regarding the boat counts. i think you be suprise how many fish are actually caught. unless you are paying strict attn and do all the counting.
regarding the boat counts. i think you be suprise how many fish are actually caught. unless you are paying strict attn and do all the counting.
I've been fishing on Enterprise for the past few months almost every week. A lot of times, I also have noticed daily fish counts were not reflecting the real. But I never thought about this issue seriously because I could tell whether or not it was real by looking at other landing counts in the same area.
Rather I was more intimidated by oversold tickets, way too many people on that boat.
I once fished on it with over 80 other people.(Crazy huh?)
It was total chaos. For me, I was almost impossible to fish livebait in the stern due to too many people there. (Imagine over 40+ people soaking the bait in the stern area.) I remember ended up throwing iron all day in the bow instead.
Deckies actually did try to sort it out, but it just didn't cut it. I even witnessed a couple of newbies yelling at one of the deckhands, Nick, when he asked them to follow the bait.
I also feel that Andy doesn't seem to move the boat as often as before specially when fishing in Catalina.
Anyways, despite of all issues, I still prefer to fish on Enterprise because it's one of the best 3/4 boats along with Victory and Pursuit IMO.
If you guys are into excellent rockfishing and accurate fish counts you may find it worthwhile to make the drive to Santa Barbara and fish the Stardust. They don't even let you put your own fish in your sack. You leave the fish on the deck and Sal and the very attentive crew will bag it for you and mark it down on a talley sheet. Mostly limit-style fishing but even the Red Snapper/Rockfish ratio always looks right in the reports as well as the number of keeper lings! Its like a different world up there!
I agree. I grew up fishing party boats and many times I use to think the boat increased the count and are not real. I then payed more attention on more trips and dpaulus9 is right. You would be surprised to ow many fish are actually caught. The original thread here, the author said maybe the Enterprise was counting all the short fish caught and released. I'm not sure what the rule is anymore for party boats to actually count a fish caught but I see no wrong in counting a short fish. I think all of us have experienced those trips where we were not happy. Motoring from our local shore to Catalina, boat not moving, crew not attentive, all of that. You are a paying client and you should ask the deckhand or ask to speak with the captain if you are wondering why the boat has not moved etc. The Enterprise is such a great platform with a great crew from what I hear. The captain has an agenda to put clients on fish. There were yellows, cudas, etc landed on this trip so I would say he did his part well. I guess to each their own in how you wish to look at the fish counts. I know we all bust our chops for our money earned and we want to feel like the amount was well spent on a fishing trip. That's just it, too high of expectations sometimes. Just enjoy the salty air and catching fish is always a bonus!Originally Posted by dpaulus9
been on the Big E a few times this year and last as the tuna were cooking off. Andy is usually very attentive about letting the anglers know how they are screwing up in a big way and how to fix it. The crew is usually very on the button when you have a fish on and getting everyone out of the way. I've experienced them hanging 5-6 fish at a time and getting most of the fish on board without issues. Then again with each new trip there are new factors; you never know what happened the day before or the week before to make them react or in this case act the way they did. As for breaking fish, all over the place lets be real this year is frikking unbelievable they could go out with camera crews and shoot blue planet right now and talk about the record year we are having and people 10-15 years from now wouldn't believe our stories unless they saw the evidence themselves. This is not a normal year fellas... YT since Aug of last year... Tuna in our local harbors... Tuna and dorado within spitting distance of land... HECK YT caught off of piers! Its gonna be a memorable fishing year guys.
The Big E is one of the better 3/4 day boats out there IMO. Any 3/4 day boat you jump out on now is going to be packed to the brim with inexperienced fisherman that are chasing the fish counts. It's going to be inevitable. That's summer time fishing for you. Your options are to go find a limited load trip, get a bunch of your buddies and pay for mutiple spots to max out the spots, or just suck it up and not complain about how many people are on the boat. This is still a business and not a charity, and they need to MAKE money.
Your complaints about deckhand being nonexistant are confounded. Any 3/4 day boats will only have one PAID deckhand on board (which in my opinion is way too little, but this is out of the captain or deckhands control). Nick on the Enterprise works harder than any of the deckhands I've ever fish with and the times I've seen him throw in a line, he's promptly handed it off to some kid that hasn't had any luck catching anything. Did you consider tipping him as customary as this is how he makes a living? He's been dealing with summer crowds, and anyone that has seen some of the crowd that has been coming out of the woodworks knows how difficult it's been. You can only lead a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink. You should be going on these boats knowing fully well what you're getting yourself into, and learning to deal with it and how to avoid it. I've been seeing a lot of anglers coming out on these 3/4 day trips, who think they know everything cause they can catch fish with 20 feet of space between them and the next dude. 3/4 day trips are straight "combat fishing" and that's why they say a 3/4 day fisherman is better than a guy that only takes long range trips. So unless you want to go bring it up with the landing to start charging more per ticket, you deal with it or dont go fishing at all.
Also, the only way you're going to get an accurate count, is for you to sit there on the top and count all the fish being caught, and you're still going to miss 20% of the fish doing that. In my experience with the BIG E, they've actually underinflated the counts a few times.
Few questions regarding these charters. Complete noob to ocean fishing so my apologies if I offend anyone. I've been on a total of 1 charters out of Newport Landing. What's with the crew fishing? Are they selling commercially or they just trying to win the jackpot they didn't pay into? When I went on Newport Landing I was fishing on one side of the boat and started to catch some decent sized stuff. Then a crew member and some of their friends who were customers started crowding our area and fishing there. Is this acceptable etiquette? Can I just go over and shove between people when they are in a good spot? And why were the employees fishing instead of helping people? Are they going to sell their catch and commercially fishing as well as running their charter? Was not a good overall experience. They seem to nickle and dime you on stuff too much too.
Let me help you a little bit on this one. Boats come in all kinds of flavor, I personally only fish on a few hand picked boats. Out of both Newport landings, I would only fish on the T-Bird and the Patriot. As for the rest of them, I wouldn't give you 2 cents to fish on. As for the crew members fishing, I personally don't like it. But you do have to understand, a lot of them are Quasi crew members called pinheads. They don't get paid much, but they can fish as payment for what they do on the boat. As for crowding you for a good spot, that's how the game is played. Numbers on boats are getting to be a thing of the past and rightful so. If your smart enough to know the current is flowing a certain way and the fish are biting there. In my book if there a spot open, cast your bait there. (it's dog eat dog on a sport boat!) lol As for nickel and dimming you, I beat them at there own game, I spend nothing except for fish cleaning!!!!! So they don't get any extra money from me, unless I catch something good!!!! lol
Last edited by etucker1959; 07-27-2015 at 03:55 PM.
I suspected as much with the quasi crew members being compensated by free fishing. Are t-bird and patriot booked seperately (think i used a groupon). What are other good charters (not too many peeps, etc)? Didn't realize that with the moving around the ship. I thought if you were assigned a space. That space was yours and people stayed in their space. Didn't realize I could just wander the ship and cast where I wanted to.
The T-Bird is an overnight boat out of Davey's Locker. (Arguably the best sport fishing boat on the coast when Jeff run's it) They max out at 30 people! The Patriot is out of Newport Landing, the priciest 3/4 boat on the coast. (sometimes he does Limited Load) Other then that, it's Dog eat Dog with a ton of people on every boat during the summer!!!!
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