So, it you have turned on your tv and watched the news for more than 5 minutes this year, you probably saw something about it being hot. Yup, that’s a thing! Count on it, expect it, prepare for it because it is not summer yet and we are weeks into late summer heat and conditions. Only exception is the rainy season rains have not kicked in yet, which can happen any day now. Again, plan and prepare for it. Take it all very seriously. My website has a ton of information to help prepare you for your trip. If you choose to not prepare and you are not familiar with being in the Florida Keys heat, humidity and the rain showers that pop up this time of year, you will learn a lesson you don’t need to learn. Just prepare please.

I want to cover some business things concerning recent events and what is predicted for our summer hurricane season and how we can work together. Recently I had a refund of deposit disputed for a customer that booked a trip and didn’t show up. I’m running a reservation based business that is well run and fine tuned. There is tons of redundancy built in to make sure you are very aware of your reservation, so I don’t have to chase you down when you are here on vacation and traveling. If you are dumb and do dumb things and have zero care for your reserved trip, you will lose your deposit. My refund policy is fairly generous compared to the majority of operators that take full or half trip cost up front. When you book a trip with me, my website automatically sends you a confirmation receipt with basic common sense instructions. Follow them. You will also get a 48 hour reminder with the same instructions. You get a second chance to not screw it up! In life, when you royally screw up and don’t care or do anything….it will cost you something. Accept that. Adult up folks.

Our hurricane season predictions are predictions and things are far above average. I see the reality of why the predictions are elevated. Today I had 89 degree water on the shallow bayside of our island. That is abnormal for late summer. Our water will be very warm this year and that will be an issue for some trips. Especially if there are tropical systems threatening. I have many clients and you have 1 charter. Please invest in your trip with me and reach out if and when you see a problem that may conflict with your charter booking. Constantly, my charter guests are surprised to hear the weather will not be perfect for their trip when I reach out to them to proactively make an adjustment. If you care, all you have to do is look up the weather report for the time just ahead and during your stay here. I use windfinder for the Marathon Airport. Anything above 13mph will affect your trip, anything above 20 is likely going to alter our plans significantly. I do expect to have to cancel some trips this summer for tropical weather issues. I am very understanding of the big picture. If it does not work out this time, I want you to come back next time to charter with me. However, when systems are in proximity and you opt to bail on your entire vacation, I can not guarantee you will get your deposit back. There will be some grey area decisions and scenarios that will be situationally unique. Here is what I will be looking at. If the hotel accepts your reservation and does not cancel your reservation, your trip with me is valid. If the weather is relatively good, we are going fishing. Once rainy season hits here soon, we will be fishing in the rain at times, within reason. I have a bunch of lobster trips coming up in July. The water may be hot and dirty….we are going lobstering. If you don’t want to do it, than we can go fishing instead. I stay in business by working to earn money. Taking deposits for no show trips and dealing with people that want to wiggle out of a commitment because things are not perfect is not how I can stay in business. My paycheck is completing a good trip with you. I will work with you to make a satisfactory outcome should your trip be affected by threatening weather. I want to earn your money. There is no reward from taking a deposit. This only happens maybe 1 out of every 300 trips booked, but some people make a real ass of themselves and I have to address it.

Lobstering is coming up and I’m getting lots of questions. No, I am not offering mini season trips. No, I will not refer you to another operator or know who else does it. Your safety comes first. I believe it is no longer safe for you to be in the water for those 2 days. I could charge and make 3 times my normal charter rate and it still is not enough to convince me it is worth the consequences of having you run over by an idiot boater. However, I will be offering fishing trips for those days. Regular season August 6th I will be offering lobstering trips and yes, there will be a ton of idiot boaters still here, but it will be less than the mini season chaos. Some important things to consider. Lobstering is an activity. You should NEVER book a lobster charter with the expectation of limiting out. It does not happen very often. Every year there are less lobster available and more people using and abusing a limited resource. It’s just the reality of overfishing. Our waters are getting hotter and dirtier each year. Water quality is a front and center issue. Lobster like cool clean water. If all of our water is hot and dirty, do not expect a miracle. I do not stress about this anymore because it is all totally outside of my control and has been for many years now. I have the spots, I have the equipment, I have the system that works and I have tons of experience. I take you to the places where they should be. You have to catch them. That’s it. Back in they day lobster were so abundant that they were fed to prisoners. There is a documented riot because prisoners were tired of always eating lobster. When I was a kid there was no such thing as going out to catch lobster. They were everywhere. Every crack, crevice, rock and ledge generally had lobster in them. The sea walls of all of our concrete canals were pack with lobster. They were nearly at arm’s reach at any time. That reality ceased to exist a long time ago and it slips a little further away each year. Overfishing, water quality and the loss of healthy habitat is the reason. I can not make a population of lobster be here if they are not here, so what we catch is what we catch. Some days will be easy and some will be very difficult. That is lobstering in 2024.

Fishing has been excellent. I’m going to lump my fishing reports together. For reef trips, half day morning trips only please. Early starts are important. The earlier we can start, the more fish you will catch. Fish are generally done eating on the deep reef at 10am. Do NOT book an afternoon half day reef trip. I will run it. We will be fishing and not so much catching. You will learn about heat, sweat and how any why and when fish eat.

Mid June the mangrove snapper spawn bite should start ramping up to mid July. That is a great fishery! You want to do that! The wrecks have been slow, but the June spawn usually gives us some good mutton snapper fishing in 200′ of water. Not the most exciting fishing until something good happens. Offshore tuna early and mahi have been good. On the flat calm days electric deep dropping (bottom fishing in 700′) has been solid. It’s easy and this fishery is limited in time based on estimated catch quotas. It produces the finest eating fish you can catch in our waters. The season comes and goes quickly.

Snorkeling and Sandbar trips have been awesome!!! The water will get hot soon and it won’t be as much as a cooling activity as in previous years. I make things fun. I have the best locations available and a pretty good stock of toys to keep it fun. All trips are custom and we have been doing tons of very unique customer specific trips with great success. Just ask or put the ball in my court and I get the job done well.

Thanks for reading to this point! Please use the information on my website to arm your self with information. Please follow the basic instructions I have in place when you make a reservation. I’m on the water with clients quite a bit and I do not answer my phone when I’m on the water. I built my website to answer 14 years of customer questions when I am not available to pick up the phone. Everything is designed to be easy. Let’s keep it that way.

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