Crap Charter - Gold Coast

[black_sheep]

We stopped going on charters for that very reason. If you find a good one, stick with it.

Your story is an absolute crack-up mate - good to see that you can laugh about it. I know I did.

[benandjack]

i can only remenber not so long ago that you BRADDLES where having a SOOK about sea probe. I was on sea probe with a mate this day that you where aborad and then later read a post that you put on offshore reports, once again having a SOOK about how we caught livies then headed out to the 50s for so king action. Myself and my mate where jigging off the front of the boat catching so good size kings on our own jigging outfits which we brought aboard ourselves, and the guys down the back where sending down lives with good results, and you where having a sook about how planed the day was and the 2 guys jigging knew all about the day leaving you in the dark and to use LIVE livies and still manage to catch fish, and you bagged the deckie on how he was running the back of the deck, i think he is a top deckie and on the times i have been out ( maybe 15 times ) he has worked hard all day with results of good catchs for the customers, but thats only the 15 or so times i have been out with sea probe, MATE I THINK YOU BETTER RE READ YOUR POST ABOUT SEA PROBE THAT YOU POSTED A FEW MONTHS BACK AND MAKE SO CHANGES. All i can see is that your cry baby when you dont get your own way, mybe you should buy a boat and do it all yourself, bet you would not get a feed

[OldManRiver]

What a bunch of grubs

[Braddles]

Hi BenandJack;

i can only remenber not so long ago that you BRADDLES where having a SOOK about sea probe.

Using the term sook is rather antagonistic I feel. Grow up luvvy.

I was on sea probe with a mate this day that you where aborad and then later read a post that you put on offshore reports, once again having a SOOK

Please learn to spell rather than attempt to knock my integrity.

about how we caught livies then headed out to the 50s for so king action. Myself and my mate where jigging off the front of the boat catching so good size kings on our own jigging outfits which we brought aboard ourselves, and the guys down the back where sending down lives with good results, and you where having a sook about how planed the day was and the 2 guys jigging knew all about the day leaving you in the dark and to use LIVE livies and still manage to catch fish, and you bagged the deckie on how he was running the back of the deck,


I have used Seaprobe approx 10 times in 5 years. Traditionally, I have been very satisfied with their level of service. I enjoy they are a family run business and work very hard to put you on the fish, travelling a lot of distance, where many other charters hang in close to conserve fuel.

I have NEVER EVER Fished on Seaprobe however when someone was fishing up on the bow / front deck of the boat... so it wasnt me on your charter mate.

The incident you may be referring to - and you were not on it, was regarding the deckie's performance. This was not the normal deckie we had before, and although he was a pleasant fella, his attention to customer service, in our opinion was not to the same standard. People seem to forget we are paying $170 for a service. If your not getting that service..... you have a right to complain. Its not about catching fish or not catching fish. The conerns were related to:

1. The deckie was fishing himself, while people in our group who were new to fishing had to bait up, remove hooks etc themselves

2. The deckie would return to the fly bridge and lay down between spots. Then when we would arive at new drift would come down to attend to the lines etc before we could fish. On the way home, the deckie (from past trips) would clean the catch etc. This time, he went up stairs and layed down on the fly bridge, and the cleaning etc was done once we docked......

3. We had the majority of numbers on the charter, yet were never consulted / explained on the style of fishing to be undertaken. We went on the pretense it was a bottom bashing reef fishing charter and when two people on that charter, who were not related or mates with each other (so makes me thing it was not you at all) brought along jigs = were using jigs, and this seemed to be the predominant fishing style for a significant time during the charter. One of these chaps was older and had grey hair and didnt speak to us at all. The other younger guy was lovely and rigged a jig up on our line and let us use his own rod which was loaded with braid line from memory. Again - not supporting your story it was you and your mate.

i think he is a top deckie and on the times i have been out ( maybe 15 times ) he has worked hard all day with results of good catchs for the customers, but thats only the 15 or so times i have been out with sea probe,


I dont think the deckie has much to do with good catches, and regardless, it is about the level of service, not about just what is caught or not caught.


MATE I THINK YOU BETTER RE READ YOUR POST ABOUT SEA PROBE THAT YOU POSTED A FEW MONTHS BACK AND MAKE SO CHANGES.

Why? "so changes" - you mean some changes? No - I think not. What I desribed was factual and moreover is my opinion of the unfoldings of the day. Thats why this is called a chat forum. If you would like to discuss it further, I invite you to PM me and I will give you my phone number to discuss it like a man.


All i can see is that your cry baby when you dont get your own way, mybe you should buy a boat and do it all yourself, bet you would not get a feed

Cry Baby? Wow... your so harsh! Claws in please!

How would you feel, if you had a group of 7 mates, and I rocked up with a big skirted lure, and all the gear for that - and you thought you were bottom bashing / reef fishing... We then spent a large section of the day trolling around for hours - while your bored shitless, because I, the minority, liked to do trolling.....

I suspect by the way you attacked my post - you lack total insight into that.

I hope the mods close this post.

Always one ###### that wrecks it for everyone!




Brad.

[Lucky_Phill]

Thread has been closed and the operator in question will respond to this in good time.

Phill

[Lucky_Phill]

I have recieved a response from the operator.

This thread will now be opened for a little while.

Please reply only if you have something positive to offer and please do not get personal. Although the reply from the Operator gets a little that way, they are not a member of Ausfish. I will not edit their email.

email posted by permission:-


We are disappointed that brad did not catch any fish on his trip , but he was misinformed about his Full day Fishing charter and has said some untruths which I have detail below trying to answers his questions in blue.

This is what we offer to our all our customers.

HALF DAY FISHINGOff Shore Reef Fishing Departs 6.00am

• $150.00 per person
• 6 HOURS of early morning fishing.
• Cooked BBQ Breakfast, Tea or coffee .
• All quality bait and tackle provided.
• Keep your catch, we will clean, ice and bag your fish for you.

FULL DAY FISHING Game and Reef Fishing Departs 6.00am

• $200.00 per person
• 9 HOURS of fishing.
• Cooked BBQ Breakfast, Tea or Coffee.
• All quality bait and tackle supplied.
  
• Also Aussie BBQ lunch provided or we can cook your own fresh caught fish.
  
• Keep your catch, we will clean, ice and bag your fish for you.

First of all let me say that if you wanted to complain about the service you go directly to the boat owner first not put it on a fish forum and whine about us then email us.

This is our full day charter:
FULL DAY FISHING Game and Reef Fishing Departs 6.00am
·$200.00 per person
·9 HOURS of fishing.
·Cooked BBQ Breakfast, Tea or Coffee.
·All quality bait and tackle supplied.
·Also Aussie BBQ lunch provided or we can cook your own fresh caught fish.
·Keep your catch, we will clean, ice and bag your fish for you.
It had been about 8 weeks since the boys and I from work had been out... so we called our regular charter company - only to find they were fully booked due to lead up to Indy Carnival.
Tried a couple of others that people had referred me to - but again, all booked up.
Then a mate had some "luck" (retrospectively - a misfortune) of finding a charter that could take the 8 of us.


Now we normally pay $170 each (to go out on a 10.5m boat licensed for 10 people) and get very well looked after on Seaprobe.... and they boys use their expert knowledge and work bloody hard to put us onto some fish...
That’s not what you said (Complaining and Whined) on ausfish in July this year about sea probe deckie etc.

This charter was $200.00 - but promised "an aussie BBQ Breakfast and a gourmet BBQ Lunch"...
YES THE CHARTER IS $200.00
WHERE DID YOU GET GOURMET BBQ LUNCH FROM, WHO TOLD YOU IT WAS A GOURMET LUNCH? WE DON’T DO GOURMET LUNCHES WE DO A BBQ LUNCH. SO Really NO ONE PROMISED YOU A GOURMET LUNCH.
You must have made that up along the way with a lot of other stuff that you talked about.
WE OFFER A BBQ LUNCH OF STEAK, CHICKEN, ONIONS AND SALAD ON BREAD.

I should have known to PULL OUT when we headed down the end of the peer at Marina Mirage to a massive boat - with "WHALE WATCHING" across the flybridge.
You

How did you see the whale watching sign when you boarded the boat from the stern? When you went up the to the bow of the boat and looked up at the flybridge you would have seen the WHALE WATCHING SIGN again another lie.
WHAT HAS THE “WHALE WATCHING SIGN” ON THE BOAT GOT TO DO WITH YOUR DAY OUT FISHING? Did it put you off your fishing?

The boat was massive - and so was the crowd lined up to get on!
The boat is massive it is a 60ft/18mt Cat in survey 1C for 50 people.

SO finally - all 25 or so of us pile on and the boat is fired up. It was more like grandstand seating at the footy than a charter boat.

We had 22 people on board that day (again you are making this story up another lie).
Are our chairs not comfortable enough for you? Did you have a problem with the chairs?
What has the seating got to do with the fishing?

I note the sign on the fridge had been turned into some type of home made vending machine that said "ALL DRINKS ARE $2 - correct change only" - which kind of confused me for a $200.00 a head "all inclusive fishing charter".... I thought then maybe it had beer in it... and assured myself non - alcoholic beverages would be included.

What do you mean home made vending machine what is your problem are you just whining again because you had to paid $2.00 for can of coke?
Honestly you really are just complaining for the sake of complaining.
Where did you get “all Inclusive fishing charter” again you are making this up as you go along no wonder you are getting confused.
The vending machine is there for the customers if they required a can of coke or solo. You forgot to mention in your story that coffee and tea are available all day long and we have cold water and ice on board as well.
But you didn’t know that did you because you assumed that you were on a premium fishing charter because you had to pay $200.00 and you thought that everything was inclusive. Next time get your facts right before you complain.

Off we go out through the seaway, and just as I could no longer see the people putting worms on their hooks on the sand pumping jetty, (OK I exagerate - maybe 200m "off shore" )- we start doing figure of 8's and told we were going to have a try...
I started laughing thinking it was a joke....... and it was...
They brought out some bait jigs, and said we would catch some livies... Now there were only 6 bait jig rigs for no less than 25 people, so we were told "to all have a turn and share the jigs around.....
We only use 8 bait jig rods.

Content to let the few younger fella's to have fun with it we decided to join the line up for the BBQ breaky. I was granted a 1/2 slice of the fattiest bacon I have ever seen, "warmed" to a soggy mess, on a piece of bread, with a bit of egg white in a bit of bread.... We donated ours to the empty burly pot and most followed suit.
You could of gone back to the cook and ask for another piece of bacon if you were not happy with the one you got. Why do you whine after the fact when you could have gone back five times if you had wanted to.

We stuffed around for an hour - but I was at least comforted by the fact we had 7 hours left, and a decent number of livies....
We headed out to the 32's and I was excited at the thought of sending one of them livies down....
Once again you are wrong (our fisherman/navigator), as we were at the 40’s not the 32’s.

We pull up... and we are told they cant get the drift right, so we all have to fish the port side and stern of the vessel - ALL 25. Now I am not exagerating when I say it was bloody shoulder to shoulder....
Well yes you are exaggerating again because there were 22 people on board that day.
Yes that’s right because of the bottom current on that day we work one side of the vessel, stern and bow.

After I had been involved in dozens of tangles, I started loosing patience... as they two deckies start fishing.....
The reason the deckies start fishing was to show the customers how to fish. When you are on a Shared Charter it means you share the charter.

My group and I ask if we can head up to the bow which was a sizeable area - and after some persuading - we were set up on the front deck to ourselves while the other 15 or so struggle with continued tangles...
Plenty of room down the back NOW.

2 hours later, and not a fish in the boat... The pilchard halfs were so sloppy you couldnt get them to stay on the hooks and the "squid" like leather - it was dried out so much, we were told to soak it in water to "bring it back"...
I asked again about the livies - and was told we were "keeping them for the king fish out at the 50's"...
So finally with no legal fish on board and 11am - we start the engines to head to the 50's. The conditions were amazing - the sea was glassed out, the wind was just detectable, and the sun was shining.
All the bait was fresh out of the freezer that morning.


After about 5 mins of slow going (were sat on the bow still) I signal to the deckie to ask why we were going so slow - as we would be taking hours to get to the 50's. He tells me we are trolling some skirts for marlin...
I asked how many marlin they had caught this season... "None" was the reply...
So a boat load of 25 bored, pissed off, cramped people sat while they trolled 2 skirts at a painfully slow pace for another hour to the 50's.
This time of year we troll between the reefs mainly for pelagic such as tuna.
If we had raised a TUNA or another game fish, I wonder if you would have complain so much as we were trying to do the best for the customers. It may not have been your way but it is a shared charter after all.
There were only 15 people on the deck sitting very comfortably not cramped as you said (lying once again) enjoying the day.
Its now close to 1pm - and we arrive at the 50's. We are told we will be having a bucket of livies brought up the front for us... so I start to get excited....
THEN.... .... *breathe*
The livies come up - DEAD! We had wasted an hour in the morning catching "livies" - only for the twits to fillet them and give them to us to use as you would a pilchard half!
This was done for every one. I sorry you did not catch any fish that day but you do have days like this.

We were like WTF? We were told "There are too many people on board to use live bait as they will swim around and create even more tangles, so at least we have fresh bait now".
Experienced as you are, you would have realise that “lives: would not have worked on the bottom that day because of the bottom current. This is true if you have livies swimming around the boat you will get more tangles is this want you wanted?

200/head charter! "A bonus" we get to catch bait thats fresh enough to use - on our PAID time??? What a crock of shite! We were so annoyed - and we could even hear sniggers from down the back.....
Most Charter boats catch live bait. (Have you also got super hearing?)

Then we were yelled out to from the aft deck that "lunch was served".... Its now 1pm. STILL NO KEEPER FISH!!!!!
Seriously did you want someone to tap you on the shoulder and say LUNCH IS SERVED you are on a boat not in a restaurant?

The gourmet BBQ lunch was the only thing going to save this thing.... and for $200/head and the word gourmet had us thinking prawns on the BBQ, or at least some decent meat.....
WHERE DID YOU GET GOURMET BBQ LUNCH? You have made that up along the way with a lot of other stuff that you have talked about.
WE OFFER A BBQ LUNCH OF STEAK, CHICKEN, ONIONS AND SALAD ON BREAD, coffee, tea or cold water
What was it?
Another slice of bread... this time with with al la potato salad - you could either spread on your bread or cop the spooned dollop onto your single, single ply napkin.... then there was a nugget (and I use nugget to imply something the size that would come out of a foxterrier's butt) of steak.... and then before you could so no thanks - the whole lot was drowned in tomato sauce!
Who put the tomato sauce on for you; normally you would do it your self?
You could have had a loaf of bread if you wanted to. All you want to do is complain.
You are out of sea not sitting in a restaurant. Why do you need two-ply napkins? Why would you mention this?

That was thier gourmet lunch... and When we were as thirsty and dry as a chip - but said we didnt bring the 2 x $1 coins to operate the "fridge" as we thought drinks would have been included as they are on most charters, we were told we would have to wait for them to empty the machine of coins, and then they could cash our notes.
Are you just whining again because you had to paid $2.00 for can of coke?
No one would have told you that. Change is always available from the skipper.

Its now almost 2 and the first fish comes about. A snapper... Now if it was 35cm there must have been 5 kg of traction on his tale when they measured it... as when I seen it post docking - it was more like low 30's.
At some stage another two fish came on board....... and we finished the charter with 3 fish between 25 people.
My god you are not even happy when someone catches a fish. When do say anything nice?
You forgot to mention in you story that we had heaps of throwbacks.

We did'nt hang around for our share of the scales...... Just goes to show - more expensive is certainly not better...
And if your ever invited on a $200.00/head charter out of southport (Marina Mirage) that promises a gourmet lunch - run for the hills.
Wrong again you are at the wrong marina we are located at Mariners Cove Marina.

In conclusion, we hope we have provided some answers to these exaggerated allegations from one of your members.
We could keep going on & on but we’ve got to go fishing.
Next time your member should try beach fishing in some secluded spot that he can have all to himself or buy his own boat.

Kind regards

Dennis
OUT THERE CHARTERS
www.outtherecharters.com.au

Ps: We cordially invite any members of Ausfish to join us at any time with a 10% discount.

[ffejsmada]

Thanks Phil, very interesting.

Good to have both sides of the story for a change.

Even with both sides of the story given, someone is telling fibs

Wonder who that would be???

Cheers.

[blue_mako]

There is pages of reading about a disasterous charter on another brisbane website with this same mob, I heard they got a refund and went again and caught heaps so everyone has there off days.

Troy

[Greg P]

Always 3 sides


but on a more important subject - Phil can you get him to send some more details on the Gold Coast Bikini Fishing charters


mmmm boob cruises ROFL


Braddles - maybe you should have went on that one - then it would not really matter about the no fish etc

[coraltrout68]

Came through twice (sorry).

[coraltrout68]

I had a disappointing charter off Port Douglas not so long ago.

Disappointing in that we didn't catch many fish. Thats not to say there wasn't fish to be caught. I've been to Barra parks and not caught fish (we all know there's fish in the ponds - getting these fish to bite is something different again).

I wasn't disappointed with the crew they where very helpful (lunch was good) and the skipper tried lots of different spots on the day.

We had about 20 people on the boat, 3 didn't fish at all because they where seasick most of the day - included a boy aged 10 to 12 years old.

I have been on charters previously, but not for 7/8 years.

What I had forgotten was that fishing with so many people is difficult.

Up north the norm is a handline and a sinker that runs down to the hook. I was the only one that day that brought my own rod and reel and I got the feel that half the people had never or rarely fished.

I spent a good portion of the day tangled up with other people's lines and it is very frustrating. At the end of the day there are a lot of lines bring dropped into a very small fishing area. It was quite a windy day and as we swang on the anchor, tangles became the fact of life.

I didn't have the option to try much on the day (as in trying a floater, lighter sinker or live bait) as I knew it would just result in more tangles.

Would I do another charter if I was up north again - of course I would. I just love fishing too much.

I have my own boat that I use a home and a father in law with a bigger boat when we go away or fish offshore. You just can't beat the fact that when you are in you own boat you can get 3, 4 or 5 rods in the water all using different baits, baits on the bottom, floaters etc. You can go where you want, don't have to worry about others etc.

Maybe we just need to expect a great day on the water (enjoy the breeze, the views, happy to be alive) and don't judge success on how many fish we get, as we will be disappointed more often than not.

P.S. For all the dad's out there, it was great to see a Father and son (daughter) on the charter that I went out on, but to see the boy so sick for so long was very sad to see. I would love to take my 10 year old out but too, but after seeing that I wouldn't (he has been out on my boat and his grandfather's and not been sick - but there's no coming in on a charter / not with 18 other paying clients on board).

Shane

[wilcara]

WOW that response from the business owner is interesting!

Somebody should tell them, it does not matter what you do in business, or think you do, but if at the end of the day the customer is not happy then you have NOT done it RIGHT!

True, you can't please everybody all the time. What sets some business apart is the WAY THEY DEAL with dissatisfied clients; preferebly not by ATTACKING them. What a disgraceful and nitpicking response from the business in question.

They did not defend themself; they SHOT themselves in my opinion.

Thanks to Ausfish for showing that response. One to avoid.

[TimiBoy]

Wilcara, I tend to agree. As a Business owner, I was shocked at the response, seemed to me the original complaint had maybe hit a raw nerve or two. As the Great Poet said;

"Methinks thou dost protest too much!"

And, by the way, is that your picture in your avatar? You are too scary by half!!!

Cheers,

Tim

[dogsbody]

It did appear from Braddles posts that this charter outfit was an unprofessional one. But what confirmed it for me was the completely tactless and childlike response from the actual owner. At no time did Braddles actually name and shame the outfit despite various requests from Ausfish members to do so. No, the name and shaming was done by the owner all on his own.


Dave.

[wilcara]

Dogsbody - great point! Yo da man!!!

Its infantile, "he's a liar coz it was 22 not 25... " or whatever crap it was.

Timiboy, thanks mate but that's my dear old mum.