Walther
09-01-2014, 09:07 AM
My kid just got back into town from the University of Tennessee where he obtained his UXO certification. Yeah, I know, but as he said, it's better than spending $100k on a college education to work at McDonald's.
Anyway, we haven't see each other much this summer so I thought we'd do a fishing charter on Erie. We wanted to do walleye, but the captain said they weren't biting very good. He said if we wanted to go after perch, no problem. We thought about it some, and decided to go for it. I called my SIL and BIL and offered them two more seats, all at my cost as both are young and both have babies on the way.
We booked the trip and went out yesterday. I want to say at the outset that the captain was very nice, very knowledgable, and tried very hard. He tried a LOT of places, we marked a LOT of fish, and we fished over an hour longer than we were supposed to. We caught an awful lot of sheephead, white perch, one silver bass, one very nice channel cat which got off the line before I could get it in the boat, and a grand total of 6 yellow perch. Which, besides two fairly large white perch, is what we came home with. A grand total of 8 fish. With the trip costing $400.00 (because the captain knocked $50 off due to the lousy catch), I paid $50 a fish. It was actually more with food, beverages, licenses, etc.
NOW then, I know when you charter you are taking a risk. It is really dissapointing to spend that kind of cash and get skunked, but it happens. I'd likely try this captain again, provided, however, and this is the whole point of his thread, that the FIRST MATE stays the hell on the dock.
This guy was a freaking nightmare. He was actually a charter captain filling in since the regular mate was on a bike trip. He was very loud and obnoxious, shouting things like "C'mon perch, BITE ME!" every 5 minutes, and "BE YELLOW" every time we had a fish on. Everytime someone hooked a fish other than a perch, which was most of the time, he called us "Garbage Pickers". "Every boat has garbage pickers, you guys are all garbage pickers." He talked over everyone, had to show every one of us how to fish, and kept regaling us with stories about how last week they boated pounds and pounds of perch between 6 guys, and how someone on another boat got fined because there were so many perch they went over limit and got caught. He also kept getting texts from a friend of his who was catching walleye. (To the captain) "HEY! Now they've got 5 in the boat! Can you imagine, as lousy at is is here, they're catching walleye?" "Now they got 7!"
GRRR....everytime this jerk opened his mouth I wanted to punch him in the throat. The captain kept trying to blow him off, answering with "uh huh", or changing the sbject. He cringed everytime the guy opened his mouth. This guy just didn't understand that the last thing he should be running his mouth about on an obviously failing charter trip is someone else's success. STFU!
I am seriously considering contacting the captain and making sure he understands just how bad the experience was. I'm guessing he already knows, but I want to make sure he knows that we're not happy, and that all this clown did was add to it.
Anyway, we haven't see each other much this summer so I thought we'd do a fishing charter on Erie. We wanted to do walleye, but the captain said they weren't biting very good. He said if we wanted to go after perch, no problem. We thought about it some, and decided to go for it. I called my SIL and BIL and offered them two more seats, all at my cost as both are young and both have babies on the way.
We booked the trip and went out yesterday. I want to say at the outset that the captain was very nice, very knowledgable, and tried very hard. He tried a LOT of places, we marked a LOT of fish, and we fished over an hour longer than we were supposed to. We caught an awful lot of sheephead, white perch, one silver bass, one very nice channel cat which got off the line before I could get it in the boat, and a grand total of 6 yellow perch. Which, besides two fairly large white perch, is what we came home with. A grand total of 8 fish. With the trip costing $400.00 (because the captain knocked $50 off due to the lousy catch), I paid $50 a fish. It was actually more with food, beverages, licenses, etc.
NOW then, I know when you charter you are taking a risk. It is really dissapointing to spend that kind of cash and get skunked, but it happens. I'd likely try this captain again, provided, however, and this is the whole point of his thread, that the FIRST MATE stays the hell on the dock.
This guy was a freaking nightmare. He was actually a charter captain filling in since the regular mate was on a bike trip. He was very loud and obnoxious, shouting things like "C'mon perch, BITE ME!" every 5 minutes, and "BE YELLOW" every time we had a fish on. Everytime someone hooked a fish other than a perch, which was most of the time, he called us "Garbage Pickers". "Every boat has garbage pickers, you guys are all garbage pickers." He talked over everyone, had to show every one of us how to fish, and kept regaling us with stories about how last week they boated pounds and pounds of perch between 6 guys, and how someone on another boat got fined because there were so many perch they went over limit and got caught. He also kept getting texts from a friend of his who was catching walleye. (To the captain) "HEY! Now they've got 5 in the boat! Can you imagine, as lousy at is is here, they're catching walleye?" "Now they got 7!"
GRRR....everytime this jerk opened his mouth I wanted to punch him in the throat. The captain kept trying to blow him off, answering with "uh huh", or changing the sbject. He cringed everytime the guy opened his mouth. This guy just didn't understand that the last thing he should be running his mouth about on an obviously failing charter trip is someone else's success. STFU!
I am seriously considering contacting the captain and making sure he understands just how bad the experience was. I'm guessing he already knows, but I want to make sure he knows that we're not happy, and that all this clown did was add to it.