Had a great first time on the Gulf. Our shared charter carried three instead of the scheduled five due to no shows. I appreciated that we didn’t spend much time waiting to see if they would show up and we went ahead and started fishing. The Captain was easy to talk to and the mate, Ethan, was always handy to rebait my hook when we were bottom fishing.

We started out trolling for kingfish which was a great way to get some meat but they provided little fight between the heavy tackle and their tendency to swim towards the boat. They are still a very impressive fish to see pulled out of the water. Also, when I hooked a smaller kingfish bottom fishing with the lighter spinning tackle it put up a heck of a fight. I can see why you wouldn’t want a large kingfish on light gear.

After the three of us limited on Kings we switched to bottom fishing. Where as a boat we caught 2 legal red snapper, countless undersized red snapper, 1 kingfish, 2 small sharks, a Spanish mackerel, and a few baitfish. We definitely didn’t get bored.

I didn’t notice at the time but I am pretty sure we stayed out past our scheduled time, which I appreciated. As soon as we finished up the Captain was getting ready to head out again. However, we had had his undivided attention until we were ready to go, while Ethan got ready for the next group.

The fillet on the kingfish is a bit grey when it comes off the fish but as you can see from the picture I included it got nice and pretty after a few minutes in the cast iron pan.

In closing, here are a few things that I would find helpful if I was looking for a charter again.
The meat was filleted and the Captain allowed me to have input as far as skin on/off as well as if I would like it in steak chunks or as a whole side.
The boat rule is sharks over 4 ft. will be released. Which is reasonable, for a meat shark you wouldn’t want anything larger and it’s much more sustainable to keep smaller, fast reproducing sharks.
The ride from the dock to where we began trolling took just under an hour, a decent chunk of this time is spent leaving the marina and going out past the jetty where you can begin to pick up speed.

I would recommend going with Olivia J and if I find myself in the Houston area again I plan on taking a second trip!