Skunked on a Charter?
 

A few friends of mine took a charter out of Solomons on Saturday. They caught some spot and then got skunked on rockfish. Have you ever been skunked on a bay charter? I dont fish the bay much in the summer - Is fishing that tough right now?

I have a charter scheduled a week from today out of Ches Beach. Hopefully we can get into some spanish.

I mate on a charter out of Deale, and while we have never been skunked on a paying charter this year; we have been close. So yes it does happen. We mainly troll. We have found pods of small (16-17 inch) rock. Left that school only to find more small rock. While it's lots of action, it's not what the customer wants. We have even stayed out past our allotted time just to find a school of bigger (23-25 inch) fish. Once we find the right school, we can fill a limit in two or three passes. We usually make another couple runs for C/R action and head for the barn.
We only run one trip a day, so we don't have another group standing on the dock at 12 pm. We can stay out untill we find the fish. A Captain who runs two a day doesn't have that option.
It can be tough in the summer. If you feel the Captain and Mate did their best to find fish, that's all you can ask for. My Captain is on the cell phone constantly when we need fish. If your friend was skunked; it may have just been a very bad bite that day.
Charters are difficult to come by these days (economy) and anyone fortunate enough to have a paying charter probably did his best to put you on fish.
Better luck next time. I hope your charter out of CB is a good one.
5th

I know fishing can be tough. These guys didn't catch rockfish at all. Nothing undersized. It just seems like a charter would be able to scratch something out, or at least troll for bluefish on the ride home. I'm taking 10 clients out on a charter Monday and hope we can manage something.

I personally have been on two bay charters that produced a skunk.

One was early spring - no one was catching - other in fall , no idea why but few fish caught that day by any one.

Other trip was at Cape Charles but captain warned us it might be a skunk due to cold water temps in December. Being fishermen - we went. Captain gave it 100% - even ran out into ocean but no fish.

I've fished in Kona , Hawaii - 4 days straight - no fish. We were gunning for monster marlin and went all or nothing.

Fished all day - until dark , in Florida - only one hit that did not hook up.

Trust me - no charter captain anywhere wants to draw a blank for his customers - but it can happen to the best of the best.

If you want fish - go to a super market. If you want a fun day on the water - charter the boat and hope fish bite.

You don't necessarily have to be a good fisherman to start a charter business. You just need your CG license and the State license. If you can't put your clients onto fish or at least a good time, you won't be in business for very long. Seems to have been quite a few on TF who have gone by the wayside for those very reasons.

Hell - if anyone wants to go out for a day with no expectation of catching fish, they could just go out with me on my boat. :p:p

Never skunked on a charter thanl God. I usually take clients out once or twice a year and we've always had great days catching.

I always book south of the bridge though. While that's no guaruntee of catching, it seems to improve the odds over fishing north of the bridge, especially this year.

Our trip this morning was canceled. Looking to re-schedule for a day in a couple weeks. I guess the concensus is that Irene will have driven all the mackerel out of the area.

I would guess there was still a lot of garbage in the water too. Dangerous for the boat and expensive lures.

The color in my creek is getting back to normal so that's a good sign. Looks like we're going to try some late afternoon fishing today.

So we finally did our rescheduled charter out of Ches Beach. The water was chocolate milk at best. We hit a few trees on the way out. Tons of debris in the water. We actually caught fish though. Probably 30 15" rockfish, 2 keeper rock, one spanish about 20", and a dozen blues from 8" - 16". Fun day on the water, great weather.