My First Somewhat Official Charter Trip

Sept 16, 2023

This web site is where I hope to grow my future and upcoming Charter Captain fishing business. I'm going to say today was my first "somewhat official" charter fishing trip. I've been at this unofficial fishing captain job for years. Then I got my USCG captain's license last year. I've taken so many friends, kids, orphans, wounded warriors, special Ops warriors, and folks who just want to go fishing. But now I'm in a process of building a charter fishing business. It's something I've always considered doing if they ever let me retire as vascular surgeon. Now I'm transitioning towards becoming what I would call a real Charter fishing Captain. Today was a big event, in my mind, it was my first official trip as a charter fishing captain, so there is obviously the pressure I've put upon myself that everything goes perfectly. It's weird, in a way, that I feel more pressure taking people fishing than I do performing vascular surgery. I guess it's all what you are used to doing and feel confident about.

Being highly selective in my clientele, I had the privilege of today taking out a very amazing guy, Judge Arakas and his son JC. They are locals and avid fishermen who load 'em up on their own boat when they target Redfish and Black Drum. They don't need much help from the likes of me in saltwater fishing except that Tarpon are a species they aren't as familiar with targeting, so they asked me to take them out on a trip to focus on the "Silver King."

We got out there today on Winyah Bay as the sun was coming up. I have to say, it was one of the most beautiful mornings I've ever seen. The weather was perfect. As we made our way out, the sun was rising and the wind was mild. You can't ask for much better. We visited Muddy Bay initially for a few minutes, but there wasn't much action , so we ventured out to the jetties. Out there, JC Arakas was a "croaker killer," he was loading us up with all the bait we needed for the day in no time. We later ventured out to the jetties and sat for a bit at slack tide, then suddenly it became quite interesting. Seriously there was an amazing amount of saltwater life out there today. Turtles, dolphins, tarpon birds, pelicans, dolphin, menhaden, and then a school of extremely large mullet drifted by. We estimated the school of mullet to be at least one square acre in size, which was in retrospect, an underestimation. We saw so many tarpon, I lost count. We floated some good bait, and hooked up on tarpon several times, only to be disappointed when they shook the hook. We did fight a couple of big bull sharks up to the boat in a catch and release situation (thank goodness). But there were literally tarpon everywhere and we were all over them. It was a feeding frenzy. We jumped a good number of tarpon, I'm not sure how many exactly, but I'd say several. Unfortunately they all evaded our capture with their evasive maneuvers. No lines broke, so I felt good about the rigging. Sufficient to say however, it was a good "first day," I thought. I hope that Judge Arakas and his son had half as much fun as I did on my first charter Captain fishing trip! We had lunch at a place on the water front in Georgetown called Between the Antlers. I gathered from the response I've gotten from The Judge and from JC that they had a great time. It seemed to me that it was a very good first day. Hopefully, they will give me some honest feedback. Now let's hope, going forward, I have many more chances to make it an even better experience for my next fishing friends.