← 🎙️ Interesting Humans Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript536 lines
- [00:00]
A
We're here today in Amelia Island, Florida, and boy, do I have an interesting person with me today. Captain Alan Mills, 40 plus years fishing charter.
- [00:10]
B
Fernandina.
- [00:11]
A
Yes, Captain, charter. We're, we've got tons of great stories we're even going to talk about. I want to know the biggest tip you ever received. But we're here to talk about the business of fishing and really behind the scenes. So, Captain Allen, I've been fishing with you for how many years now? Probably 15, 12. 15 years.
- [00:30]
B
13 or longer, right? Yeah, we. You just started your business there. Killer shark.
- [00:35]
A
Yeah, that's right. You were one of the very first clients for my, for my marketing business. So I want to get right into it. Tell me, what age were you when you said, wow, I think I want to take the teacher's advice when they said, find something you love, do it and the money will follow.
- [00:53]
B
What age were you, man? Well, I tell you, we. Before tourism started on the island back in the 70s, it was a commercial fishing village. You either worked as a commercial fisherman, shrimping or crabbing, or you worked at 1 to 2 mills and we were at commercial fishing. My mom worked at the mill and she did all the hiring and all, and the mill just wasn't for me. Fishing was where it was at, shrimping at that time. And I tell you what, we had a blast starting out on the deck and that's how we made money. In the summertime, my stepbrother and I, we'd help them pick up all the shrimp, you know, through the drag and then the last drag they'd run on the beach and we'd get to keep all the croakers and all. We sell those to the crab plant. There was a crab plant here and they would pick all the crabs and put them in pints. So we got all that money. And some days our older brothers, they'd be PO'd because we make more money selling crab bait than they would off shrimp there, get out. So that went on and then I started running boats right out of high school. And at that time we had run boats. You'd start here, but you would leave the east coast and go to the west coast of the Gulf of Mexico, now called the Gulf of Atlantic usa. And so we'd work all the way around each state. Florida would open and then Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and then we'd be in over in Texas. We'd end up there.
- [02:16]
A
Yeah.
- [02:16]
B
And we would work our way around and we were right out. About a year after high school, I was running a boat. I Had two of my buddies just got a high school. One of them took a year off college and youngest crew to take a boat from here to Texas to work. Two seasons, six months. So when we'd go into port, of course, we surfed our life so we'd have a little fun. I'd pull them behind the shrimp boat, a 74 footer on a surfboard, and everybody along the bank would stop and cheer someone there. I mean, we did this all up and down in the Gulf there, and we had a blast. Everybody we'd go in Texas and Dupont, they would stop working and watch us there. Pascoulen, Mississippi, all the shipyard workers would watch us. We'd get in there and we'd unload and we have speakers on the. On the boat. So, you know, we were 20 years old, 19. So we had music going.
- [03:05]
A
Yeah, all the time. Oh, you sure did.
- [03:07]
B
Yeah. And man, the guys unloading, he'd call up our boss man said, hey, man, these guys are partying, they're raising hell. He says, well, have they asked for anything? He goes, no, they didn't ask for anything. Why? He says, because you do. You give it to them because they're making good money for me.
- [03:22]
A
That's awesome.
- [03:23]
B
So we'd have a good time. Always stayed along. Bililoxi, right there, Mississippi. And this guy used to come out of Biloxi on. On a charter boat, and he always had women on the boat. And for some reason, out of the three years we were going over there, back and forth there, I'd run into the guy and finally, you know, we got to shooting the breeze. I said, I remember from last year. He goes, yeah, I remember you. And they'd bring us the 12 pack of beer. We'd give them shrimp because we never carried alcohol on the boat because you'd be out on ice boats, you're out up to 10 days.
- [03:51]
A
Yeah.
- [03:51]
B
I said, how'd you get started? I just got a captain's license, started chartering. I said, man, that's a life for me. How about them girls? He says, oh, well, they're my deckhands.
- [03:59]
A
Oh, the deckhands. I love it.
- [04:02]
B
I looked at my two buddies, I said, I would be a lot better off with them than y'all. So this went on, and a few years later, I was working a freezer boat and a freezer boat. You can stay out when the. When the shrimping's running, because the ice boat, you have to come in at 10 days to unload a freezer boat. You can stay out if you didn't get into the shrimp at the beginning of the season, at the beginning of your trip, you could stay out longer until the run was over and you do better. So the last two years I did that. And the last year I was over there, I told my boss, Calvin Lang, I said, calvin, I'm going to school after this season. So when I go home, I'm going to C school and get a captain's license.
- [04:38]
A
Yeah.
- [04:39]
B
He goes, well, I appreciate you telling me. He said, I wish my sons would tell me that. He says, I'll buy you a boat. I says, no, let me get my license, see what happens, Right? So took that off, that when I got home in September, took it off, study hard, and went down and locked myself in a. In my aunt's garage apartment. Just because I cannot absorb it, you know, I mean, I can't keep it. I can absorb it, but I won't. I'll lose it after a time. So I stayed in there and I studied hard. She made me cut the grass, clean the pool and all while I was there. And then that I got out of school on that Saturday. So that Monday I flew to Miami and took the test and. I don't know, the graces of God. I passed it.
- [05:21]
A
You did. What year was that?
- [05:23]
B
That was in 83.
- [05:24]
A
Okay, so 83. What was the. What did the industry look like back then, what you wanted to get into?
- [05:29]
B
The charters were going. I had a good friend of mine, David Burns was doing it.
- [05:33]
A
And here in Amelia.
- [05:34]
B
Here in Amelia, Wayne York. And Wayne says, you get your license, you know, you can help me out. I said, well, I don't. Okay. You know, I'd help him out a little bit. And I'm hooked up with a guy. The. Back then, tourism was just getting started. Okay. The Omni was being built.
- [05:51]
A
Yeah.
- [05:51]
B
And so things were just coming around. And there's always been business here in the summertime there from May to September.
- [05:58]
A
Yeah, sure.
- [05:59]
B
And so finally I hooked up with a guy, helped Wayne, helped me out, you know, and all I hooked up with Al Nelson running The Unwinder, a 31 foot Bertram. Not like this one. It was the Bahia Marta Tower and all the bigger.
- [06:13]
A
Yeah. Okay.
- [06:14]
B
And I worked for him for a few years, had a good time. And the first few years that helped me really get going is that I took out dive charters because I dove all the time, even when I was shrimping. I dive down to see what the shrimp swam on, what attracted them and stuff.
- [06:30]
A
Okay.
- [06:30]
B
And so I hooked out with Troy Pitt. He Was a. A seal. Navy SEAL out of Kings Bay. And he had a sh. Over there in St. Mary's and he says, man, let's get together. I think I can get you a charter every Sunday. I said, if you get me a charter every Sunday, we'll do this.
- [06:46]
A
Yeah.
- [06:47]
B
And so the first year went great. Boss was happy. I was already. I owned a house on the beach, so it kept me, you know, a little bit, and. Plus a few charters during the week. And the second year, we got into it really good, and we started doing tournaments and stuff like that. They're promoting his shop, and that went down really good for about three or four years. And I blew my inner ear, so I quit diving.
- [07:09]
A
Oh.
- [07:10]
B
And he.
- [07:10]
A
How'd you do that?
- [07:11]
B
I was going down too fast. I found this I would find during the week when I was trolling. We'd find different ledges and all, and we would put the people, the divers on regular stuff. And then he and I'd go check out stuff that I found. And I tell you, Navy Seal, they're crazy. We'd be down 80ft of the water, and we'll see some grouper. And he said, I'm going in. I said, nah. He takes all his gear off.
- [07:36]
A
Come on.
- [07:37]
B
Goes in there, and I'm looking at. Watch a minute, a minute and a half. I said, okay, Troy, you need to get out of there. He'll come out of there with a grouper, gets all the stuff. Crazy, guys, man, you're crazy. So we have this tournament going on, and the tournament's for the biggest fish. So we made a pact between he and I that we wouldn't shoot an amberjack until the last dive. So what I did is I carried a box of Cheerios down there with me, and I got on the bottom there, and I just open up that box of Cheerios and I just open it up. And as it's going up, all the sardines come. And then here comes all the rest.
- [08:11]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [08:12]
B
So I'm floating up, and I'm just swimming here, looking at all these. All these amber jacks.
- [08:16]
A
Yeah.
- [08:17]
B
So I see the one I want. I take spear gun, I shoot him right behind the fin there. Got him?
- [08:22]
A
Yeah.
- [08:22]
B
And I said, hey, look, I'm down to about 300 pounds of air. I need to go. He says, wait a minute. Wait a minute. And so I waited for about another £100. I said, I gotta go. So I go up there, and he got so excited. I'm looking at the surface there. I hand all the Guys, my gear. And he comes up, he's got this 50 pound amberjack and a bear hug there, but the head's down here and the tail's up here. And I mean, this amberjack is slapping left to right like a redheaded stepchild. All of a sudden his mask goes flying off. He loses his knife where he's trying to stab it to fish. Swims off, he's out of air. He says, give me your mask. I said, for what? He says, give me your mask. So I throw in my mask, I take his gear, he dives down and gets his knife and his mask. 60, 68ft of water.
- [09:10]
A
No way.
- [09:11]
B
Yeah.
- [09:11]
A
Come on.
- [09:12]
B
Those guys are crazy seals. We had a good time, a good run for four years.
- [09:17]
A
So what happened? So you, you get your captain's license, you said, miracle that you passed it. Yeah. You start right in Amelia Isle, like is your first trip.
- [09:25]
B
It's home. I want to make home. Yep, this is home.
- [09:28]
A
How many were here at the time?
- [09:29]
B
At the time, I think Wayne York had probably eight boats. We called Trade Winds, 13 the helicopter for when people got sick. There was a code on. Hey, we need, we need trade wins. 13 over here. The Atlantic flues kicked in, so that's great. And then you had the sis. Burgess, he was running the sis. Then you had Byron Bakula. You had myself on Unwinder. So there's about 12, mid-80s.
- [09:59]
A
This is mid-80s.
- [10:00]
B
And we had Les Sutton. Les Sutton and Dennis Davis. These guys, they love to drink pearl light beer. They would go down to Costco every Monday and buy three or four cases of beer.
- [10:13]
A
Sure.
- [10:14]
B
Well, when we were diving, I'd be down at the bottom, FBFC area there, and I'd see pearl light beer cans all on the bottom. So I said, les. He goes, what? I said, were you fishing at FB or FC this week? Yeah, barracuda. Just tearing it up. I said, well, you're throwing your cans on the ocean floor. Pearl light. He goes, yeah, I might have thrown one or two. I said, let me introduce you to this trash bag right here, because I'm finding them everywhere down there. I can do that. But I was kind of trying to make a home for a crab. I said, well, the hole's too small. Oh, my gosh. So I taught him how to put his cans in the trash can. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy back then, though. In the 80s, up to the mid-90s, you could drink while you worked. Back then, I mean, your clients, it was not uncommon for a client to bring you your choice of beer, beverage.
- [11:12]
A
Yeah. Huh.
- [11:13]
B
And I mean, you had the option whether to endure or not.
- [11:16]
A
Yeah.
- [11:16]
B
I usually wait until we got to the dock, but. Yeah, but you could do that. And it wasn't until like the mid-90s where you. You couldn't. Boat and drink.
- [11:24]
A
Boat and drink.
- [11:25]
B
Now, you know, we all can drive and you can partake.
- [11:28]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. As the participants. Yes, sir. Do you remember the first time you got paid to do a charter?
- [11:36]
B
It was in.
- [11:38]
A
Do you remember the feeling like, wow, I'm out here taking somebody to go fishing, something I love doing, and they're paying me to do it?
- [11:45]
B
Well, I still feel today like, man, I can't believe they're paying me to do this.
- [11:49]
A
Yeah.
- [11:50]
B
I mean, it's just an awesome job. And what they. They're willing to pay and, and just seeing the reaction and the joy that you put on people's faces there, it's like fulfilling a dream in one point. And. And I mean, it's just getting them out of their element and getting their minds off of what they do day to day. Yeah. It's just awesome. Especially for kids.
- [12:15]
A
What's your. What's your favorite thing to take somebody out to fish?
- [12:18]
B
You know, I like to target tarpon, but I just. I like just seeing a. Catching a fish. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter because, I mean, a lot of people want to catch a certain fish.
- [12:30]
A
Yeah.
- [12:30]
B
But so long as they're catching.
- [12:32]
A
Right.
- [12:32]
B
That's what they're going to remember.
- [12:33]
A
Yeah.
- [12:34]
B
If you don't catch anything, they're going to remember that too. So if you don't happen to get that big tarpon, but you might get a shot at it, but you catch a couple of reds or a big shark or something, then, I mean, they're coming back.
- [12:45]
A
I know. I'm going to take a guess at what you don't like fishing Because I was part of that in the early days. The sharks. Right. They're just treacherous.
- [12:53]
B
Oh, I love sharks.
- [12:54]
A
You do?
- [12:55]
B
I don't like catfish.
- [12:56]
A
Oh, you don't like catfish?
- [12:57]
B
No. Or eels. Eels too much like a dag on snake there, you know?
- [13:02]
A
Yeah.
- [13:03]
B
I just, I don't. And the catfish always seem to get in your hand or. Or if you're releasing them like it happened this year to me, I was releasing them, some catfish and thing went through the wiring harness and poked a hole in my gas line.
- [13:16]
A
No way.
- [13:17]
B
Yeah. He got even. I couldn't figure it out. And finally I figured out where the gas line leak was and Then I figured out what had happened.
- [13:24]
A
What happened?
- [13:24]
B
The catfish had finned through the. The plastic into the fuel line and punk the hole in it. When I pulled it out of there, it was leaking fuel and didn't realize it until after I had to run down everything.
- [13:36]
A
Yeah.
- [13:37]
B
Yeah.
- [13:37]
A
So, all right, you have a charter going out tomorrow. How early do you start planning, like, where you're going to take them? How do you know where you're going to go? Is it the wind? Is it the. What goes into it?
- [13:50]
B
Every day is different. Like this morning before we got started here, it was probably blowing 25 knots.
- [13:57]
A
Wow.
- [13:57]
B
And now it's nice and calm.
- [13:59]
A
Yeah.
- [13:59]
B
So thinking about the tide, because we have a huge Cumberland sound here. So we're thinking about what the tide's doing versus the wind on what to position this, when, where, so that we kind of fish with it there with the tide and the wind.
- [14:13]
A
Tide and wind. And are you looking for them to be opposite each other or complementary to.
- [14:19]
B
Each other, Complimentary to each other, going together the same direction?
- [14:23]
A
If they're not going together, is that bad? Yeah.
- [14:25]
B
You're going in line. The lines go underneath your boat. Boat switches all around. If the wind's taking over the tide, then the boat's going to go up it and everything's tangling up.
- [14:34]
A
Yeah.
- [14:35]
B
So you have to think about what part of the river, what part of the sound you want to go into.
- [14:39]
A
Yeah. If you had a preference. Do you like out. Do you like going out far offshore or you like in?
- [14:45]
B
I like more near shore. Now, I've. We've done a lot of deep water, blue water fishing back in the day. I was fortunate enough back in late to mid-80s. I was working for Al and a doctor wanted me. I was taking care of his little boat and he wanted me to go to work in full time. Dr. Smithwick. And I said, I'll go to work with you if you get me a condo in South Florida four months out of the year. And I fish out of Stewart during the winter.
- [15:13]
A
Wow.
- [15:14]
B
And here in the winter, in the summertime.
- [15:16]
A
Yeah.
- [15:16]
B
He goes, all right, we'll do that. I said, wow. Okay.
- [15:21]
A
That was too. I didn't ask for enough.
- [15:23]
B
Yeah. And I had a buddy, Jimmy Johnson, and he was going to go down with me with his boat.
- [15:27]
A
Yeah.
- [15:28]
B
Well, he didn't make it. I said, Jimmy, I got. Dr. Smith's got this condo here for us. I said, we can fish out of Sailfish Marina. And so I went for it.
- [15:37]
A
Yeah.
- [15:37]
B
And caught a lot of sailfish and All. And he said. He said, look, I want you to go out, take a friend, go out and learn how to catch these fish. Because when I come down here, I don't want a boat ride.
- [15:47]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [15:48]
B
So I said, all right. So I went out with a couple friends one day. I couldn't get anybody to go, and so I went out by myself and I'm trolling, ballyhoo and all, and this freak wave came up and hit me in the back of the legs. And I caught myself just before going overboard there, and I said, whoa. I said, this is not the thing to do.
- [16:07]
A
Yeah.
- [16:08]
B
It almost was a bad lesson.
- [16:09]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [16:10]
B
So I reeled everything in and I went back in. I never gone out again by myself there, worried about. Because if I'd have fallen in and trolling, the boat would have kept going and I would have been history.
- [16:20]
A
And how far out were you?
- [16:21]
B
We were out there. You fished about 14 miles. You're on the edge of the Gulf Stream, out of Stewart, Florida. Yeah, it's way out there.
- [16:28]
A
Okay, that's crazy. So now when you. When you take people out, what are some of the things that they're asking? Like what?
- [16:39]
B
We have a lot of history here.
- [16:40]
A
Okay.
- [16:41]
B
We have Cumberland Sound, which is a national park now. The Rockefellers, Carnegie's donated that to the park service back in 89. So you see a lot of wild horses that originally came with the Spaniards. So they see a lot of that right on the.
- [16:54]
A
They're right on the beach.
- [16:55]
B
Right on the beach in the Sound. Yep. They'll start in the Sound, and early in the morning when you're catching pogies, you come around on the beach in Cumberland and there'll be a herd of them, you know, eight or ten, a couple herds coming down. And people say, is that horses? I see horses. I said, yeah, they're horses.
- [17:10]
A
They're horses.
- [17:10]
B
They're horses. They're taking their morning walk there. It's crazy. You know, they just. We take it for granted, but they just think that's the just amazing thing.
- [17:18]
A
Yeah. Well, the whole. The whole setup, right. As I'm sitting here, like you said, you still feel gratitude every day that somebody pays you. And to the outsider coming in going, you have literally done what the teachers say to do in school, what they're teaching, like, find something you love and go do it. So to us coming in, to be even to be able to do this interview and to go, wow, you've taken it to a whole new level. You truly are doing what you love and figured out A way to get paid. Do it forever. And you've been doing it how many?
- [17:50]
B
43 years this year. 43 years. Can't believe it.
- [17:54]
A
Anybody following in your footsteps?
- [17:56]
B
My son is helping me out.
- [17:58]
A
Cool.
- [17:59]
B
I would say there's probably about 12 to 14 captains out there that's worked for me and that are doing it now today. Continued on with it and my son got his license a year ago but he has a great pressure washing business and he seals pavers and stuff. But he's slow. July and August and then he helps me out then. Oh, and that's our busy season. So that helps out a lot.
- [18:21]
A
Yeah. And local. He's here.
- [18:24]
B
He's here on Nassau County. Yes.
- [18:26]
A
Very counted.
- [18:27]
B
That's got to be awesome. Oh, a lot of my clients using too. Yeah.
- [18:30]
A
Oh they do.
- [18:31]
B
Yeah.
- [18:31]
A
That's awesome. Speaking of clients, do you have. Do you have a, a favorite person or people that you've ever taken out like maybe stars or athletes or.
- [18:41]
B
And I've taken out. I don't really ask people about their personal stuff there unless they want to volunteer it. We've taken out a lot of quarterbacks, a lot of football players, some baseball players. Had Tom Cruise look alike.
- [18:57]
A
No way.
- [18:58]
B
You got this guy and you're thinking this is Tom Cruise and it was his look alike there. It was pretty cool. But you know, you don't really get into what they're get into their personal life. You know, they want to volunteer. They go, we're out for a good time.
- [19:12]
A
Yeah, you're out for a good time?
- [19:13]
B
Yeah, we like to have a good time and they want to share it, you know. Great. I took the author there, he lives here on the island there.
- [19:25]
A
The blue house. Yeah, I know his house. I can nickname John.
- [19:28]
B
John Grisham.
- [19:29]
A
Grisham. There you go.
- [19:30]
B
Took him and his son and son in law and all. And that's one of the quietest men man you'll. You got on the boat. I mean he's very quiet.
- [19:38]
A
Wow. Just like, like Zan.
- [19:40]
B
Yeah, he just, he enjoys it. He'll grin and all, he'll talk a little bit. But you know that's.
- [19:46]
A
He does a lot of bestsellers.
- [19:47]
B
Oh yeah, he does Pretty interesting. And I saw him not long ago, he said that his daughter, they have a grandchild and also and my son pressure washes his house.
- [19:56]
A
Oh, that's cool.
- [19:56]
B
Yeah, so that's pretty cool. That's.
- [19:58]
A
Now your name is up on the board up there. Tell me about.
- [20:01]
B
What is that all about? Well, I had a client that Bought all the fuel for CSX there for about six years. Bob Kistler, okay. And. And he loved going to the Gulf Stream. This is when I was working for Dr. Smithwick, okay. And so he would have me book 13 days a year, a Friday or Saturday, every weekend during the summertime. And we would go out for marlin and stuff there. We'd go to the Gulf Stream, 70 miles. I mean, back to here. 70 from here, 70 miles. Leave at 4:00 in the morning, back in about 6. And we caught. Very fortunate. We caught quite a few marlin, some nice tuna and dolphin. I had another client, Mr. Dunleavy. And one year we won the Jacksonville Striking Fish Tournament with a blue. That was the first year they put the limits in them and we released it. And then his son caught one at another time. And the third time we caught one, we caught a 252. And we released most of them. Only killed two. And this one, when he was young, he must have been caught and the hook ripped his bill in half and it grew back cross.
- [21:12]
A
Whoa.
- [21:12]
B
And he was a big trophy hunter. He says, alan, you know, I said, I know you like to release these, but this is pretty unique. And we released two this year. I said, I like, kind of like to keep this one because the bill is so unique. I said, I've never seen it like that. So we kept that one. He mounted, put in his trophy room. It's about 13 foot marlin.
- [21:31]
A
Oh, my.
- [21:32]
B
252 pounds. Yeah, it was huge there. Took us an hour and 45 minutes to get him.
- [21:38]
A
145, yeah. So you're water like a record holder.
- [21:41]
B
Well, that's the only one that's been brought in to this area now. There's been several. We caught one with. With Mr. Kistler. We caught one. A little over 600 pounds that we released. We were actually fighting it. I had a tugboat and barge coming down on me, and I called him up on the radio on 16. I said, hey, Cap, you mind changing your course a little bit? I got this big fish swimming at you. He says, I can see him jumping. Yeah, that's how big he was. And about 10 minutes later, all of a sudden, this Coast Guard plane flies right over top. Seems like the outriggers. And he comes across the radio and he's on his side there. He says, man, that's a big fish. We're gonna buzz you one more time. I said, if you don't mind, could you do a little higher? You scared the hell out of that fish made him jump out the water. He says, I know. We saw him. It's huge. And they come and you look in the windows. When they fly back over there, they're giving us thumbs up and all. It's. I had a young kid who's a captain now that worked for me, and he. Back then, he weighed about 110 pounds wet. We call him the mayor of Yulee, Kevin Blanton. And back then, you know, you had the old disposable waterproof cameras there.
- [22:51]
A
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [22:51]
B
We held him by his ankle. We had this one blue. He'd get up, and he'd run back down. He'd get up, run back down. I said, kevin, we're gonna hold you by your ankles. You take this camera, and you're gonna take pictures of it. There's. He said, you better not let me go. So we hold him over the side and. And he takes. He takes a whole roll of them, but out of that whole roll, two awesome pitchers. The blue is swimming down and the lures right here about 12 inches above him there. And so we got two different side shots of it there. And I have it mounted in my office there. It's pretty cool.
- [23:23]
A
That is.
- [23:24]
B
We still talk about it.
- [23:25]
A
Feet long is a 600 pound.
- [23:27]
B
He's about 15 to 17.
- [23:30]
A
And what do you do? Like, do you get something like that stuffed?
- [23:33]
B
Well, the guy didn't want to. We didn't really want to. We already touched the leader, but the client was real adamant about getting beside the boat. And when we finally got him up, it was a little over three and a half hours and went to get my lure. I mean, I about got jerked in the water there, so I just grabbed the lure and cut the line.
- [23:50]
A
Yeah.
- [23:51]
B
And he was. He was. I was on my 32 topaz, and he. His head was up in front of the tower, and the tail was back behind the boat, and that's 12ft. And then you had the excess. Gosh, yeah. It's wild to grab. You don't really want to grab. You just want to try to get your lure. If not, just cut them loose.
- [24:10]
A
Yeah, cut them loose. Yeah. What are. What are some close calls you remember through the years, whether it was with fishing or the boat itself or just anything out on the water, man, I.
- [24:19]
B
Tell you, we've been caught. Shrimping was probably the worst storm I've ever been in. And we were coming back last year on the Lange Pride, and we were running from Freeport, Texas, to just off the river. And when I say just off the river 100 miles or further out. And it was myself, Cliff and Robert Wingate. There was three of us running together. I said, hey, guys. The weather port sounded pretty good. We could shoot straight to Key west and save about 10 hours. I was ready to get home. And they all agreed. Okay, it's a door. There was a storm coming up on the east coast, but it was going north at that time. This was before Internet and all that other stuff. So we shoot it a day and a half going across. We're in the middle of the Gulf. Well, this low came down high did and pushed Isadore directly west across Florida. So we're out there on. I was running a 74 and they were 73 footers. And we get caught in a hurricane there. Tropical storm. And the seas got out to about 28, 30ft. And I've only put a life jacket on three times. My life and twice was during that storm because I had to go out and check the engine room and all I didn't want my crew to go. Couldn't go to sleep because it was rolling so bad and all that. And. But it was just. All we could do is go to southwest heading towards Mexico to get on the southwest side of it, because that's the common side of a storm.
- [25:49]
A
Okay.
- [25:49]
B
And we made it through all of that and after about. Up for about 48 hours there and the Steve, the seas were still back. Big groundswell, 18ft or so, but it wasn't. Didn't have all that chop to it.
- [26:01]
A
Yeah.
- [26:01]
B
So I finally got to sleep, and all of a sudden my crew comes banging on my door. They said, get up, get up. I said, what? What's going on? He said, look at all this groupers floating by. Square groupers. I said, you looked on the radar? He says, he said, no, you don't have to look. There's another one. I said, y'all, have you looked on radar, see what's going on? So I flipped the radar on, and here's this big blimp with a lot of little blimps. So what there is. There's a deal going down and throwing the bales of marijuana off and loading them up. They wanted me to stop. I said, man, I'm not stopping, guys. This is my last year. When I get home getting a captain's license, I'm going to charter fish. I don't want to get ruined. They wouldn't talk to me for two days there. That was wild.
- [26:46]
A
That's incredible. So, okay, those are two times you put the life Jacket on. What was the third one?
- [26:50]
B
Oh, man, the third one. This guy brought a banana on board back two years ago.
- [26:55]
A
Oh, bad luck right there.
- [26:57]
B
Oh, yeah, bad luck. I tell you what, the. The rod will break. The line will break. Something will happen.
- [27:02]
A
Yeah.
- [27:03]
B
Well, we're getting out. It's Florida, Georgia weekend. It's Friday.
- [27:07]
A
Yeah.
- [27:09]
B
This is two years ago. Just two years ago in 83.
- [27:11]
A
Okay.
- [27:12]
B
And I smell something burning. I'm right behind another guy, a charter boat. And I keep smelling something. I think, well, it might be one of those weird cigars, because I couldn't find smoke or anything.
- [27:22]
A
Yeah.
- [27:23]
B
So we get up there, we get out about four miles, and we're anchored up. I look over. All of a sudden, smoke starts boiling out. I said, oh, Lord, let me check this out. So I go in there, and on the other side, there's a false wall. And I pull the. The door open. I'm trying to get it all the way up, and I can't do it because I can't get a screwdriver in there. There's flames start coming out. So I put a fire extinguisher in there, Get a lot of water. I think I got it out there. I said, all right, let's head in. Yeah, let's get in. Let's check it out, see what's going on.
- [27:55]
A
Yeah.
- [27:55]
B
And so we pull the anchor up, Thought I had it out. And we get going about a mile, and all of a sudden, flames just take over there. And I get my guy. I said, look down there. I looked in the engine room. I looked back in the back there.
- [28:10]
A
Yeah.
- [28:11]
B
And I couldn't find anything there. There was no smoke or anything in there, but it's all in the cabin, and it's all coming out of that panel. Well, we can't get into the panel because I didn't have a way to get it off there. Right. So I said, all right, guys, it's going pretty good. I said Gavin was my deckhand. I said, hand me the life jackets, Gavin. Give me four life jackets. Where they at? I said, right there, where we always tell them they are. So I get life jackets, and I hand them out. I'm telling Gavin. I said, come on out. Come on out of there. He's grabbing all kinds of stuff, you know, trying to get out of there. And I look back, and the guys got life jackets in their hands, wondering, what do we do with these?
- [28:47]
A
Right.
- [28:47]
B
You know, I've always told them where they are and everything else. And I said, what are y'all doing? Put them on. Well, we don't know how.
- [28:54]
A
Right. So.
- [28:55]
B
So I had to take and put him on it there. And one guy got him into life. Jack got him all, but he went to go overboard because flames are coming out now.
- [29:02]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:03]
B
I said, man, just calm down. Sit right here and got Gavin out there. I said. He said, man, they're getting big. I said, look there. See that boat down there about a mile from us? I said, he's coming to get us. That's all right. He says, well, he's going pretty slow. I said, well, everything's going slow right now.
- [29:17]
A
Everything.
- [29:18]
B
Everything's going slow. So they pull up. That one guy just dove in the boat. And the other two, we get him over there, his mate, my mate, they kit in the boat, skid. I get everybody on board. It's time for me to get on the boat.
- [29:30]
A
Yeah.
- [29:31]
B
And I had a life jacket on.
- [29:32]
A
Yeah.
- [29:32]
B
And I went to go get on the boat. Well, the boat separated, so I'm still on the boat. And I said, man, I can't do it. I'm gonna fall between the boats. Well, one guy grabbed my leg and trying to pull me on the boat.
- [29:43]
A
Yeah.
- [29:43]
B
He about pulled me between the two motors. And the other captain had to get in his face and let his leg go. So they had to come back. And I had these brand new tutoriums like those right there. Brand new spinning rods in the corner I was gonna grab. But it was rough in the channel. We were still three and a half miles offshore.
- [29:59]
A
Yeah.
- [30:00]
B
And he came back. The first time, it was too rough, so I had to stay on the boat. The second time he come around, said, man, you better get it. I'm gonna have to jump in the water. Finally, he came up, close enough. I got in. He said, what about your rods? I said, don't worry about them rods. They're insured. Get away. And the sea tractor was a sub coming in. A sea tractor's heading out. This is a big, big vessel that's got big fire hoses and all.
- [30:25]
A
Yeah.
- [30:26]
B
So I called him on the radio. I said, hey, Cap, you mind putting that fire out for me? He says, well, wait a minute. He had to go check with his boss. And he comes back, he says, all right, we're gonna put it out, but we're not responsible if it sinks. I said, well, at this point, it's not. It's not savable. Yeah. So he put it out. The sheriffs get there, and we're watching it, and tower so hot, the tower just melts. On the inside. The rods all fold on the inside. And I said, Mike, just take us on in and I'll get the doc to find out what's going on.
- [31:00]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:00]
B
So we get in there and the coast guard comes up wanting to know where my papers are, this and all that. And I said, no sir, they're downstairs in the right hand cabinet. He says, well, can you get him? I said I would, but the boat burned up. I said, everything burnt up.
- [31:15]
A
Why am I not surprised? They would ask?
- [31:17]
B
I said, man, come on, dude. Well, you got your license? I said, I do have my license and I have my credit card machine. That's all that I have. And these five life jackets of my boat.
- [31:26]
A
Right?
- [31:27]
B
Yeah. I said, great day. Wow. So the boat, they couldn't get it out and it drifted on shore and it still burned. Yeah, the. The fire department couldn't get it out. So they end up getting excavator and just burying it there. And finally I got a crane in there and they got it off the beach and all that.
- [31:44]
A
That was the big, your big boat?
- [31:45]
B
Yeah, that was the. That was the wild boat.
- [31:46]
A
That's where the big boat is. Yeah. Okay.
- [31:48]
B
Yep. Did burial at sea.
- [31:50]
A
What? Okay. So on a day to day going out, you know, when I get on one of these boats and we go out, we've fished many times. I just make an assumption we're going out, we're coming back in. What are some of the, the smaller.
- [32:03]
B
Hidden dangers being out on the water hitting something.
- [32:08]
A
Okay.
- [32:08]
B
Losing a prop and a wood or something.
- [32:10]
A
Yeah.
- [32:11]
B
Hitting a tree. One time a shrimp boat hit the jetties and busted up and we saved those guys off of it, but it all busted up. We hit part of it three days later and been a prop. You know, you can always hit something there and put a hole in the boat.
- [32:28]
A
Yeah.
- [32:28]
B
So one time we were out the stream and our rudder port broke and we were taking on water and I just took a towel and packed it in there. And we didn't let the people know because we didn't want to panic.
- [32:41]
A
Yeah.
- [32:41]
B
We kept eye on it, but we got to the dock, I dropped Leroy and the fish and the people off and I went to. Onto the boat yard and hauled it out. But there's little things. Your bilge pumps can quit working or fire. A fire is probably the biggest. Everything you hear most of the time is a fire. Yeah, there's been several fires. You know, that's the biggest thing. You just want to keep checking on stuff and run through a checklist. And what I have learned since that fire is that when you tell people we got a spill, we tell them where the life jackets are, where the first aid kit is, fire extinguisher, bathroom, trash can. And can you put on a life vest?
- [33:24]
A
Yeah.
- [33:24]
B
Make sure they know how to put on a life vest and they know exactly where the throat cushion is in case someone falls overboard.
- [33:30]
A
In case somebody falls overboard. Is it more common for, In a fire, is it more common for a boat to just slowly burn or do you hear more of, like an explosion?
- [33:39]
B
If it's a diesel, it's a slow burner. If it's gas, it explodes. You want to, you want to get off?
- [33:46]
A
Yeah.
- [33:47]
B
You got a fire with a gas boat, you want to get off.
- [33:49]
A
So in your situation, when there were, when there were smoke and there were fumes and stuff like that, you weren't thinking, like, any second this can explode. No.
- [33:58]
B
And I explained to him, I explained to him, I said, guys, it's on fire, but it's a diesel. It's not going to ignite. It's going to burn, but it's not going to ignite. You're safe, no worries.
- [34:07]
A
I'm only going fishing on diesel boats from now on. That's actually a great tip, though. Oh, yeah, that's a great.
- [34:16]
B
Well, people, when things are going on like that, I mean, if you stay calm. Yeah, they'll stay calm. If you panic, they're gonna panic.
- [34:24]
A
Yeah.
- [34:25]
B
So I find that they'll take your lead. So whatever you do, they follow.
- [34:28]
A
And is it, is it a real thing when it's like the captain goes last? Is that real? Or they just.
- [34:34]
B
That's what I did.
- [34:34]
A
Okay.
- [34:35]
B
In the situations I've been there, that's what I did.
- [34:38]
A
Did.
- [34:38]
B
Yeah. And I've had another fire before where I had to put people on off another boat, and I made sure they were all off, and I stayed.
- [34:46]
A
Yeah. So captain goes last.
- [34:48]
B
Cool.
- [34:49]
A
Do you remember a biggest, like, biggest tip that you ever got in gratuity?
- [34:54]
B
I think the biggest tip I got as I, I, I just been married for a few years, just I couldn't afford a car, so I was leasing a car and I wanted an Altima. And I think I was stuck with a, A little car there. A little.
- [35:13]
A
It wasn't electric. I know that.
- [35:14]
B
Yeah, no, I don't want electric, but. And I took out the president of Capital Leasing and I was telling him, yeah, I wanted this, I wanted an ultimate, but I couldn't get it there. Well, the next week and a half, after that, you know, they had a good time, they tipped us a couple hundred bucks. I mean, it was just a lot of money. Yeah, But Freddie, my dealer down at the Nissan place in Jacksonville, says, al, I don't know who you know, but there's a Nissan, an Optimus sitting here waiting on you. I said, what? He goes, yeah, same payment, same everything. You just need to come in and trade them out. That was the best tip I ever got there.
- [35:53]
A
What year was that?
- [35:54]
B
That was like in. In 93 there. That was a good tip. That's incredible.
- [36:01]
A
What's, like, industry standards? What's a normal tip? Is it 20?
- [36:06]
B
Like 20, like, just like a waiter? Yeah, yeah, 20. I mean, you have a deckhand.
- [36:12]
A
Is it like 20 to him and then 20 to the captain or just 20?
- [36:16]
B
Usually what most people. I mean, you got. You get some people that. That appreciate a lot more than others. Yeah, but a standard. Standard rule is 20. Just like a waiter.
- [36:25]
A
All right, So I come on the boat, got my family. It's my first time. I sit down. You welcome us on the boat, we start going out. What. What happens?
- [36:35]
B
What can I expect once we clear the dock? My mate, usually, we always have a deck can on here. Gavin, he'll have all the fenders in. And then we're easing out the marina. I try to get everybody's attention. Explain to them, starting out, where the life jackets are. Bathroom, first aid kit, throat cushion, and the last thing. Tell them where the trash can and cooler is, and then ask them if they know how to put on a life jacket. If not, we show them how to put it on. That way we don't have situation we had before. And then, welcome to my office. Let's go to work.
- [37:11]
A
And then, are you still making that phone call to your buddy in Atlanta asking him how traffic is?
- [37:17]
B
No. He moved to Ponte Vedra.
- [37:20]
A
No.
- [37:21]
B
And he lives in Ponte. He owned up. And so that was Jeff Hartman. Jeff Hartman over there. He's got his own business and all. Now he's stuck on JTB when I'm talking.
- [37:29]
A
Oh, I love it. Every time we go out fishing, you. You'd say, I gotta text. Gotta text my buddy. Ask him how traffic is in Atlanta, pulling out of the marina.
- [37:38]
B
He would call. He'd be stuck in traffic and wondering how it was. I said, the seas are pretty calm where he's not sure. 22 knots. Gonna go out for some amber Jack in Kopia. There he is.
- [37:50]
A
Fine.
- [37:51]
B
I'm stuck bumper to bumper in the 285.
- [37:54]
A
Oh, 285 nightmare. Miserable. All right. Are any two fishing trips, have any two ever been alike?
- [38:03]
B
Never, never. I tell you what's great is when you take kids out.
- [38:07]
A
Yeah.
- [38:08]
B
And every, even big kids, they love catching sharks. And you have the daughters and the moms and all that. And you know, we're shrimping industry, so they're offshore Georgia and they're working catching shrimp. So one thing, when everything else is slow, you can always pull in behind a shrimp boat and catch a good 150 pound shark. Well, the sharks are awesome.
- [38:30]
A
Yeah.
- [38:31]
B
But when those kids see all the dolphins and all the birds feeding on the bycatch from the shrimp boats, it's like they went. They can't imagine. I mean you see it on, on YouTube of Omaha places like that on TV, but for them to see it real life.
- [38:47]
A
Yeah.
- [38:48]
B
It's just, they would just sit there and watch those dolphins all day long. The trip is made.
- [38:53]
A
Everything that's making noise, I mean, I've done it a bunch of times with these. So you actually just got me there. Like I just had that feeling. But the birds are coming in and telling you whatever.
- [39:03]
B
Especially when they're throwing their by catch in. They've already taken the shrimp out of the bike catch and all.
- [39:07]
A
Yeah.
- [39:07]
B
And now they're shoveling it overboard. And I mean when they shovel it over, the birds go craz crazy. And then you see the fins, the sharks just get out there. Hundreds and hundreds of sharks.
- [39:17]
A
You don't want to fall in that water.
- [39:19]
B
Thank you. I don't think you'll make it there.
- [39:22]
A
Educate me a little bit on the shrimping industry. Like we go out, you know, whether we're on vacation or whatever, we see the boats, they drop the arms down and they go. That's about all I know about it.
- [39:33]
B
They actually work. They actually plow. They're farmers. They plow the bottom. They have two nets on each side, have a sled in between them and they're pulling some 65 footers there. So they got 130ft of net and they're plowing the bottom. And they have what they call a tickler chain that's attached to the door, the heel of the door, to the head of the heel of the sled which runs between them. And then the same way on the other side, this tickler chain is actually 16 inches, 12 to 16 inches off the bottom. About 36 to 42 inches ahead of the net.
- [40:04]
A
Yeah.
- [40:05]
B
And it's along the bottom making everything jump up. And then the net scoops them up. And then through a. A Ted, a turtle excluding device, shoots out anything that's wider than 4 inches. It shoots it out the bottom of the net. So your turtles get away, your big fish get away and all that. Then it goes to a fin shooter that your fish, 3 inches is bigger. It'll get out there. But if it made it through there, then the rest of it goes into the. So it's a constant chum machine.
- [40:33]
A
Yeah.
- [40:34]
B
There. I mean, you catch tarpon behind it. Cobia get behind them. You just never have big kingfish.
- [40:40]
A
That's why the sharks are just every. I mean.
- [40:43]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [40:44]
A
What. What depth of water is best for doing that?
- [40:48]
B
They. They drag all the way. In Georgia, they're allowed to drag on the beach at 12ft of water all the way out. They catch white shrimp here. So they're out to about, you know, 45ft or something until they go down south. They'll catch rock shrimp and stuff.
- [41:01]
A
And how far. How deep could they go?
- [41:03]
B
They go some of them royal red shrimp that are in 18 to 2,000ft of water there. And it's all rural reds and really sweet. Everything you eat from that depth is really good. Yeah, Tastes great.
- [41:14]
A
They. So the shrimp boat comes in. Scott, how much shrimp is on a.
- [41:19]
B
Boat from a deck? It's. At one time we probably had, I'd say 63 to 70 boats here. We owned a fish house. We had five or six boats in our dock. This whole waterfront was shrimp boats there. And it's. And it's slowly dying down in the farm. Raised shrimps, really imported shrimp really hurts them on the price of fuel to catch them is hurting them a little bit. The guys that are still doing it, they do pretty good. Yeah, there's a handful.
- [41:48]
A
Thousand pounds.
- [41:49]
B
Oh, they catch hundreds of thousands. They'll have probably the best day. I heard of them saying they had a. A drag last year. 52 baskets. That's 50 to 60 pounds of basket. And that was during the day. That's pretty good drag. That's awesome.
- [42:05]
A
And then they take those where they take.
- [42:07]
B
They're freezer boats. Most of them are now. So they'll process them, bag them, flash freeze them, and then put them in their cargo hold. And when they get their catch, you know, 21 days or so, they'll go and unload them. They'll come right here turning seafood this big plant here, and they buy them. And what they'll do is they'll peel and devein them and separate them in sizes, and then they sell them to the grocery store. Public places like that.
- [42:30]
A
Do we. When we go in the restaurants here in the downtown or on the island, are we getting any of that? True.
- [42:36]
B
A lot of the locals. Locals there. They'll advertise local shrimp. And that's the burn bean and may pork shrimp.
- [42:43]
A
And you can buy them from like they just came out of water maybe.
- [42:47]
B
A couple days ago. They'll buy them from the processing plant. There's one in here and there's one in Jacksonville as well.
- [42:52]
A
Yeah, there.
- [42:52]
B
And they package them up and they send them out.
- [42:54]
A
Yeah. Okay, cool.
- [42:56]
B
Really good. There's nothing better than an east coast white. Sweetest taste compared to strips. Got a lot of iodine. These are. These are from the salt marsh waters.
- [43:07]
A
Where can we get them here?
- [43:08]
B
Any restaurants? Yeah, I think that Brett's here. Restaurant behind us has them.
- [43:13]
A
Yeah.
- [43:13]
B
And you also the Salty Pelican.
- [43:17]
A
That's launched today. Yeah, yeah.
- [43:19]
B
Oh, yeah, it's good.
- [43:19]
A
Don't be hungry.
- [43:20]
B
Oh, they got talk. They have a. They have a tuna taco. Nachos. Tuna nachos there. That's awesome. And what's great about Salty Pelican, they will cook your cat.
- [43:31]
A
Yeah.
- [43:32]
B
So we'll fillet them up, take the bones and all out to take them over there. Tell them you would fish with AC chargers and they'll cook it up for you.
- [43:40]
A
Pretty cool. When you. So when you were starting out in this industry, how did you decide what boat to buy? Like, as I look around, I see a lot of different sizes of boats. What goes into it?
- [43:50]
B
Well, I was pretty fortunate. This boat we're on now is a 31 foot Berkshire lock. Yeah. And it is. It's just got one level. And it's a great charter because it's got so much area and on a cover.
- [44:03]
A
Yeah. Standing space.
- [44:04]
B
It's 120 square feet in the cockpit. You don't get that from very many boats.
- [44:08]
A
Yeah.
- [44:09]
B
The original owner was Sweeney Sykes, and he used to be here. He was a psychiatrist out of Atlanta.
- [44:15]
A
Yeah.
- [44:16]
B
Craziest man I ever met. Didn't matter if it was 5am or 5pm he'd have a Chip Ahoy and a whole Milwaukee in his hand. I mean, his passion was catching barracudas and raising orchids.
- [44:30]
A
Crazy guy.
- [44:31]
B
Orchids. Orchids. Nicest guy in the world. Well, he passed away. He had a partner, Low Hall. They had repowered the boat. Another gentleman tenant bought it. This was like in 89, 89 90s when I bought it. So that was a big recession.
- [44:45]
A
Yeah. There.
- [44:46]
B
And I was working for Dr. Smith. And so I was getting a lot of overflow and I passed other people and I had a partner, Queen Flip Thrift and I, we owned a beach house together. We both shrimp, so we're never there at the same time. And I rented the place from the Dells for probably five years. And I told her, if you ever want to sell it, I'd like to buy it. And she said, yeah, I think we paid $32,000. One block off the beach, 24 years old, already owned a house on the beach. Shrimp, it was good to me. That's where it all started. And we did good. So I bought this boat and I renamed it back to the Wahoo and had it ever since. Completely rebuilt it, put new motors in it. It's been a really good boat. It's a great charter boat. It's got a lot of history. It's just a good all around boat.
- [45:37]
A
What does that name mean for you? What does Wahoo mean? Because you Wahoo, you have Wahoo2, right?
- [45:42]
B
It's because, well, how did I respect to him to rename it back to Wahoo?
- [45:47]
A
Got it.
- [45:47]
B
And then when I bought more, I had the Wahoo too. And then I have a Kodak moment. The backwater. Nice. 23 foot Hanson. A lot of backwater fishing. Fly fishing.
- [45:57]
A
Yeah. Do you, do you fish on your own time or do you get enough fishing?
- [46:03]
B
Get enough. I take Cheryl out every so often. I gotta take her out there. That's awesome.
- [46:09]
A
What does she like to fish for?
- [46:11]
B
Anything. Her favorite's whiting. Yeah, whiting is running right now. And I tell you what, it tastes just like flounder. It's perfect.
- [46:19]
A
They'll, they'll take it over it, they'll take that fish over there.
- [46:23]
B
You can take that over there to the salty pelican. They'll cook it. Or all you need is a little panko, an egg and a little olive oil, salt, pepper. I mean it just comes out.
- [46:34]
A
What's the trick to, to eating shark? Or you just say don't eat it at all.
- [46:38]
B
I prefer the bonnetheads and Atlantic sharknose. They're crustacean feeders. So they eat the shrimp and the crab so they have a better flavor.
- [46:48]
A
Yeah, to me.
- [46:49]
B
And I like, I like to marinate them and zesty Italian and cut them up in little strips and pan fry them or you know, however you like. They're great. I have one client that every time we go he has to take, take one home to his mom. She, that's her favorite.
- [47:03]
A
That's awesome.
- [47:04]
B
They're the gallons out of St. Mary's she loves that shark.
- [47:08]
A
Oh, yeah. What, what do you think is the best, the best catch in the ocean to eat that you're favorite?
- [47:14]
B
I like sea bass. Your sheep's head's really good. Kobe is really good eating. I mean, I haven't eaten too many bad fish. Yeah, red, red fish is good special. Yeah. I like a trout better. I do redfish.
- [47:26]
A
Oh, you do? Okay.
- [47:27]
B
A good way that we've gone to here lately is cooking redfish on half shell. You just filet it off the backbone, leave the skin and the scales all on. But you cook it flat on the grill, put all your season on top. The meat comes right off.
- [47:41]
A
It's so moist.
- [47:42]
B
I mean, it's awesome.
- [47:44]
A
In this type of career, would you say it's physical to be physically in shape? Oh, yes. Okay.
- [47:52]
B
You're looking at during the season, you're, you know, you're up at 4am and you're not done until 6. You know, if you run two charters a day.
- [47:59]
A
Yeah.
- [48:00]
B
And you never know what the weather is doing. So you always get thrown around. I mean, I'm sitting on the bus, the boat, and my watch says I've hit 70,000 steps, 7,000 steps, and I haven't moved from here to there. So I mean, you're always moving.
- [48:14]
A
You're just always going.
- [48:15]
B
Yeah, you're always going.
- [48:16]
A
Don't even realize it sometimes.
- [48:18]
B
Yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, you're getting worked all the time. You're dealing with big fish.
- [48:22]
A
Yeah.
- [48:23]
B
Especially the target when you're bringing them in and you worry about your arm getting between the boat and then when they jump to try to release them. It's not. It's a deadly sport. I think the closest and scariest I've ever been, not really scared is I had a barracuda and had a trailing hook and I went out without a mate that day. And the trailing hook got me between the two fingers and the trailing hook is six inches back, depending on what size bait it is. At that time it was about five inches. So I got this Barracuda, a 15 pound Barracuda. It's got a mouthful of teeth. I mean it's got an upper, lower and an inner.
- [48:58]
A
Yeah.
- [48:58]
B
And my fingers are right there. And this hook is in my hand, a treble hook. And I got it. So I'm stuck. I got this fish in my hand. I got the charter. This guy's shaking and all. I said, sir, calm down. It's not in Your hand, It's in mine. You gotta. You gotta cut this hook. You gotta cut that line between these things. Damn barracuda's gonna get my finger. That's the closest I've ever been. And finally he went in and cut it. And I had to get a buddy to hand me a pair of bolt cutters. I didn't have them. They were on the other boat. And we had to cut the barb because it was already through. Oh, my God. And just take it off. And, man, ever since then, I'm. We've taken attitude adjustment to them.
- [49:38]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [49:40]
B
That was the closest. I thought that I might get bit by something and lose a limp. You know, we get a lot of hooks in our hands and stuff like that. That you gotta. What you really have to worry about is having a good pair of sunglasses, not only for the sun, but to see the fish, but for when the fish spit the hook. If it hits the glasses, they protect and it'll bounce off. If you wear a cheap pair, it's going to hit you and blind you. So you got to be really careful about that. So, you know, a good pair of glasses, good pair of gloves.
- [50:08]
A
Yeah.
- [50:09]
B
And a good sharp pair of pliers in the back.
- [50:11]
A
Yeah. And puking real. Right.
- [50:14]
B
You've been out partying a lot. Like, I. Thank you. Who had. Jordan.
- [50:19]
A
Remember Jordan, the kid I brought?
- [50:21]
B
Yeah. I said, look, he was sick. I said, buddy, he's puking real.
- [50:24]
A
Oh, my gosh, he was so seasick. And it's just. There's just no solution to it.
- [50:29]
B
Well, you know what? It. It seemed like he forgot, though, when he was catching fish.
- [50:33]
A
Yeah.
- [50:33]
B
When he's catching fish, he didn't get sick.
- [50:35]
A
Yeah.
- [50:35]
B
You're okay. Right? Okay. But it's when you sit there and you look and you're rolling, you know, it gets to you. Atlantic flu bouncing. What do you.
- [50:43]
A
What do you. Do you look out to the horizon or something?
- [50:47]
B
Well, we have some C bands that help people out a lot there. You put C bands on. It's the acupuncture pressure. It goes right in between that main vein. It slows the blood flow to your equilibrium, your inner ear. And that seems to help people. What I mainly do is tell people, look, if we're going for a long day and all day or longer, I said, don't drink the night before.
- [51:06]
A
Right.
- [51:07]
B
Because a lot of people that go on vacation the first night you're away, you know, you want to indulge.
- [51:11]
A
Yeah.
- [51:12]
B
You know, you're having a good time and all that. But if you're going fishing next day, I would hold off and see how the ocean is and all that and then. And then have your bed. We all learned the hard way been there before.
- [51:26]
A
What kind of boat actually sustain wave wise? Is there a calculation like a 10 foot boat can only take up to a certain certain wave?
- [51:35]
B
Well, I think it's safely. What I go by with myself is I go by. We have a buoy out here, weather buoy. And I'll look on the app. There's several apps there. Wind Finder, Windy or the National Green Buoy System. Okay. And you can plug in the number of the buoy and it'll tell you the wave, how high it is, how many seconds between the waves. And if it's six seconds or less, if it's three feet in six seconds, I don't go out. You're not gonna have a good time. You're getting sick, somebody's gonna follow you and get soaking wet. You're not gonna have a good time. The way I see this is about having a good time.
- [52:12]
A
Yeah.
- [52:12]
B
And if I can't have a good time, I'm not going.
- [52:14]
A
Right.
- [52:15]
B
And that's my rule of thumb is six seconds or less. We're not going offshore. We can fish in sound here we have a couple of sound the river. We catch big fish. We catch cobia, we catch tarpon sharp and red fish. Whiting.
- [52:28]
A
Yeah.
- [52:28]
B
You know, I mean you can have a good time inside.
- [52:30]
A
So it can go three feet and like 10 seconds.
- [52:33]
B
10 seconds is good. Seven seconds, eight seconds is good. Okay, six seconds.
- [52:39]
A
That's the magic.
- [52:40]
B
That's my magic.
- [52:42]
A
Yeah. Can waves get bigger and still be outside the six seconds? Oh yes. Six and ten.
- [52:49]
B
I've been out with ten foot with 12, 15 seconds. That's a big ground swell.
- [52:53]
A
You've been out. Yeah. Yeah.
- [52:55]
B
Really? Yeah. It's the time between the two is what makes.
- [52:59]
A
That's what pounds you.
- [53:00]
B
That's what pounds is confused. See, then that's what's going to get you. But a big swell. Yeah, that's like surf. If you surf, you want that big swell, you want that distance in between. That's what makes it a good surf. That's makes and that's what makes it a good ride.
- [53:14]
A
What about some other stuff, maybe like not even fish related. What are some cool things that you see when you're out?
- [53:22]
B
Way out? We see bright whales. They come down and. Yeah, they come in April, I mean December, they hang around till late April.
- [53:30]
A
Big.
- [53:31]
B
Yeah. The right Whales get up to 65ft. They come here and they give birth to their young. Yeah, I was with Chris Fisher and we were doing, we were working with the National Marine Fisheries some of the early mid-90s, and we were getting the DNA. We would get up there, I'd be in the tower and he'd be on the bow with a crossbow and we'd shoot the whales to get the DNA off of them. And they had to get through that one. You had to get in three inches before you could get to the blubber there. And they were IDing. And that's how they found out there was only 300 cats back then. And then they would buy the cones on the nose is on the head of the whale is how they ID none of them alive. And then they have the babies and all that. While we were doing that, I had a Ron Wallace, he did all the filming of Blue Planet and flip pallet stuff. Cool guy. And he had, he had gotten footage of whales mating and all up in, in Canada.
- [54:32]
A
Yeah.
- [54:33]
B
And he had me chartered with those guys. Guys so we could try to catch a. A birth, a child giving birth, a whale. And we never did find it there, but we did find a stillborn. We were working and that's the coolest thing. We were, we were on a pod of Wales and they were off of St Andrews and this, this One cat, cow, lady, 65 footer, kept trying to go towards the beach and there was three more pushing her to sea. Well, we took the DNA off of them there. And the Coast Guard said, hey, we got a report of a baby whale offshore. So we did all that. We were wondering why that was going on. Well, so we go out there and meet the Coast Guard and they get on board with the Coast Guard and they go into St. Simon with a stillborn. They were stillborn. It never took air. His breather that never ever took a breath of air, still going, cap. And he comes down two days later, we go out, he says, you know about that cap? I said, yeah, what y'all find? I said, well, the mother, cap, the cow that was trying to go beach itself and other three were pushing it back, keeping it in the ocean, keeping it away from land. That was the mother, that was its calf there.
- [55:48]
A
Wow.
- [55:49]
B
Yeah, it was crazy. Some of the things, you know, I mean, that's probably the, the coolest thing.
- [55:54]
A
Yeah, for sure. When we were out with you one time we pulled a shark out there, like something tagged through his fin tag. What is that? What did that? I don't. I Never even asked like what did that mean. I remember he had a tag sticking off of them.
- [56:10]
B
Some of them are. They tag them off of like I think the furthest one I yeah they, they tag them to do this research. Okay. They'll, they'll catch them when they're small like that I think was in Virginia and we caught it here and we took the measurements and id'd it. I think it was a dusky and it was a female and so I took the numbers off of it, put the location and they said they send you back the information that was tagged in up in Virginia like a year and a half and had grown like a foot and a half in that time it traveled over water. So they do a lot of tagging with the sharks, redfish and trigger fish there. It's pretty good. We did a lot of tagging with this the snapper thing we took out of the FWC and I think we tagged 52 snapper one trip and most she said she's ever done and to do research. I haven't heard that they catch any of those snapper that we tag. Yeah, that's what they do for research.
- [57:13]
A
Yeah. There's an area here somewhere called Shark Hole or Shark Town. Shark Hole.
- [57:19]
B
Yeah. What is that a fork clench deep hole was probably it's natural. It's 65ft and a slack tide. You throw a half a whiting down there, I mean you're going to catch a big dusky. The other day we caught some five footers we didn't fish quite enough over. Yeah then that deep hole. Oh they're always there on flat cock.
- [57:39]
A
Duskies or all different duskies.
- [57:43]
B
Bull sharks, bonnet heads, hammerheads. They're the black tips and dusky seem to be pretty strong.
- [57:50]
A
Yeah.
- [57:51]
B
Wildest thing I ever caught out of that hole was a, a Megalodon too. This little girl wanted, she just graduated from high school and she wanted to go fishing for her high school graduation.
- [58:04]
A
Yeah.
- [58:04]
B
So we're out there fishing and we catch. It looked like a shell, you know like one of those angel wing shells, you know it just didn't. Didn't really look like it. So I got it up, started scraping it and all. It's a perfect 5 1/2 inch megalodon tooth. Well I looked it up and for every inch that tooth is ten foot. So that shark was a 55 the shark back in the day thousands of years ago and so I gave it to the little girl and her family was all there so I took a picture of them. I Said with the whole family around the live well and all, I said, take this shark tooth and crop it in the picture with y'all on it. And they came back the next year cuz their sister graduated and wanted to do the same thing. And they had done it and showed me the picture of it. It's pretty cool. But we didn't catch another tooth.
- [58:52]
A
No. Crazy.
- [58:55]
B
That was probably the second weirdest.
- [58:56]
A
So what was it like? How. How big?
- [58:59]
B
No, it was about like this long. But once I started cleaning it all off, getting all the growth off of it, it started showing itself.
- [59:06]
A
Oh my God.
- [59:06]
B
It was a shark. It had a lot of growth on it there. Grass, some sponge and other stuff. That's what we hooked, is the sponge. We didn't hook. We hooked the sponge.
- [59:17]
A
Yeah. So. So ideal. Perfect day. Draw that up for me. Your favorite day to go out on the water. What's this? What's going on in the air? What's the temperature?
- [59:27]
B
Well, this is the perfect time to be fishing.
- [59:29]
A
Like your favorite. What's your favorite?
- [59:33]
B
Anytime they can.
- [59:34]
A
Just anytime.
- [59:35]
B
Anything. Anytime they can. Now I like it when the pogies are good on the beach. So you get in there and you catch a net full of pogies. Put a couple hundred here in the live well, you have a. Probably about, you know, five gallons more to come with you. Cut up and throw them out.
- [59:49]
A
Sure. Yeah.
- [59:50]
B
And it doesn't matter. We're offshore king fishing or the jetty's fishing for tarpon.
- [59:56]
A
Yeah.
- [59:56]
B
So long as the bait's right there, the sunshine and everything's right, we're good to go.
- [60:01]
A
That's awesome. I mean, do you have a. Do you like it colder, warmer, middle.
- [60:07]
B
Every six weeks things change here. Year.
- [60:10]
A
Yeah.
- [60:10]
B
So it's always changing up. And that's what keeps you interested. Interesting there because, you know, if you do the same thing every day, you get burned out.
- [60:19]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [60:19]
B
But we're always, always something's changing. So you're always having to try something different. And that's what keeps it interesting, you know, like right now, our black drummer running in there. We caught one this morning. That's about £20. A couple days later we caught early. We've caught some 50 pounders, you know, and the whiting bite's really good. And all that's going to change in another April. Jacobia, start coming in. Your redfish coming in. Hoagies are coming in now. So it's always changing. Yeah, it keeps it interesting.
- [60:52]
A
So like the technology and the equipment, there's a lot of Stuff I see is that boat standard? Do you have favorites? Do you have preferences? Are you sponsored? How do you get all like how did you come on this kind of stuff?
- [61:05]
B
Well, we got very fortunate there. We would take a lot of people out. So that helps you out. Plus the amount of years we've been in it's and successful. Yeah, there's a lot of people in this business this day, these days a lot of small boats. But like Pure Fishing is a big sponsor of ours. We're on their program and that's all the pin. So all the pin rods, reels there, we use a lot of those.
- [61:29]
A
So these are sponsor. So you're sponsored. Yes. Okay. Yeah.
- [61:32]
B
Give us a, you know, 35, 40 off. Yeah, it's really good. Now the equipment that I like today, I've always loved Funo because I'm old school and back in the day you went TDs. And that's time differences between the towers. Nowadays it's LAUGHING Long since 91 is all on to. To Latin long.
- [61:54]
A
Got it, got it.
- [61:55]
B
And so I still like to have my old Bruno with my td's cuz I know exactly where I am and everything. But then I have the newer December and some guys came out guy lives here, he came out with Seymour's chip. Seymour's chip is game changer, huh? For efficiency.
- [62:12]
A
Seymour chip.
- [62:13]
B
Seymour's chips. It gets you a three dimensional bottom there. So it shows you the bottom in all different colors. It shows you the ledges, everything there. So you see how it lays. When I plug that thing in, I think to myself, you know, and I got. I can't believe this. When I plugged it into my machine, all my X's, that's how the ledge ran there. I mean it's unbelievable. I tell people, look, if you're going to buy a boat.
- [62:40]
A
Yeah.
- [62:41]
B
And you want to come a fisherman, you need to invest it 700 Seymour's chip. And it's a game changer.
- [62:48]
A
And it's literally a chip that you just buy chip.
- [62:50]
B
You just put it on to in your machine and it shows up the chart and everything.
- [62:55]
A
Yeah.
- [62:55]
B
And where it's certain areas. It's not everywhere. Just certain areas.
- [62:59]
A
Yeah.
- [63:00]
B
Is all laid out for you.
- [63:03]
A
Yeah.
- [63:03]
B
Three dimensional. It's a color. You know, when you. When you go from blue to red, that's. That's definitely a big, you know, five, six foot drop.
- [63:11]
A
Yeah.
- [63:11]
B
And it shows you. And they have a lot of the. We're have Kings Bay nuclear trident, submarine inlet here. So that's all chartered out on there so you can see all the ledges in the channel.
- [63:20]
A
Wow.
- [63:21]
B
And you want to fish the ledges because that's where a lot of the big fish are.
- [63:24]
A
That's where they're hanging out. Yeah. Did you ever have a day where driving in the marina, you're like, I don't feel like going out today. No.
- [63:33]
B
It doesn't matter how. I've never had a problem waking up. Up. I don't think I've ever called in sick there. Everybody says, everybody. Guy asked me, says, al, when are you going to retire? I said, from what?
- [63:45]
A
Right. First you got to have a job to retire.
- [63:47]
B
What am I going to retire?
- [63:48]
A
Why? Right.
- [63:49]
B
What am I going to do?
- [63:50]
A
It's a great point.
- [63:51]
B
Yeah. I said, I'm going to fish until I die.
- [63:54]
A
Yeah. Are you, do you think you'll always do, like, fishing as business? Yeah.
- [64:01]
B
Why? It's awesome. You get to get out of the water. You meet some awesome people. You make some great memories. I think I'm up to four generations now that fish with me. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty good.
- [64:15]
A
Yeah.
- [64:17]
B
I think that's a big success. When you have a business that you take from different generations and not just one family, there's several of them.
- [64:24]
A
What's the hardest thing about this business?
- [64:27]
B
What? Weather.
- [64:28]
A
Dealing with the weather.
- [64:29]
B
Dealing with the weather. And your breakdowns are always a challenge, but you know, you can't do anything about it. So you just go with it.
- [64:37]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Just go with it.
- [64:38]
B
Yeah.
- [64:40]
A
Last question. So today a young fishing captain gets started and he says, captain Allen, I want you to mentor me. What are some things you're going to tell them to do and not to do in this industry?
- [65:00]
B
I have a young man working for me now. He, he's got a part time job with FedEx.
- [65:07]
A
Okay.
- [65:10]
B
I told him, I said, look, I know you're gonna get your license. The best thing you can do is keep that job with FedEx and just take trips on the weekend. I said, because you have insurance, you have security and you have a future. And you can do this on the side because there's so many people doing it now. That's a tough way to make a living. You can, you can make it during the, you know, May to September.
- [65:39]
A
Yeah.
- [65:39]
B
But then you have to do something else.
- [65:42]
A
Sure.
- [65:43]
B
And if you were smart, they would do it on the side until they're, you know, put 10, 15 years in the job and then they want to continue doing it.
- [65:51]
A
Yeah.
- [65:52]
B
Then come and do it. But the thing that you're gonna get in here and do a living at it.
- [65:57]
A
Now is tough unless you, like, have been given money, Right? Yeah. Which is a lot different. Yeah. To just come out and do it, you need a. I would think you would need a book of business.
- [66:08]
B
Right.
- [66:08]
A
But you've been building relationships for decades.
- [66:10]
B
Well, the thing is, if you get along with the people.
- [66:12]
A
Yeah.
- [66:13]
B
Always show them a good time. Yeah. And don't disrespect them, Holler at them. Don't just. That's the biggest thing. If you're having fun, they're having fun.
- [66:23]
A
Yeah.
- [66:24]
B
If you're not having fun, they're not gonna have fun.
- [66:25]
A
Oh, no. Yeah. That's gonna be the worst. Stuck out on the water like that.
- [66:29]
B
Always have a clean boat. The biggest thing is to make sure. If you have a bathroom, to make sure it's always clean, because you'll get a good tip. You'll get a guy, he'll check out your boat. The wife's on the dock there, and he'll come out of the bathroom, give a little nod. Oh, if you get the nod, you're in there.
- [66:47]
A
Yeah, you're in.
- [66:48]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [66:49]
A
That's incredible.
- [66:50]
B
You know, you always want to keep a clean boat. You always want to keep your reels full.
- [66:54]
A
Yeah.
- [66:55]
B
And always keep your leaders new. No freight leaders or anything.
- [67:00]
A
Yeah.
- [67:01]
B
Look good, feel good, you'll do good.
- [67:03]
A
Yeah.
- [67:03]
B
Yeah.
- [67:04]
A
That's awesome. All right. How do. How do people get to you? If they're going to be in this area and they want a lot of.
- [67:11]
B
People, go to the website. It is accharters.net.
- [67:14]
A
We'Ll put it up on the screen.
- [67:16]
B
Phone number is always good. Yeah, we get a lot of Reviews.
- [67:19]
A
Phone numbers.
- [67:19]
B
904, 261, 948. Quit wishing.
- [67:23]
A
Let's go. Quit wishing. Let's go fishing.
- [67:25]
B
Go fishing.
- [67:26]
A
When did that come about? Oh, that came about back in the early days. Yeah. I love it. So awesome.
- [67:32]
B
It's a catch. It is. I tell you, a repeat business is really good. Yeah. And that's. That's what's really good. I have a great website that reaches a lot of people. They're Kill Shark Market. Yeah. And they do really good. I mean, I've been with y'all almost 10 or 15 years.
- [67:53]
A
Yeah.
- [67:55]
B
I just booked three yesterday off the website. Get a lot of competition with some other people. But all in all, you know, we'll stay busy and hopefully my son will get more into it. I can just pick and choose which ones I go with, and that's it. And still continue having a great time at it.
- [68:16]
A
I love it. Thank you. I want to shake your hand for taking the time today. This was awesome.
- [68:21]
B
Yeah, always.