Let VIP Fishing Charters take care of your next corporate fishing charter.  One of our specialties is hosting these types of events.  Corporate fishing charters vary from a normal fishing charters because they usually consist of larger groups and require upscale catering, personable captains, and higher end boats.  We make sure all of our clients have an excellent experience by exceeding any expectations they have in all of these categories.  Our list of satisfied clients consists of countless large corporations including the executives at Snapple and Ads Direct.  Our captains and crew understand the importance of these trips and go the extra mile to make sure all of our clients leave with a smile.  Our boats have clean bathrooms and air-conditioned salons.  The VIP catering menu is great option for corporate charters.  Items on the menu range from deli sandwiches to sushi platters.  No request is too much for our corporate charters, so if you have anything special in mind we'll try our best to accommodate you.  For larger groups we can reserve multiple boats out of the same location.  Often times we run a mini fishing tournament so all of the people participating on separate boats still feel part of the larger group.  Trash talking is also allowed and encouraged on these multi boat mini tournaments.  Corporate fishing charters are the perfect way to entertain clients, reward employees, and just spend a fun day on the water.  After a day of fishing our captains will clean the fish dockside and deliver them to a nice restaurant where our clients can enjoy their fish served fresh.

WARNING: I am about to gloat. If you live north of the Mason Dixon line you might want to stop reading.

The weather in Florida is freaking fantastic. It's always about this time ever year, January and February, when I'm reminded why I put up with the humid summers. The winter months in South Florida could please anyone. It's not too hot. It's not too cold. It's warm during the day but mild in the evenings. It barely rains and even when there are clouds the sun seems to wiggle its way through.

This morning I woke up and looked at the weather and saw a 50% chance of rain and 70 something degrees. OK...not too bad unless you live in Florida and this is basically as awful as the weather gets (save for those pesky hurricanes). As usual though the forecast was wrong, and it turned out to be a gorgeous day. I had to resist every urge to ditch work and hop on my boat for a little pleasure cruise.

It seems that wherever I go, locals say "Ya know what's great about ______?.... If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes!" Hate to be the one to break it to you, but that just ain't true. Unless of course, you live in South Florida.

So my fellow fishermen and women, I recommend you take a break from those "few minutes" of bad weather, grab a cheap flight on Spirit or Southwest or Jetblue or the oft hated (but my personal favorite because of the Biscoff cookies) Delta, and head on down to South Florida for some R&R&F(ishing). We'll set you up with a good boat, recommend a good hotel, and give you the royal treatment. Come on. You deserve it.

Here's some extra motivation:

All of our fishing captains have chosen this particular career for their passion of the outdoors and fishing.  Ask any of them and they'll tell you they are not in the business to get rich.  At VIP Fishing Charters we understand that fishing charters aren't cheap. We want to shed some light on all the expenses our captains and owners incur as to justify the price of their fishing trip.  First off fishing boats aren't cheap.  There is the long running joke that the two best days of owning a boat are the day you buy and they day you sell it.  All boats require constant maintenance and repairs, which don't come cheap.  Unfortunately fishing charter boats get even more wear and tear because of the amount of time the captains spend running them.  Any major repair to a boat can really eat in to any profits the captain has made that year.  All captains need to pay for their annual insurance and licenses.  Dockage fees are also big expense to any boat.  Fishing charters generally keep their boats at the most expensive docks because they need a ton of tourist foot traffic and exposure.  All the business they don't receive from people walking buy or repeat customers they must get through advertising.  This business is very competitive and advertising costs don't come cheap.  One of the biggest expenses for any boat is the fuel the burn.  As the price of gas goes up so does the expense for the captains.  The majority of our charters have two man crews and board and crew members a percentage of the charter or a salary.  Lastly every boat has to continually buy fishing supplies including bait.  So next time you dream of getting rich by becoming a fishing charter captain take into consideration and the expenses and hard work these captains put into their business.  

We take the guess work out of booking a fishing charter!

Many people ask, out of the hundreds if not thousands of fishing charters how  does VIP Fishing Charters select their boats and captains.  Here is the criteria and methodology we use!

Captain

The most important aspect of any fishing charter is the captain.  Traditionally if you have a good captain all the other parts of a successful fishing charter will follow.  Steve the owner of VIP Fishing Charters has grown up around fishing boats and captains his whole life.  He personally interviews and interrogates each fishing captain prior to allowing them to join our service.  Being a South Florida local Steve knows the reputations of most captains and takes this intro great consideration when selecting the best available.  We are able to be very selecitve due to the amount of traffic to our website generates.  We typically use captains that are owner operators of the vessel.  This insures they will take the utmost pride in the fishing charter and their boat.  Another key attribute we look for when selecting captains is the passion for fishing.  We don't want captains that strictly do this for the money.  VIP Fishing Charters wants fishing captains that will put in 100% effort and fish like it's the last trip they will ever do. Our clients range from kids to grandparrents, springbreakers to honeymooners.  Our captains have to adapt to all of their clients needs, wants, skill levels and personalities.   

Boat

Safety is our number one concern for all of our clients.  We inspect and visit all of the fishing boats on a regular basis.  A tell tale sign for a well maintained boat is well maintained fish gear.  If you step on to a boat and see fresh fishing line on the reels and immaculately maintained gear you will find the same kind of care throughout the rest of the boat.  Since we want customers with all different types of budgets to be able to fish with us we select a range of boats from small to large and old to new.  This affords everybody the opportunity to fish with us.  One thing they all have in common is that they are safe, well maintained and comfortable.

Reputation and Customer feedback

What really separates us from any other service is our ability to get honest customer feedback about each one of our fishing trips.  Prior to using a captain we take into consideration their reputation and longevity of the captains career.  We do not work with fly by night operations.  We only want the best captains who continuously run and maintain successful charters.   Continuous feedback from our clients allows us to make sure our boats performing at the top of their game.  We can track the amount of fish our fishing charters are catching as well as how hard they are working.  The majority of the time our clients rate each charter as excellent but if they are unhappy with anything we definitely will look into it and make sure the boat is a good fit for VIP Fishing Charters.

The Jupiter Billfish Tournament tourned to out to be another exciting event.  This year "Doing It All" took home the first place prize and close to $40K in prize money after catching 39 sailfish in the two day tournament!  The majority of the fish were caught off St. Lucie Inlet in 60 feet of water using live bait.  Congratulations to everyone that participated.

We have a lot of clients looking for a fishing charter near Boca Raton Resort & Spa. Our Boca Raton fishing boats are from the same fishing fleet the Boca Resort uses. We just charge a lot less.  VIP Fishing Charters never marks up prices.  So if you are looking for a Boca Raton Resort & Spa fishing charter, look no further.  We will set you up with the best available boats and captains in Boca.

Featured Boat

Tony's 53' Monterey out of Palm Beach deserves a little extra acknowledgement this week.  I've received numerous calls from overly happy and excited clients raving abou their day on the water with Tony.  So here is some well deserved credit for our outstanding Palm Beach Fishing Charter.

About Palm Beach's Best Fishing Boat

Make: 53' Monterey Sportfish

Number of Guest Allowed: 6

Amenities: 2 Heads, Full Galley, Saloon, Entertainment Center, Airconditioned

Fishing Gear: Full Tackle Station, Fighting Chair, Live Well, Large Fish Box, Top of the line Shimano and Penn Tackle

Specialty: Captain Tony isn't afraid to burn a little fuel to go where the fish are biting on a particular day.  Tony specializes is big game fish and isn't afraid to use techniques such as dredging, kite fishing, or trolling depending on the conditions.

About the Captain

Name: Captain Tony

Experience: Originally from Long Island Captain Tony has been running a succesful fishing charter operation out of West Palm Beach and Stuart for over 15 years.  His resume consists of tournament wins throughout the United States and abroad.  When Tony isn't sharing his local knowledge of South Florida sport fishing with clients he is fishing the warm waters of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.

We get asked all the time, "what should I tip the captain and crew?" Unfortunately, there's no right answer, but I'll give you a little background to help you make an informed and appropriate decision.

The general rule of thumb 15 to 20% of the price you paid for your charter if the crew did a good job. This is a service business after all and if you don't feel like you were treated well there's nothing wrong with witholding a portion or all of the tip you planned to give. Most mates know that happy guests equal big tips and will go well out of their way to make your trip enjoyable.

Keep in mind, many mates work nearly entirely for tips. Crew compensation varies by boat, some mates get paid a flat rate, others get a percentage of the charter fee and others get nothing except tips.

Who should I give the money to?

Again, there's no solid answer. A safe bet is to give the money to the captain and ask him (or her ocassionally) to divide the tips fairly amongst the crew. Many boats have a predetermined split. It is also fine to tip the mate directly, or if there is more than one mate, tip them together or separately. If there is more than one mate, tip as if there was only one and divide the amount between them. Again, they probably have an agreement already.

Do I still have to tip if we didn't catch anything good on my fishing trip?

Just because you didn't catch anything doesn't mean your crew didn't try hard or do a good job. This is fishing after all and some days just don't work out. But step back and look at the big picture. If you can't answer yes to at least one of these questions, you may consider witholding a portion of the tip:

1. Did the crew move the boat multiple times in search of fish?
2. Did the crew try to contact other boats in the area to see what they were catching and where?
3. Did the crew try different fishing methods throughout the charter?
4. Did the crew go out of there way to make the trip fun anyway?

A little off topic for our fishing blog, but today my father and I visited the Intrepid factory in Largo, Florida to see our new Intrepid 327 center console which is currently about a week or two from completion. My father and I own and operate Wycap Marine which is a yacht canvas and upholstery company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

We are building this Intrepid together and since Intrepids are a custom boat, we've really spent a lot of time planning each and every feature. It was great to visit the factory, see how everything goes together and meet  some of the people who are actually building our dream boat.

Below is a gallery of the pictures I took today. Feel free to contact me with questions, or comments noah [at] vipfishingcharters.com or nchanin [at] wycap.com

Check out these Dolphin caught out of Haulover Marina in Miami Beach.  Definately a successful fishing charter.  Well done!!!

Featured Boat

Every few weeks we update our featured boat in each city.  Currently Captain Mike's 43' Hatteras is crushing the competition.  Mike has hit his stride this month with the beginning of Sailfish season.  Every day we are getting new testimonials from our clients about how many fish they caught and how good a time they're having on his fishing trip.

About Fort Lauderdale's Best Fishing Boat

Make: 43' Hatteras Sportfish

Number of Guests Allowed: 6

Amenities: 3 Fighting Chairs, Tuna Door, Air-conditioned Salon with Full Couch and Chairs, Clean Full Size Bathroom, Kitchen, 2 Staterooms, Stereo

Fishing Gear: Penn International and Shimano Tackle, 2 Hightech Fish Finders, 100 Gallon in Deck Live-well for Bait

Specialty: Sailfish, Dolphin, Shark, Swordfish, Kingfish, Tuna

About The Captain

Name: Captain Mike

Experience: Captain Mike grew up fishing in Fort Lauderdale on his grandfathers boat.  He began really honing his fishing skills when he got offered a job on a fishing charter in the Bahamas in 1994.  Mike resume consists of numerous prestigious tournament victories including the Blue Marlin tournaments in the Bahamas Billfish Championship Series.  Mike still charters trips in the Bahamas and the rest of the Caribbean but calls Fort Lauderdale his home to be near his family.

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Welcome to VIP Fishing Charters brand new home on the internet. In addition to providing outstanding service as your personal fishing concierge, we intend to regularly update our site with useful information about fishing, boating and visiting the areas we service.

We welcome your comments and feedback and hope to continue being your goto source for planning your dream fishing trips.

I keep my Hydra-Sports center console near Boca Inlet and I get a number of requests for information on the Boca Inlet bridge. So here it is...

The Boca Raton Inlet Bridge connects A1A over Boca Raton inlet. The bridge opens on demand for all vessel traffic that requires an opening. You can reach all Palm Beach County bridges on VHF Channel 09. The bridge is believed to offer 23 ft clearance at low tide, but please confirm clearances on the sign board when approaching.