Bad charter
 

I made a trip to Venice this past weekend and went out with Mike Ellis with relentless charters. The only thing he was relentless with was excuses. We went out with not one piece of bait, we had intention to catch tuna but he made fifty excuses why we couldn't go. I've never met a captain that didn't ask you how you wanted your fish cleaned this guy left all of our snapper on the half shell, ribs, belly meat, and some fins. It was the worst experience I've had with fishing by far.

so did yall only go snapper fishing when the plan was a tuna trip?

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. All the GoM guides I've used have been excellent. Even if a guide is planning to catch bait, most guides will bring some frozen bait for backup.

It sounds like your guide was having a particularly bad day. Sometimes folks forget how much $$$ their fees are to most customers and they forget that a guided trip is something we can only afford once a year or so. If they let their bad day take away from what should be your best fishing experience of the year, then they have robbed you, and there should be some discussion of your displeasure before settling up.

Some people like it, but I've always sort of suspected that "on the half shell" is sometimes promoted to make fish cleaning easier rather than because it is a superior way to prepare fish. The customer is always right regarding how they prefer their fish to be cleaned, and customers on a guided trip that includes fish cleaning should have a choice, and the fish should be reasonably well trimmed. A guide is a professional, and the fish cleaning job should also be professional, that is, more careful and thorough than the average recreational angler. That said, I prefer to clean my own fish, because I have learned that care, cleanliness, and handling are very important to taste, and my family complains when it is not done right.

Yeah all we caught was snapper we didn't even get to blue water. He spent about three hours cast netting for bait then we went to some close rigs.

thats a bunch of crap

3 hours of cast netting for live bait when tuna are in live bait months sounds like a captain trying his arse off for his client. Not saying you didn't have a bad trip, but I will wait until I have both sides to the story on this one.

no doubt.. It is fishing but you could at least go try to find a grass line and pull some baits, have some pogies to fish for mangroves, try for some grouper, etc. Not just go to the near rigs catch your limit of snapper and take it to the house

X2 if this sports story is true, I'm siding with him.

i saw him at cypress cove thursday night offloadng tuna, snapper, mahi ... not sure what happened from then untill saturday except the weather sucked saturday, i fished venice and had to run in around 10 am because of the weather ..we caught a bunch of snapper, kings,amberjack ect

Sounds to me like lack of communication on the Capt's part. He is in a service industry and communication is key to maintaining happy customers

He didn't fish Thursday his motors were down we fished Friday.

Lol... Sound like he lied n he got ratted out just now.

Most of the time our Tuna bait Is caught with sabikis. Did he try and catch bait or just cast net?

What is a paying client suppose to do while the captain is casting for 3 hours for bait? That's insane.

I'd be running my mawt

He tried the sabiki once and got two hering

Lol

I have been tuna fishing with 2 different captains and was never asked how I wanted my fish cleaned. They were always left on the half shell and that left us with a little work when we got home but it is nice so that we can clearly identify what type of fish each filet is. It didnt bother us.

We have caught more fish on some charters than others but I have never got off a charter trip with the feeling that the captain did not do everything that he could to fill the fish box.

I also never got done with a trip and had any extra energy. The captains know that it is their job to wear the crew out until they dont wanna catch anymore fish.

Maybe I'm confused? Does he run a cat? Possibly looked aluminum ?

Yeah he runs a 33 freeman I think...