Why Tampa Bay Charter

I live on Pinellas Point and used to do a lot of wade fishing in the area. I never caught a lot, but the water was here... and so was I. I'd go alone a lot and with a buddy, Randy, whenever possible. He always had a ton of information on tides, lures, line, presentation, etc. but it came to a head when he saw me tying a "swivel knot" from my line to a leader for atificials.

That's when he said... "you really need to take Pribyl's class". He'd mentioned it before, but never so adamently.

I filed that one away... with much of the wade fishing but was reminded by a couple of frineds; Monte and Dennis, that a class was coming up soon at Lakewood High School. I registered for the class which met for about 9 weeks on a weekday evening for about 3 hours.

It turned out that Jack no longer taught the class, though he did present one of the lessons, and Captain Rick Frazier would be our instructor. Rick took us through everything from knots to what to fish, where, when and what. He was definitely right when he said that if you don't know how to tie a "thumb knot" or a "loop knot" then this will be worth the price of admission (I didn't and they were). We ended up getting more in free tackle than we paid for the course and left with a decade or so's information on getting the most of our fishing.

In the end, I couldn't figure out how to say thanks so I decided to devote a site to promoting those that provide us so much. Our reputable local charter captains provide a wealth of experience and information whether they be found in a classroom, on the boat, in a local newspaper or on a local fishing forum so it seemed the least that I could do.

I approached a good fishing buddy, Barfly, about putting something together and it sounded like a great idea to him so away we went. A local fishing charter captains directory organized by depth, species and areas where the only requirement for inclusion was an outstanding local reputation of getting their clients on the fish.

I have to admit it's been a little slow going as we're not handing out invitations or beating the bushes for captains, the request for inclusion has to come from them. We are proud to say though, that listings on our sites have resulted in at least four successful charter trips where our visitors have hooked up with our captains. There may be more as we only know about the ones we're told about.

We're looking forward to continuing to build out the site, improve it's services, captains representation, increase it's exposure and will always keep our captains first. They're a great resource for our local recreational fishing community and we will do all that we can to support and promote them.