Where to begin? After booking a 6 hour Offshore trip with Captain Chris from Rush Charters for my 14 year old son and some of his friends, I attempted to call several times to confirm the reservation. With no return call for 6 days I might have recognized where this was headed from the get-go. The night before Captain Chris calls to let me know that he has issues with one of the engines on his boat and suggests another guide with availability. He was nice enough to set the trip up for us with Captain John, 8:00am at the Green Flash on Captiva.

We get to the Green Flash Marina with 5 minutes to spare but no sign of our guide. Captain John shows up about 20 minutes late so we hurry to hop on the boat and get fishing. After a short boat ride I was surprised to hear of the 3 ½ hour (because he had other clients at noon) Inshore Trout fishing that he had planned for us instead of the 6 hour Grouper and Snapper Offshore we had planned with Rush Charters. As I was informed by Captain John, Rush Charters had double booked that day and pawned us off on the only guy that he could get for the day and failed to tell us about any change in plans. Through no fault of Captain John’s we head back to the marina to try to find a trip to deeper water with someone who has availability but, to no avail.

I left several messages with Captain Chris and Captain Lacey to attempt to reschedule the trip for the following day, which was the last day of our vacation, but to this day not a single person from Rush Charters has attempted to return my call. We don’t live on the water like you guys do. It is rare that we get the opportunity to get offshore for the opportunities we had. The worst part about the deal is the disappointment of my son and his friends.

They may be good fishermen but they have horrible business practices. Stay away from Rush Charters…unless you enjoy being disappointed.

Can I get a amen on that one. I am a guide from Michigan and have never seen such unethical dishonist scum bags as in Florida. You had better be carefull when booking a guide in this state.

word gets around

I went down to Cape Coral Sept. 11 and booked with allfishcharters.com for that Monday and Tuesday. I jokingly told him I wanted at least a 6' shark - we caught 2 10 foot Lemon sharks. Red grouper fishing was like bream fishing - if we didn;t get a bite in under a minute, chances are they took your bait. We maxed out (8), caught the 2 10 foot sharks and caught dozens of snapper and red grouper that were under 20" - Coming back I was worn out and stinking from squid (they wanted to bait my hook for me, but I refused and did it myself), Capt Dan stopped off at Sanibel Island and we jumped in for a refresher dip.
For lunch he had a grill and we had fresh fish we had just caught.
We went out about 28 miles. Only down side is he does not like to go very fast, so it did take us a little over an hour to get there - but wow, was it worth it.
Even had a cuda that was circling the boat. All the rods with steel leaders were out, so he threw in a ladyfish without a steel leader - was like watching a nature show. The barracuda was just hanging out , saw that ladyfish and it looked like he was shot out of a cannon. As soon as he took it , it jumped straight out of the water - he was at eye level with us. Without the steel leader tho, when he jumped you could see him going straight up and the line falling away - was absolutely awesome tho.
Was my 1st experience with a charter so really did not know what to expect, but it was like fishing with family. They would do as much or as little as you wanted them to (I did let them take all of the fish off the hooks except the smaller ones).
Got back to shore and they even filleted the grouper for us - I have already booked another trip - I had a fantastic time.