Saltwater Stories: A Captain's Life at Sea

[Folks, there was no way I could produce this episode in my studio! It had to be done on the deck of Captain Allen’s boat, so we hit the road and spent a sunny afternoon on his boat!]

Captain Allen Mills — He’s a good friend, a client, and 45+ year charter fishing captain. He is owner of ACCharters in Amelia Island, Florida. I fished will Allen 50+ times and we became good friends and spent many hours catching sharks 🦈 , reds, and had so many other great times on the water together. My oldest son caught his very 1st fish ever with Captain Allen in the back waters of Amelia Island  what a day and what a memory! 

Captain Allen got his start in the shrimping industry in the Fernandina/ Amelia Island area. In this episode he talks about the 3 times [EVER] he had to deploy his life jacket. The stories will have you on the edge of your seat! He even talks about 2 different boat fires he escaped along with plenty of great insights into the business of fishing. 🎣  So kick back, make sure you have a coozie and stay dry! 

Transcript

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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, right? Captain Charter. 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 Alan, I've been fishing with you for how many years now? Probably 15, 12 to 15 years. 15 or longer. Right, yeah. You just started your business there, Killer Shark. Yeah, that's right. You were one of the very first clients 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. What age were you? Well, I'll tell you, we were... Before tourism started on the island back in the 70s, there was a commercial fishing village. You either worked as a commercial fisherman, shrimping or crabbing, or you worked at one to two 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 in 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 yeah 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 yeah and uh at that time we'd run boats you'd start here and you 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. So we'd work all the way around each state. Florida would open, and then Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and then we'd be over in Texas. We'd end up there. Yeah. And we would work our way around, and we were right about a year after high school. I was running a boat. I had two of my buddies just got out of 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 a port, of course, we surfed our lives. 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 us on 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. Yeah. Oh, you sure did. Yeah. He goes, no, they didn't ask for anything. Why? He says, because if you do, you give it to them because they're making good money for me. That's awesome. So we'd have a good time and always stay along Biloxi right there, Mississippi. And this guy used to come out of Biloxi 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 shoot in the breeze. I said, I remember you from last year. He goes, yeah, I remember you. And they'd bring us a 12-pack of beer and we'd give them shrimp. Because we never carried alcohol on the boats there. Because you'd be out on the ice boats if you were out up to 10 days. I said, how'd you get started? He said, I just got a captain's license and started chartering. I said, man, that's a life for me. How about them girls? He says, oh, well, they're my deckhands. Oh, the deckhands. I love it. 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. In a freezer boat, you can stay out when the shrimping's running. Because an 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'd 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. I said, when I go home, I'm going to see school and get a captain's license. He goes, well, I appreciate you telling me. He says, I wish my sons would tell me that. He says, I'll buy you a boat. I says, no, I'm... Let me get my license and see what happens. Right, right. So took that off. When I got home in September, took it off, studied hard, and went down and locked myself in my aunt's garage apartment just because I cannot absorb it. I mean, I can't keep it. I can absorb it, but 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 when all I was there. And then I got out of school on that Saturday. So that Monday, I flew to Miami and took the test. Oh, wow. I don't know. The grace is of God. I passed it. What year was that? That was in 83. Okay, so 83. What did the industry look like back then for what you wanted to get into? The charters were going. I had a good friend of mine, David Burns, was doing it. Here in Amelia? Here in Amelia. Wayne York. And Wayne says, you get your license. You can help me out. And I said, well, okay. I'd help him out a little bit. And I'm hooked up with a guy. Back then, tourism was just getting started. The Omni was being built, and so things were just coming around. There's always been business here in the summertime. there from may to september yeah sure and um so finally i hooked up with a guy help 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 yeah okay and uh 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'd dive down to see what the shrimp swam on, what attracted them and stuff. And so I hooked out with Troy Pitts. He was a seal, a Navy seal out of Kings Bay. And he had a shop 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. And so the first year of It went great. Boss was happy. I already owned a house on the beach, so it kept me a little bit, 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 were 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. Oh, how'd you do that? I was going down too fast. I found this—I would find— During the week when I was trolling, we'd find different legends and all. And we would put the people, the divers, on regular stuff. And then he and I would go check out stuff that I found. And I tell you, Navy SEAL, they're crazy. We'd be down 80 feet in the water. And we'll see some grouper in there. He says, I'm going in. I said, nah. He takes all his gear off. Come on. 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. No way. Crazy, guys. I mean, 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 opened up that box of Cheerios, and I just opened it up, and as it's going up, all the sardines come, and then here comes all the rest of the fish. Oh, yeah. So I'm floating up, and I'm just swimming here, and we're looking at all these amberjacks. Yeah. So I see the one I want. I take my speargun. I shoot him right behind the fin there. Got him. Yeah. 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 pounds. I said, I got to go. So I go up there and he got so excited. excited i'm looking at the surface here i hand all the guys my gear and uh he comes up he's got this 50 pound amberjack in 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 red-headed stepchild all of a sudden his mask goes flying off he loses his knife where he's trying to stab it the 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 in 68 feet of water. No way. Yeah. Come on. Those guys are crazy. We had a good time, a good run for four years. So what happened? So you get your captain's license. He said, miracle that you passed it. Yeah. You start right in Amelia. Like, is your first trip? It's home. I want to make home. Yep. This is home. How many were here at the time? At the time, I think wayne york had probably eight boats yeah we called uh trade winds 13 the helicopter for when people got sick it was a code on radio hey we need we need trade winds 13 over here the atlantic flu's kicked in so that's great and then you had uh the cis um Burgess, he was running the CIS. Then you had Byron Bakula. You had myself on Unwiners. So there's about 12. Mid-80s? This is mid-80s? Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. 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. Sure. 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, a barracuda's 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. He said, 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. I mean, your clients, it was not uncommon for a client to bring you your choice of beer beverage. Yeah. And I mean, you had the option whether to endure or not. Yeah. I usually wait until we got to the dock. But yeah, but you could do that. It wasn't until like the mid 90s where you couldn't boat and drink. Boat and drink. Now, you know, we all can drive and you can partake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the participants. Yes. Do you remember the first time you got paid to do a charter? 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? Well, I still feel today like, man, I can't believe they're paying me to do this. Yeah. I mean, it's just an awesome job. And what they're willing to pay... And just seeing the reaction and the joy that you put on people's faces. It's like fulfilling a dream in one point. 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. What's your favorite thing to take somebody out to fish? You know, I like to target tarpon. But I like just seeing a... of catching a fish. It doesn't really matter what. It doesn't matter because, I mean, a lot of people want to catch a certain fish. Yeah. But as long as they're catching, that's what they're going to remember. Yeah. If you don't catch anything, they're going to remember that too. Yeah. 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. I know. I want 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. Oh, I love sharks. You do? I don't like catfish. Oh, you don't like catfish. No. Or eels. Eels are too much like a daggone snake there, you know. Yeah. And the catfish always seem to get in your hand or If you're releasing them like it happened this year to me, I was releasing them, some catfish, and the thing went through the wiring harness and poked a hole in my gas line. No way. Yeah, it 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. What happened? The catfish had finned through the plastic into the fuel line and pumped a 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. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. You have a. charter going out tomorrow. How early do you start planning where you're going to take them? How do you know where you're going to go? Is it the wind? What goes into it? Every day is different. This morning before we got started here, it was probably blowing 25 knots. Now it's nice and calm. Thinking about the tide, because we have a huge Cumberland Sound here. We're thinking about what the tide is doing versus the wind on what position this wind wears so that we kind of fish with it. there with the tide and the wind. Tide and wind. And are you looking for them to be opposite each other or complementary to each other? Complementary to each other. Going together. The same direction. If they're not going together, is that bad? Yeah, you're going in line. The line's going underneath your boat. The 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. Yeah. So you have to think about what part of the river, what part of the sound you want to go into. Yeah. If you had a preference, do you like going out far offshore? Are you like in? I like more nearshore now. Yeah. We've done a lot of deep water, blue water fishing back in the day. I was fortunate enough back in late... the mid 80s um 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 smithway and i said um 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 wow and here in the winter in the summertime yeah he goes all right we'll do that i said wow okay that was too i didn't ask for enough yeah and i had a buddy jimmy johnson and he was going to go down with me with his boat. Yeah. Well, he didn't make it. I said, Jimmy, I got Dr. Smith, which got this condo here for us. I said, we can fish out a sailfish Marina. And, uh, so I went for it and caught a lot of sailfish and all. And he said, um, he said, look, I want you to go out, take a friend, go out and learn how to catch these fish. Cause when I come down here, I don't want a boat ride. Yeah. Yeah. So I said, all right. So I went out with a couple of friends and one day I couldn't get anybody to go. And, uh, 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. It almost was a bad lesson. So I reeled everything in, and I went back in. I've never gone out again by myself there. Because if I'd have fallen in and trolling the boat would have kept going, and I would have been history. And how far out were you? We were out there. You're fishing about 14 miles. You're on the edge of the Gulf Stream. Out of Stewart, Florida. Yeah. It's way out there. Okay. That's crazy. So now when you take people out, what are some of the things that they're... asking like what we have a lot of history here okay um we have cumberland sound which is a national park now the rockefellows carnegies donated that to the park service back in 89 yeah so you see a lot of wild horses that originally came with the spaniards so they see a lot of that right on the right on the beach 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 yeah cumberland yeah 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. They're horses. They're taking their morning walk there. It's crazy. We take it for granted, but they just think that's just an amazing thing. Yeah. Well, 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. Yeah. Go do it. So to us coming in, 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? 43 years this year. 43 years. 43 years. Can't believe it. Anybody following in your footsteps? My son is helping me out. Cool. I'd say there's probably about 12 to 14 captains out there that just work for me and that are doing it now today that, you know, continuing on with it. Yeah. 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, that's cool. And that's our busy season so that helps out a lot. Yeah. And local. He's here. He's here on Fernandina and Nassau County. Yes. That's got to be awesome. Oh, a lot of my clients use him too. Oh, they do? Yeah. That's awesome. Speaking of clients, do you have a favorite person or people that you've ever taken out, like maybe stars or athletes? 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. No way. You got this guy, and you're thinking, this is Tom Cruise. And it was his lookalike there. It was pretty cool. But, you know, you don't really get into their personal life. You know, if they want to volunteer, they go. We're out for a good time. Yeah, you're out for a good time. 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.

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Yeah.

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The Blue House. I know his house. I can't remember his name. John. John Grisham. Grisham. There you go. I took him and his son and his son-in-law and all. And that's one of the quietest men. man, you'll, you'll, you got on the boat. I mean, he's very quiet. Wow. Just like, like Zen. Yeah. He just, he enjoys it. He'll grin and all. He'll talk a little bit, but you know, that's a lot of bestsellers. Oh yeah, he does. Pretty interesting. And I saw him not long ago. He said that his daughter, they have a grandchild and all. So, and my son pressure washes his house. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So it's pretty cool. That's sweet. Now your name is up on the board up there. Tell me about, what is that all about? Um, well, I had a client, that bought all the fuel for CSX there for about six years, Bob Kistler. Okay. And he loved going to the Gulf Stream. This is when I was working for Dr. Smithwig. 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 would go to the Gulf Stream, 70 miles. I mean, back to back. From here, 70 from here. 70 miles. Okay. Leave at 4 o'clock in the morning, back in about 6. And we caught, very fortunately, we caught quite a few marlin, some nice tuna and dolphin. I had another client, Mr. Dunlevy, and one year we won the Jacksville 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 then 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. And half of it grew back crossed. Whoa. And he was a big trophy hunter. He says, Alan, you know, I know you like to release these, but this is pretty unique. And we released two this year. I said, I 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 it and put it in his trophy room. It was about a 13-foot marlin. Oh, my gosh. 252 pounds. Yeah, it was huge. It took us an hour and 45 minutes to get him. 145? Yeah, 145. So you're like a record holder? Well, that's the only one that's been brought in to this area. Now, there's been several. We caught one 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 going to 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. You made him jump out of the water. He says, I know. We saw him. It's huge. That's awesome. And you look in the windows when they fly back over there. They're giving us thumbs up and all. Wow. It's crazy. I had a young kid. He was a captain now that worked for me. Back then, he weighed about 110 pounds wet. We called him the mayor of Eulie, Kevin Blanton. Back then, you had the old disposable waterproof cameras there. 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 and run back down. I said, Kevin, we're going to hold you by your ankles. You're going to take this camera, and you're going to take pictures of it. There. He says, you better not let me go. So we hold him over to the side, and he takes a whole roll of them. But out of that whole roll, two awesome pictures. The blue is swimming down, and the lure is right here about 12 inches above him. So we've got two different side shots of it there, and I have it mounted in my office there. It's pretty cool. We still talk about it. How many feet long is a 600-pound mark? It's about 15 to 17. 18. And what do you do? Like, do you get something like that stuffed? 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 him inside 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. Yeah. And, um, he was, he was, I was on my 32 topaz and he, his head was up the front of the tower and the tail was back. behind the boat and that's 12 feet. And then you had the access. Gosh, that's incredible. 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. Yeah. Cut them loose. What are, what are some close calls you can remember through the years, whether it was with fishing or the boat itself or just anything out on the water? And I tell you, we've been caught shrimping was probably the worst storm I've ever been in. And, um, we were coming back last year. It was on the Lang's pride. And, uh, We were running from Freeport, Texas to just off the river. And when I say just off the river, 100 miles or further out. Wow. And it was myself, Cliff, and Robert Wingate. There was three of us running together. I said, hey, guys, the weather report sounded pretty good. We can shoot straight to Key West and save about 10 hours. I was ready to get home. Yeah. 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 were in the middle of the gulf. Well, this low came down. I did, and pushed Isidore directly west across Florida. So we're out there, and I was running a 74, and they were 73-footers, and we get caught in a hurricane there, a tropical storm. And the seas got out to about 28, 30 feet. And I've only put a life jacket on three times in 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. Yeah. Couldn't go to sleep because it was rolling so bad and all that. But all we could do was go to southwest heading towards Mexico to get on the southwest side of it because that's the common side of a storm. Okay. And we made it through all of that. And after about up for about 48 hours there, and the seas were still big groundswell, 18 feet or so, but it didn't have all that chop to it. Yeah. 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's going on? He said, look at all these groupers floating by, square groupers. I said, you looked on the radar? He said, no, you don't have to look. There's another one. I said, have you looked on the radar to 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 they're 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, get 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. That's incredible. So, okay, those are two times you put the life jacket on. What was the third one? Oh, man, the third one, this guy brought a banana on board back two years ago. Oh, bad luck right there, right? Yeah, bad luck. I'll tell you what, the rod will break, the line will break, something will happen. Yeah. Well, we're getting out, it's Florida Georgia weekend, it's Friday. Yeah. Going out, this is two years ago. Just two years ago. In 83. Okay. And I smell something burning, I'm right behind another guy, a charter boat, and I keep smelling something, and I think, well, it might be one of those weird cigars, because I couldn't find smoke or anything. Yeah. So we get up there, we get out about four miles and we're anchored up i look over all of a sudden the smoke starts boiling out i said oh lord so 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 and see what's going on. Yeah. And so we pulled 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. Oh, my gosh. I get my guy. I said, look down there. I looked in the engine room. I looked back in the back there, 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, 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. He said, where they at? I said, right there where we always tell them they are. So I get the 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 guy's got life jackets in their hands, wondering, what do we do with these? Right. You know, I've always told them where they are and everything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, what are y'all doing? Put them on. We don't know how. Right. So I had to take and put them on it there, and one guy got him into the life jacket, got him all buttered. He went to go overboard. Because flames are coming out now. Yeah, yeah. I said, man, just calm down. Sit right here. And I got Gavin out there. I said, he said, man, they're getting big. I said, look, see that boat down there about a mile from us? I said, he's coming to get us. I said, sorry. He says, well, he's going pretty slow. I said, well, everything's going slow right now. Everything's going slow. 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 get in the boat. I get everybody on board. It's time for me to get on the boat. And I had a life jacket on. 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 going to fall between the boats. Well, the one guy grabbed my leg and was trying to pull me on the boat. 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 tritoriums like those right there and brand-new spinning rods in the corner I was going to grab. But it was rough in the channel. We were still three and a half miles offshore. 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, I said, man, you better get here or I'm going to 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 coming out. There's a sub coming in. The sea tractor's heading out. This is a big vessel that's got big fire hoses and all. 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 going to 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 the tower is so hot. The tower just melts on the inside. The rods all fold on the inside. And I said, um, I said, Mike, just take us on in and, um, I'll get the dog, find out what's going on. Yeah. So we get in there and, um, Coast Guard comes up wanting to know where my papers are, this and all that. And I said, you know, sir, they're downstairs in the right-hand cabin. He says, well, can you get him? I said, I would, but the boat burned up. I said, everything burnt up. Why am I not surprised they would ask that question? 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 in these five life jackets of my boat. Right. Yeah, I said, great day. Wow. So the boat, they couldn't get it out, and it drifted on shore, and it still burned. The fire department couldn't get it out, so they ended up getting an excavator and just burying it. And finally I got a crane in there and they got it off the beach and all that. That was the big, your big boat? Yeah, that was the Wahoo 2. Oh, that's where the big boat is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it did barrel at sea. 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 and we're coming back in. What are some of the smaller hidden dangers being out on the water? Hitting something. Okay. Losing a prop. A wood or something? Yeah, hitting a tree. One time a shrimp boat hit the jetties and busted up. No way. And we saved those guys off of it, but it all busted up. We hit part of it three days later and bent a prop. You know, you can always hit something there and put a hole in the boat. Yeah. One time we were out in 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. Yeah. And we kept an eye on it. When we got to the dock, I dropped Leroy and the fish and the people off. And I went on to the boatyard 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 a bathroom trash can and can you put on a life Yeah. Make sure they know how to put on a live vest and they know exactly where the throw cushion is in case someone falls overboard. In case someone falls overboard. Is it more common in a fire, is it more common for a boat to just slowly burn? Or do you hear more of like an explosion? If it's a diesel, it's a slow burner. If it's gas, it explodes. You want to get off. Really? Yeah. If you've got a fire or a gas boat, you want to get off. So in your situation, when there was smoke and there were fumes and stuff like that, you weren't thinking like any second this can explode. No, 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. I'm only going fishing on diesel boats from now on. That's actually a great tip, though. Oh, yeah. Well, people, when things are going on like that, I mean, if you stay calm, they'll stay calm. If you panic... they're going to panic. Yeah. So I find that they'll take your lead. So whatever you do, they follow. And is it, is it a real thing when it's like the captain goes last? Is that real? Or they just, that's what I did. Okay. Yeah. In the situations I've been there, that's what I did. Yeah. And I've had another fire before where I had to put people on off of another boat and I made sure they were all off and I stayed. Yeah. So the captain goes, the captain goes last. Cool. Do you remember a biggest, like biggest tip that you ever got in gratuity?

UNKNOWN: 34:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:53

I think the biggest tip I got as I had just been married for a few years, 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 little car there. It wasn't electric, I know that. No, I don't want electric. And I took out the president of Capital Leasing. And I was telling him, yeah, I wanted this. I wanted an Altamont, but I couldn't get it there. Well, the next week and a half after that, you know, they had a good time. They dipped 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, Alan, I don't know who you know, but there's a Nissan, an Altamont 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. What year was that? That was like in 93. Oh my gosh. That was a good tip. That's incredible. What's like industry standard? What's a normal tip? Is it 20% like anywhere else? 20% like just like a waiter. Yeah. Yeah. 20%. I mean, you know. You have a deckhand. Is it like 20 to him and then 20 to the captain? Just 20% usually what most people. I mean, you get some people that appreciate a lot more than others. Yeah. I'm sure. But standard rule is 20% just like a waiter. 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 outward. What happens? What can I expect? Once we clear the dock, my mate, usually we always have a deckhand on here, Gavin, he'll have all the fenders in, and then we're easing out the arena, trying to get everybody's attention, explaining 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. We don't have a situation we had before. And then, welcome to my office. Let's go to work. And then, are you still making that phone call to your buddy in Atlanta asking him how traffic is? No, he moved to Ponte Vedra. No. He lives in Ponte Vedra. He owned up, that was Jeff Hartman. Jeff Hartman owned it. He's got his own business and all. Now he's stuck on JTB when I talk to him. Oh, I love it. Every time we go out fishing, you'd say, I got a technical My buddy asked him how traffic is in Atlanta as we're pulling out of the marina. He would call, he'd be stuck in traffic and wondering how it was. I said, the seas are pretty calm where he's on shore, 22 knots. Gonna go out for some amberjack and cobia there. And he says, fine, I'm stuck bumper to bumper in the 285. Oh, 285. Nightmare. Miserable. All right. Are any two fishing trips, have any two ever been alike? Never. Never? I tell you what's great is when you take kids out. And every kid, even big kids, they love catching sharks. And you have the daughters and the moms and all that. And you know, we're a shrimping industry. So they're offshore in 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. But when those kids see all the dogs and all the birds beating on the bycatch from the shrimp boats. It's like they went They can't imagine. I mean, you see it on YouTube, Omaha, places like that on TV, but for them to see it in real life, it's just, they would just sit there and watch those dolphins all day long. The trip is made. Per 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 pelican, whatever they are. Especially when they're throwing their bite catch in. They've already taken the shrimp out of the bite catch and all, and now they're shoveling it overboard. And I mean, when they shoveled over, the birds go crazy, and then you see the fins, the sharks just get out there hundreds and hundreds of yards there. You don't want to fall in that water. I don't think you'll make it. I don't think you'll make it there. It's pretty intense. Educate me a little bit on the shrimping industry. We go out, whether we're on vacation or whatever, we see the boats, they drop the arms down, they got the nets. That's about all I know about it. They actually plow, they're farmers, they plow the bottom. They have two nets on each side. They have a sled in between and they're pulling some 65 footers there. So they got 130 feet 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 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. And it's along the bottom, making everything jump up. And then the net scoops them up. and then they shoot through a TED, a turtle-excluding device. It shoots out anything that's wider than four 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. Then your fish, if any three inches is bigger, it'll get out there if it made it through there. Then the rest of it goes into the net. So it's a constant chum machine there. I mean, you catch tarpon behind it, cobia get behind them. You just never know big kingfish. That's why the sharks are just everywhere. What depth of water is best for doing that? They drag all the way in. Georgia is allowed to drag on the beach at 12 feet of water all the way out. They catch white shrimp here, so they're out to about 45 feet or so. Until they go down south, they'll catch rock shrimp and stuff. And how far, how deep could they go? They go, some of them are rural red shrimp that are at 18 to 2000 feet of water. And it's all rural reds that really It's very sweet and red. Everything you eat from that depth is really good. It tastes great. So the shrimp boat comes in. Scott, how much shrimp is on a boat from a day? 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 at our dock. This whole waterfront was shrimp boats there. And it's slowly dying down. The farm-raised shrimp, imported shrimp, really hurts them. The price of fuel to catch them is hurting them a little bit. But the guys that are still doing it, they do pretty good. Yeah. There's a handful. A couple thousand pounds? Oh, they catch hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of, yeah. They'll have probably the best day I heard of them saying they had a drag last year, 52 baskets. That's 50 to 60 pounds a basket. And that was the end of the day. That's a pretty good drag. That's awesome. And then they take those where? 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 and turn into seafood. It's a big plant here. And they buy them, and what they'll do is they'll peel and demane them and separate them in sizes. And then they sell them to the grocery store, Publix, places like that. Do we, when we go in the restaurants here in the downtown or on the island, are we getting any of that shrimp? A lot of the locals, they'll advertise local shrimp. That's the Bernardino made portion. And you can buy them from, they just came out of the water maybe a couple days ago. You can buy them from the processing plant. There's one in here and there's one in Jacksonville as well. They package them up and they sit them out. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Really good. There's nothing better than an East Coast white shrimp. Sweetest tasting shrimp. Compared to a Gulf shrimp, it's got a lot of iodine. These are from the salt marsh water. Where can we get them here? Any restaurants? I believe Yeah, I think that Brett's here, the restaurant behind us has them. Yeah. And also the Salty Pelican. That's lunch today. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's good. You're going to be hungry. Oh, they got tacos. They have a tuna taco nachos. Tuna nachos over there. That's awesome. And what's great about Salty Pelican, they will cook your cows. Yeah. So we'll fillet them up, take the bones and all that. You take them over there, tell them you went fishing with AC Charters, get them on, go to Wahoo, and they'll cook it up for you. Pretty cool. That's awesome. 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 them? Well, I was pretty fortunate. This boat we're on now is a 31-foot Bertram Mock. Yeah. And it's just got one level, and it's a great charter boat because it's got so much area and all the covered area. Yeah, standing space. Oh, it's 120 square feet in the cockpit. That's awesome. You don't get that from very many boats. Yeah. The original... The owner was Sweeney Sykes, and he used to be here. He was a psychiatrist out of Atlanta. Craziest man I ever met. Didn't matter if it was 5 a.m. or 5 p.m. He'd have a Chippewa and an old Milwaukee in his hand. I mean, his passion was catching barracudas and raising orchids. Crazy guy. Orchids? Orchids. Nicest guy in the world. Well, he passed away. He had a partner, Low Hall. They had repowered the boat. Another gentleman did and bought it. This was like in 89, 89, 90s when I bought it. So that was a big recession there. and I was working for Dr. Smith with. And so I was getting a lot of overflow, and I passed other people. And I had a partner, Cliff Thrift and I, we owned a beach house together. We both shrimp, so we were never there at the same time. And I had rented the place from the Dells for 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'd make$32,000 for it, one block off the beach. 24 years old, already owned a house on the beach. 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 I've had it ever since. Completely rebuilt it, put new motors in it, and it's been a really good boat. It's a great charter boat, it's got a lot of history. It's just good all around. What does that name mean for you? What does Wahoo mean? Because you're Wahoo. You have Wahoo 2, right? It's because, well, how did I respect to him to rename it back to Wahoo? Got it. And then when I bought more, I had the Wahoo 2. And then I have a Kodak Mullet, the backwater. Nice 23-foot Hanson. A lot of backwater fishing and fly fishing. Yeah. Do you fish on your own time? Or do you get enough fishing to go out? I take Cheryl out every so She wants to go and I got to take her out there. That's awesome. What does she like to fish for? Anything. Her favorite is whiting. Whiting is running right now and I'll tell you what, it tastes just like flounder. It's perfect. They'll take it over and they'll take that fish over there. 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 perfect. What's the trick to eating shark? Or you just say don't eat it at all? I prefer the bonnet heads and Atlantic shark nose. They're crustacean feeders. So they eat the shrimp and the crab. So they have a better flavor to me. And I like to marinate them in zesty Italian and cut them up in little strips and pan fry them or however you like. They're great. I have one client that every time we go, he has to take one home to his mom. That's her favorite. That's awesome. The gal was out of St. Mary's. She loves that shark. Oh, yeah. What do you think is the best catch in the ocean to eat? What's your favorite? 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. Reds. Red fish is good. It's special. I like a trout, but I do red fish. Oh, you do? Okay. A good way that we've gone to here lately is cooking red fish on the half shell. You just filet it off the backbone, leave the skin and the scales on, but you cook it flat on the grill, put all your seasoning on top. The meat comes right off. It's so moist. I mean, it's awesome. In this type of career, would you say it's physical? You have to be physically in shape? Oh, yes. Okay. Because you're looking at it during the season. You're up at 4 a.m. and you're not done until 6. You run two charters a day. Yeah. And you never know what the weather is. So you're always getting thrown around. I mean, I'm sitting on the boat, and my watch says I have to hit 70,000 steps, 7,000 steps. And I haven't moved from here to there. So, I mean, you're always moving. Wow, you're just always going. Yeah, you're always going. You probably don't even realize it sometimes. Yeah, you're pretty good. I mean, you're getting worked all the time. You're dealing with big fish. Yeah. Especially the tarp when you're bringing them in. You worry about your arm getting between the boat and them when they jump to try to release them. It's not as 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 long back, depending on what size bed 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 interception. 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 got to cut this hook. You gotta cut that line between these things or the 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. We had to cut it and just take it off. And I said, man, ever since then, we've taken attitude adjustment to them. That was the closest. a thought that I might get bit by something and lose a limb. We get a lot of hooks in our hands and stuff like that. 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're protected. They'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. Yeah. And a good, sharp pair of pliers. Yeah. And puke and reel, right? If they've been out partying a lot, like I think you. Remember Jordan? Remember Jordan, the kid I brought? Yeah. I said, look, he was sick. I said, buddy, he was puking real hard. Oh, my gosh. He was so seasick. And it's just, there's just no solution to it. Well, you know what? It seems like he forgot, though, when he was catching fish. Yeah. When he was catching fish, he didn't get sick. Yeah, you're okay. You're okay. But it's when you sit there and you look and you're rolling, you know, it gets to you. Atlantic flu. And what do you do? Do you look out to the horizon or something? We have some C-bands that help people out a lot there. You put the C-bands on, it's an act of pressure. It goes right in between the 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, an all day or longer, I said, don't drink the night before. Right. Because a lot of people that are going on vacation, the first night you're away, you know, you want to indulge. Yeah. You know, you're having a good time and all that. But if you're going fishing the next day, I would hold off and see how the ocean is and all that. And then... What can a boat actually sustain wave-wise? Is there a calculation like a 10-foot boat can only take up to a certain wave safely? What I go by with myself As I go by, we have a buoy out here, weather buoy. And I'll look on the app. There's several apps there, Windfinder, Windy, or the National Marine Buoy System. 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 there. You're not gonna have a good time, you're getting sick, somebody's gonna fall, you're gonna get soaking wet, you're not gonna have a good time. The way I see this is about having a good time. And if I can't have a good time, I'm not going. And that's my rule of thumb, is six seconds or less, We're not going offshore. We can fish in the sound here. We have a lot of sound in the river. We catch big fish. We catch cobia. We catch tarpon, redfish, whiting. You know what I mean? You can have a good time inside. So we can go three feet in like ten seconds? Ten seconds is good. Seven seconds. Eight seconds is good. Six seconds. That's the magic. That's my magic. Yeah. Can waves get bigger and still be outside for six seconds? Can you go six and 10? I've been out with 10 foot with 12, 15 seconds. That's a big ground swell. You've been out enough?

UNKNOWN: 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 52:55

Really? Yeah, it's the time between the two is what makes it. That's what pounds you. If that's what pounds this confused seed, 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. Yeah. You want that distance in between. That's what makes it a good surf. That's what makes it a good surf. And that's what makes it a good ride. What about some other stuff, maybe like not even fish related? What are some cool things that you see when you're out? Far, though. way out we see bright whales they come down and um yeah they come in april i mean december they hang around until late april big yeah the right whales get up to 65 feet they come here and they give birth to their young yeah um i was with chris fisher and we were doing we were working with the national marine fisheries some of the early um 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, he had to get in three inches before he could get to the blubber there. And they were IDing, and that's how they found out there was only 300 calves back then. And then they would, by the combs on their noses, The head of the whale is how they ID them because none of them are alive. And then they have the babies and all that. While we were doing that, I had Ron Wallace, who did all the filming of Blue Planet and Flip Palette stuff. cool guy. And he had gotten footage of whales mating all up in Canada. And he had me chartered with those guys so we could try to catch 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 on a pod of whales, and they were off of St. Andrews. And this one-capped 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 him 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. So we go out there and meet the Coast Guard. And they get on board with the Coast Guard. And they go into St. Thomas with a stillborn. It was a stillborn. It never took air. It was a breeder that never, ever took a breath of air. It was a stillborn calf. That's so cool. And he comes down two days later. We go out. He says, do you know about that calf? I said, yeah, which I'll find out. He said, well, the mother cow, the cow that was trying to go beach itself, you know, through her pushing it back, keeping it in the ocean, keeping it away from land. That was the mother. That was its cow there. Yeah, it was crazy. Some of the things, you know, that's probably the coolest thing. Yeah, for sure. When we were out with you one time, we pulled a shark out of it. like something tagged through his fin tag what is that what did that i don't i never even asked what like what did that mean i remember you had a tag sticking off um somewhere they tag them off of uh like i think the furthest one yeah they tag them to do this research okay they'll they'll catch them when they're small like that one i think was in virginia and we caught it here and we took the measurements and i did it i think it was a dusky and it was a female and so took the numbers off of it, put the location, and they said, they send you back the information that it was tagged up in Virginia, like a year and a half. And it had grown like a foot and a half in that time and traveled those waters. So they do a lot of tagging with the sharks, redfish, and triggerfish 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 snap in one trip. And it's the most she said she's ever done. to do research. I haven't heard that they catch any of those snapper that we tag, but that's what they do for research. Yeah. There's an area here somewhere called Shark Hole or Shark Town. Shark Hole. Shark Hole. What is that? It's a deep hole. It's natural. It's 65 feet. And it's slack-tied. You throw half a whiting down there. I mean, you're going to catch a big dusky. The other day, we caught some five-footers. It's quite in that hole. But in that deep hole, So they're always there on a flat time. Duskies or all different times. Duskies, bull sharks. bonnet heads, henry heads. The black tips and the dusky seemed to be pretty strong. The wildest thing I ever caught out of the hole was a Megalodon II. This little girl wanted, she just graduated from high school, and she wanted to go fishing for her high school graduation. So we were out there fishing and we catch it. It looked like a shell, you know, like one of those angel wing shells, you know? It just didn't really look like it. So I got it up, started scraping it and all, it was perfect. five and a half inch Megalodon tooth. Well, I looked it up, and for every inch of that tooth, it's 10 foot. So that shark was a 55 foot shark back in the day. It was thousands of years ago. And so I gave it to the little girl, and her family was all there, and so I took a picture of them. I said, now, with the whole family around the live one and all, I said, now take this shark's tooth and crop it in the picture with y'all on it. And they came back the next year because their sister graduated and wanted to do the same thing. And they had done it and showed me the picture of it. It was pretty cool, but we didn't catch another tooth. No, I wouldn't have been so. Crazy. That was probably the second weirdest thing. So what was it? Like how big? 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. It was a shark's tooth. It had a lot of growth on it there, grass. Sponge and other stuff. Yeah, that's what we hooked. It's a spot Yeah, yeah, so ideal perfect day draw that up Favorite day to go out on the water. What's this? What's going on in the air? What's the temperature? Well, this is the time to be fish like your favorite. What's your favorite? Anytime they can Just any time. Any time they can. 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 probably about five gallons more to chump with. You cut up and throw them out there. And it doesn't matter if we're offshore kingfishing or the jetties fishing for tarpon. So long as the bait's right there, the sun's shining, everything's right. We're good to go. That's awesome. Do you like it colder, warmer, middle? Every six weeks, things change here. So it's always changing up, and that's what keeps you interested. If you do the same thing every day, you're going to get burned out. But always something's changing. So you're always having to try something different. And that's what keeps it interesting. Like right now, our black drummer running in there, we caught one this morning that was about 20 pounds. A couple days later, we caught, earlier we caught some 50 pounders. And the whiting bite's really good. And all that's going to change in another April. The cobia will start coming in. Your redfish are coming in. Your hoagies are coming in now. So it's always changing. It keeps it interesting. 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'd you come up with this kind of stuff? We got very fortunate there. We take a lot of people out, so that helps you out. Plus, the amount of years we've been in it, it's been successful. There's a lot of people in this business these days, a lot of small boats. Like Pure Fishing is a big sponsor of ours. We're on their program. And that's all the pin. You see all the pin rods, reels there. We use a lot of those. So you're sponsored? Yes. Okay. They give us a 35-40% off. Yeah, that's cool. It's really good. Now, the equipment that I like today, I've always loved Forino because I'm old school. And back in the day, you went TDs. That's time differences between the towers. Nowadays, it's lat and long. Since 91, it's all gone to lat and long. Got it. Got it. And so I still like to have my old Bruno with my TDs. Because I know exactly where I am and everything. But then I have the newer December. And some guys came out. This guy lives here. He came out with Seymour's Chip. Seymour's Chip is game-changing for a fish. Seymour's Chip. Seymour's Chip. It gives 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 plugged that thing in, I was thinking to myself, you know, I was, man, I can't believe this. When I plugged it into my machine, all my Xs, that's how the leds ran. There, I mean, it's unbelievable. I tell people, look, if you're gonna buy a boat, and you wanna become a fisherman, you need to invest in that$700 Seymour's chip. And it's a game changer. And it's literally a chip that you just bought. It's a chip. You just put it in your machine and it shows up the chart and everything. And where it's certain areas. It's not everywhere. Just certain areas. Yeah. It's all laid out for you. three-dimensional, there's a color. When you go from blue to red, that's definitely a big five to six foot drop. And it shows you, and they have a lot of the, we have Kings Bay Nuclear Trident Submarine Inlet here. So that's all charted out on there, so you can see all the ledges and the channeling. And you wanna fish the ledges, because that's where a lot of the big fish are. That's where they're hanging out. Did you ever have a day where drop in the marina, you're like, I don't feel like going out today. No, it doesn't matter. I've never had a problem waking up. I don't think I've ever called in sick there. Everybody says, everybody asks me, says, Alan, when are you going to retire? I said, what? Right. First, you got to have a job to retire. What am I going to retire? Why? Right. What am I going to do? It's a great point. Yeah. I said, I'm going to fish until I die. Yeah. Are you, do you think you'll always do like fishing as business? Yeah, I mean, why? I mean, it's awesome. You get to get out on the water. You meet some awesome people. You make some great memories. I think I'm up to four generations now. You've got to fish with me. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty good. I think that's a big success when you have a business that you take four different generations. And not just one family. There's several of them. What's the hardest thing about this business? Weather. Dealing with the weather. 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. Yeah, just go with it. Last question. So, today, a young fishing captain gets starved. 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? I have a young man working for me now. He's got a part-time job with FedEx. I told him, I said, look, I know you're going to get your license. The best thing you can do is keep that job with FedEx and just take trips on the weekend. is 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 there in the you know may to september yeah but then you have to do something else sure and if you were smart They would do it on the side until they're 10, 15 years in the job and then they want to continue doing it and come and do it. But to think that you're going to get in here and do a living at it now is tough. Unless you have been given one, which is a lot different. Yeah. to just come out and do it. I would think you'd need a book of business, right? You've been building relationships for decades. Well, the thing is to get along with the people, always show them a good time, and don't disrespect them. Don't holler at them, don't disrespect them. That's the biggest thing. If you're having fun, they're having fun. If you're not having fun, they're not going to have fun. Oh, no. That's going to be the worst. Stuck out on the water like that. Always have a clean boat. The biggest thing is to make sure if you have a bathroom, and make sure it's always clean. Because you'll get a guy, he'll check out your boat and wife's on the dock there and he'll come out of the bathroom, he'll give a little nod. If you get the nod, you're in there. Yeah, you're in. Oh, yeah. That's incredible. You know, you always want to keep a clean boat. You always want to keep your reels full. Yeah. And always keep your leaders new. No freight leaders or anything. Look good, feel good, you'll do good. Yeah. That's awesome. All right, how do people get to you if they're going to be in this area and they want to? Book of Charters. A lot of people go to the website. It is accharters.net. We'll put it up on the screen. Phone number's always good. We get a lot of reviews. Phone number's 904-261-9481. Quit wishing, let's go fishing. Quit wishing, let's go fishing. Let's go fishing. When did that come about? Oh, that came about back in the early days. Yeah, 80s. I love it. It's so awesome. It's a catch-up. It is. Yeah, it is. It is. I tell you, our repeat business is really good. Yeah. And that's what's really good. I have a great website that reaches a lot of people. They're Kill Shark Market and they do really good. I mean, I've been with y'all, I don't know, 10 or 15 years. That's really good. I just booked three yesterday off the website. I 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 still continue having a great time at it. I love it. Thank you. I want to shake your hand. Thanks for taking the time. This was awesome.

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Always.