A guided fishing nightmare
By CAPT. MEL BERMAN, 970-WFLA
Most, if not all of our local fishing guides have a great deal of respect for the sea, wind and weather conditions that might arise during any charter. They certainly cannot control what Mother Nature dishes out, but are required by law to ensure the safety of their clients. Here one of our readers describes an experience that can prove to be highly instructive the next time you charter a fishing guide.
Hi Capt. Mel; First, kudos on this great website and on your radio show. I've been listening and have been a devout fan for years! My inquiry, and hopefully spreading awareness to other potential small boat charter clients, has to do with safety on small boat guided trips, more specifically back-bay type charters like flats boats, CC, and that category. My story and reason for this inquiry is this; recently my wife and two grown children gave me a full day Tarpon charter as a gift for Father's Day. On my recommendation, they picked one of the three small boat / back-bay guides that I suggested from your website who shall remain nameless as the point of this inquiry and message is not to slam anyone. In fact, after this trip, I still have the utmost regard for this particular guide's seamanship, experience, integrity, ability to put client on fish and so on. I would definitely recommend him to anyone with regard to those attributes. My problem with the trip was the lack of safety information and in particular no input as to where the PFD's were located in the event of an emergency. Prior to this trip, we had been on maybe a half dozen off-shore charters over the years but only on one flats boat "back-bay" charter in the Keys 10 years ago. The off-shore Captains routinely gave us a safety pep talk before leaving the dock especially informing us where the PFD's were on the boat. I cannot remember if the one small boat guide 10 years ago gave us the "speech" or not. Suffice to say that I never gave a thought to safety or the location of life jackets assuming that in chartering an 18' flats boat we would likely be in the bay or Intracoastal waterway. Still, when we left the ramp and headed out through a pass into the Gulf and started fishing just off the beach I didn't give it any thought because the seas were relatively calm and we were never more than a couple of hundred feet off-shore. Then, after an hour or so of no activity, the guide headed north to Egmont Key due to a report he had heard the day before of several fish hooked and some boated. After fishing for another hour and half or so on the Gulf side of Egmont our day was cut short by an obvious storm that had been sitting off-shore all morning and had been moving slowly to the north / N.E. but it had started filling in more to the south so our guide said it was time to close up shop and head in. At this particular time (approx. 10:00 A.M.) we were experiencing about 3' seas with some wind which caused me to start questioning the wisdom in my mind about being where we were in a flats boat. Little did I know that we were still in the "soft" part of the seas and wind because we were on the Lee side of the island. Aboard, besides the Captain, were my son, who is 34 and handicapped, my wife and myself. The Captain, before he took off secured the boat and encouraged my wife, who was sitting in the forward seat ahead of the steering console with my son, to move to the rear seat commenting "this is going to get worse before it gets better". She refused and elected to stay put thinking of our son, a decision we were later to regret due to her back problems. We cleared the south end of Egmont and headed S.E. to the Intracoastal on the south side of Tampa Bay. That's when all h_ _ _ broke loose. We spent the next 20 to 30 minutes in what I can only describe as 4'-to-6' "washing machine" seas with very high winds out of the east. I am still a novice at saltwater boating and fishing but have been out several times and have never been in water like this. We were being thrown up clear of our seats then landing in a different place in the boat. After about 10 minutes into the nightmare my wife started to cry and scream with pain begging to stop because of her back. The Captain hollered that he couldn't stop or slow to much or the boat would founder. We were taking on quite a bit of water. My heart was tearing out hearing my wife's agony but I knew that the Captain was right in that we couldn't stop. What was ripping me up the most though was I realized shortly into the experience that I had no clue as to where the life jackets were located. I didn't even have the forethought to ask the question before leaving the ramp which now I realized I should have if not instructed by the Captain. Thanks to the Captain's experience and seamanship, we made it across successfully. However, I shudder to think of the consequences if one of us would've been thrown out or if the boat would have foundered and gone down. I know that most if not all of these guides are professionals and know their business as I am sure our's was. My only disappointment here was no safety input, canned speech, or whatever the USCG calls the drill to instruct the client on the location of the PFD's or other safety attributes on the vessel. I've heard you mention that you used to charter off-shore so you may not know the answer to my question but is this lack of safety information or complacency pretty much standard in the industry with small boat guides? If it is then it is a situation that needs to be fixed. I understand that our experience was probably very unusual and not likely to occur very often. However, I know I've learned my lesson, and a suggestion to your readers, the next time I go, if I'm not instructed by the guide as to the location of the PFD's or other safety devices, I'm going to ASK THE QUESTION. Thanks in advance for any input you may have and allowing me a forum to express my concern. Sincerely, Jim Fenton
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