Ohhhhh July. That was a doozie! Record heat on top of record head. I think we had 21 consecutive broken daily high temperatures with 40 something days of heat index well above 100 degrees. I had my appendix removed July 3 and missed a week of charters. My return was not as kind and gentile as I had hoped. I had 3 charters in a row with sick customers. With my body being so run down, I have been beat down sick the past week from having those sick customers on board. Then the chaos of having 40,000 extra people in town for lobster mini season just made everything really difficult to operate.

For the sake of understanding, I am one person managing every aspect of my business. I have an easy system that I have refined over the past 13 years or so. I want your experience to be easy and pleasant from the booking process to final moment we settle up and you walk away with a bag of fresh caught fish. It is all designed to be easy. The only time it is not easy is when a group brings so many challenges to my system that my train is derailed. It takes a lot of work, but customers derail the elements of my system all of the time. July has prompted me to solve some of the reoccuring issues that keep harming me and my business. Soon the initial deposit you make to reserve your trip will increase. I have discovered that previously many people are not concerned about losing$100-$200 deposits and brush off a charter reservation. All lobster trips will be paid in full before the boat leaves the dock. If you bypassed the requirements for lobstering, I’m going to be totally good with it. Showing up sick will never be a concern to me again. It is now one of my check in questions I will be asking you about the health of your participants. If I find a sick person in your group, the trip is going nowhere and the increased deposit will cover my time invested in being in a bad position. I hate having to make more rules, but it’s biting me all of the time now.

Pleasant news, we had 3 days of rain and it temporarily cooled our 90 degree water down to 85. We really, really needed that! It also coincided with mini season and that kept lots of people off the water, created large areas of poor visibility and kept a lot more lobster in the water for regular season trips. For lobstering, it was hard to get a read on what we have for a lobster population this year. The info I got was all over the place and so were the conditions. For your trip with me, communication will be key to make sure we are on the same page. I am happy to switch your lobster trip to a fishing trip the night before if your confidence is low for lobstering success. As always, conditions will determine the ease or difficulty of the activity. I will always do my best to put you in reasonably appropriate conditions. I certainly do my best to make sure you have excellent information to choose the right activity for your group. Daily I have people trying to book lobster charters that have skipped all of my info and just book a trip for whatever reason. No. I am not interested in that at all. I’m turning away 30%-40% of people that want to do these trips because I do not want the wrong people on board consequently making this more difficult than it is. Please read up on my lobster info.

Fishing has been ok lately. Early starts and working hard has made some nice catches for the reef and offshore.

Deep exotics are mostly closed, which was an excellent supplement to slower days offshore. There may be some limited opportunities if you wish to invest an hour in trying for queen snapper or rosefish. I have limited experience invested into those species, but am interested in building my deep fish program. It just takes time and understanding. I understand looking at a rod tip isn’t the most exciting fishing when nothing is biting.

Offshore the tuna bite has been a little quiet and the mahi have been fairly plentiful. Just many fish running a little short of legal size. I have been seeing others keeping undersized fish. Dolphin need to be 20″ measured to the fork of the tail. On the reef the yellowtail snapper bite has been good early and when the current is moving. We are coming hopefully off of a stretch of clear water and zero current, which makes for some very tough fishing. As with everything, conditions dictate what works each trip. I try to build in multiple plans so we have options when plan A doesn’t work out well.

Snorkeling has been pretty good. Been some ups and downs with conditions. The lack of rain has made for warm clear water. There have been a few moon jellyfish days, so that long sleeve rash guard is always a great idea. Moon jellies are very common this time of the year, so don’t be surprised. Just be prepared.

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