Great fishing boat!
This is the best charter fishing Florida has to offer – I’ve been fishing for more than 60 years and have lots of experience on “party” boats, such as the Ocean Obsession. Simply put, the Ocean Obsession is as good as they come. It’s about a 65′ vessel and carried 38 the day I fished a full day Saturday, March 26. There may be some misconception on the part of people with less experience, but the captain has to get out to where the best fishing is. In this case, that’s about 2 hours out into the Atlantic! (Which also means 2 hours back – so if you don’t want to spend 4 hours under way out of your full day on the water, you should choose a different form of fishing. Bring a good book. It’s a nice ride!) The full day rental includes your equipment (including tackle) – all quality poles with Penn Senator reels and 80 lb. line – bait, breakfast, and lunch. And all the soft drinks you can drink. (There’s a modest charge for beer or snacks.)
Fish hit just about all lines as soon as they went in the water at our first stop. When the fishing slowed, we moved. We did this 3 or 4 times while we were out. The people fishing had a number of large sharks on (two brought to the boat and released), and as you can see from the pictures, plenty of keepers, even though the Red Snappers were not in season and had to be released. Landed and kept were one large cobia (27 lbs), a small shark, some nice trigger fish (great eating!), lots of Mangrove snappers, lane snappers, and some blue runners. I personally had a ball fighting two large sharks for a while (lost both), caught 10-15 fish, the largest a red snapper approaching 10 lbs (see pic) that was released.
Things to be aware of if you consider a trip like this that are NOT the captain’s fault – weather can be bad (could force the cancellation of a trip, or a rough ride at the least), fish may not be biting, you could get sea-sick if you are susceptible to motion sickness, etc. If you can’t handle things going wrong, this probably isn’t for you. And if you don’t like eggs and bacon, hamburgers/cheeseburgers, BLTs, etc. bring your own food. It’s allowed. (The food was wonderful if you like this fare – well prepared, and very fresh. I had about the best BLT I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve eaten a lot of them!)
I can’t say enough about the staff. Virtually every time someone had a fish of any size on, they instantly appeared next to that person to encourage, help if necessary, unhook, help with pictures, tangled lines, lost tackle (sharks), etc. Everyone was super friendly, extremely helpful, and just generally fun to fish with!
How much fun did I have? I drove 1 1/2 hours to and from Orlando for this trip (I was in town on a business trip), and this day on the water was so much fun, as soon as we got back to the dock, I booked the same boat and crew for the following day – Easter Sunday – and had twice the fun! I can’t wait to get back to Orlando on business. I’ll spend my weekends on the Ocean Obsession!
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