and is one of the middle Keys finest charter Captains, operating his 450hp powered ‘Parker’ charter vessel from the famous 7mile Marina in Marathon, and whilst he’s doing so his wife Christy runs their real time media centre from home. I met Chris & Christy through their Sea Squared pages on facebook, which Christy updates with fishing and Keys news daily, but while Chris is at sea he also updates live catch reports by Twitter. Christy is at home updating their website reports, facebook updates and their fishing reports which they supply to both weekly and monthly angling publications.
When I first started looking for a good American charter captain to book... let’s just say that both Chris, and his wife Christy’s, exuberant love for what they do, stood out a mile! I would go as far as saying from now on, if I am looking to book a skipper, the first thing I am going to look for is how proactive they are with their reporting and keeping their customers informed. Getting to know about angling businesses online offers an almost try before you buy service - let’s be honest there’s plenty of bad skippers and guides out there – so this saves making mistakes in booking the wrong service! Nobody wants to waste money let alone have a wasted days fishing, and this is even more important if you’re trying to book overseas in unfamiliar territory. So after finding the proactive Sea Squared team online before my latest visit, how did they live up to expectations?
Via email, Christy dealt with my enquiry and fully understood what type of fishing I wanted to do and the fish I wanted to catch. Yellow Tail Snapper are a delicacy in the Keys and I wanted some for my freezer. Fishing for Yellow Tails is also something I hadn’t really done before and I wanted to try my chance against this Snapper because they are quoted as being one of the cleverest of the snapper species.
My first trip with Chris was cancelled due to a bad storm, but bending over backwards to shuffle trips and find a space, the Sea Squared team finally fitted me in with no time to spare... 24hrs before my flight home.
Upon arriving at the 7mile Marina at 7:30 am, Chris was busy readying the boat and rigging tackle and after a quick cup of coffee we were off. Initially idling out of the mangrove creek, as soon as we were clear, Chris put the throttles forward and punched a course some miles offshore, for an underwater coral reef. 20 minutes later the anchor was being lowered and a chum bag was already working its magic from the stern. My usual fishing is for Tarpon – one of the cleverest fish to swim the seas so without being purposely ignorant, my thoughts were “Snapper – easy peasey!” but I was soon to find out otherwise!
I dropped the free lined Sardine chunk off the stern to the shoal of 200, 300, 400 – I don’t actually know how many Yellow Tail Snapper were shoaled up - perhaps 60ft of the back of the stern, but nothing. This happened for several more drops until Chris stepped in and with his gentle explanations showed me the way...!
The Key to getting snapper to bite is to first use Fluorocarbon. Secondly, the bait has to be let back at the exact speed of the tide. Too slow and you won’t get a bite; Too fast and you won’t get a bite. In fact if you stall the bait even for the slightest second... these little critters just won’t touch it!
Armed with my new knowledge, on my next drop I managed a small jack. Then I hooked a small Yellow Tail, but then a 500lb bull shark decided to relive me of that... just as Chris said “wind quick or you’re going to get upgraded!” Finally after about an hour, in between sharks, I landed my first Yellow Tail.
That afternoon we caught a few more Yellow tails and a whole host of other species, including my first ever Blue Runner. Now Blue Runners aren’t hard to catch and neither are they a sought after species, but years ago I saw a picture of one and had wanted to see one in the flesh... Job done thanks to Chris! I even learnt a valuable lesson en route... just because I’m good at fishing for certain big species, it doesn’t mean I’ll naturally be good at catching smaller ones!
The next time you’re looking for skipper or guide to book, use everything available at your fingertips to gain information about them and then like me, you won’t be disappointed.
If you want to check out what Chris and Christy Johnson and their charter business ‘Sea Squared Charters’ are up to, in real time, in the Florida Keys... you can find them at:
www.seasquaredcharters.com
www.facebook.com/MarathonFishing
www.twitter.com/MarathonFishing
For those of you who are Tarpon fishing with me next year and fancy some offshore fishing, I won’t hesitate to put you in touch with Chris Johnson.
By the way... between his busy schedule of fishing, writing and blogging, Chris still finds time to appear on live radio which you can check out at www.floridakeysradio.com I even joined Chris for a little live radio myself!
And the Yellow Tails... grilled on the bone they were absolutely stunning with a bottle of bud!!
Right that’s me done until Christmas... I have Jet Lag to get over and I have yet to acclimatise again.
Have a good Christmas and I’ll see you guys afterwards for my 2010 fishy New Years resolutions!!
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