My fiance and I did a full day of trolling with Captain Joe and First Mate AJ and had an amazing time. We caught two sailfish, two blackfin tuna, and one bonita. These guys are professionals and it showed beyond the fact that we both caught our first sailfish. It came down to their personability, preparation, and their ability to catch fish! I’ll include further details below.
Personability: Two great guys that made the trip fun from start to finish. They have known each other for a long time and it was clear their goals were for us to be safe, have fun, and catch fish. They walked us through their expectations from a safety perspective and gave us a tutorial about our fishing plan and how to be successful on the boat. AJ had tons of entertaining fishing stories and happily answered any and all questions we had about his fishing career. Each time we landed a fish they were very encouraging about taking videos and pictures, offering to do it for us, and we appreciated them helping us have those lasting memories. Additionally, AJ filleted our tuna and walked us through the process of possibly getting mounts of our sailfish.
Preparation: Captain Joe called the night before and let us know that he thought the bite would be earlier than our scheduled 7:30 AM start time and offered to leave earlier, so we left at 6:30 AM and he was completely right. When we arrived, they had everything ready to go and we left on time. I asked AJ when he began preparing and he said 4am. He re-spooled all the reels, had his own customized hooks specifically for trolling, and prepped all the bait. They had coolers with ice, water, and some snacks that they offered to share. The boat was spotless. They also have a ton of experience fishing in the area and around Florida.
Catching Fish: As I mentioned in the preparation piece, everything was ready and as soon as we arrived at our trolling location it was game on. Joe and AJ were constantly looking for birds, paying attention to other boats, and watching the lines and baits, all while casually talking to us. AJ did a great job switching out old bait for fresh bait and kept lines in the water the whole time. When we got a bite AJ made sure we were set up correctly to fight the fish and made sure all the other lines were out of the way, Joe drove the boat like a pro. Both offered the perfect amount of advice throughout each fight. When we landed our sailfish both were as excited as we were and it was like the whole boat had caught the fish. They make it a team environment. When the bite got slower during the middle of the day they maintained their energy and didn’t give up, they stayed attentive the entire time. Toward the end of the day, we saw more birds and we kept fishing until the absolute last minute. They wanted to get a “buzzer beater” fish to end the day on and we really appreciated it.
Terrific experience, highly recommend, looking forward to our next trip!
My fiance and I did a full day of trolling with Captain Joe and First Mate AJ and had an amazing time. We caught two sailfish,...
