Reel Easy Charters Capt. John Jackson — Local services in Stock Island

Ok. So I booked this company because we had some friends that had used them earlier in the week. I booked for Wednesday on a site and they accepted. Then called me and told me they didn’t have that time slot available. Asked if Thursday would be ok. I said fine we will move some stuff around. Friends booked a trip Thursday as well. We planned to go out at same time. Our guide arrived 25 min late. No big deal. (Until he started yelling at my kids right off the bat) first red flag. We then went out and he told me my 11&13 year old would get sea sick if we went out where our friends were at. I told him they have been on boats all their life no problems. He ignored and I didn’t want to argue with the guy considering we were out in the ocean on a boat with him and I was with my kids. Time was supposed to be half day 8-12 this guy running late seemed like he was ready to get back from the start. I understand you can’t control weather or fish but by 10am friends that went out already caught max limit and we had caught one fish at the time. Frustrated we went to one other spot and caught 5 small fish. Then it started raining and we went back in. (Roughly 11ish) so with running late not a lot of time fishing. At that time our guide said I will have to drop you off and then you come pick up your fish later. It wasn’t much but our friends guide was at dock cleaning all the fish for them and planned to take back ours as well in the cooler. They were leaving right after trip and we flew so couldn’t take with us. Which I had told them multiple times. Our guide says get out he had to go. Still not sure why he couldn’t have docked or gave our fish to other guide (his brother) we left in such a hurry all our snacks, my sons hat and a shirt were left on boat. I then called said give the fish to someone else because we weren’t going to be able to take on plane with us and were hurried off the boat so we would be by to pick up hat and shirt later. We had really caught I think 6 fish total. Maybe 2 to keep. Our guide had a personality of a rock. Maybe he was having a bad day or something. Idk. Came by later and the guide brought out hat shirt and small bag with fish in it all together. He said he brought the fish just in case. I told him we couldn’t use it. White hat was stained from the fish he had cleaned and the 15 min ride with it in the car I knew that we had to throw that and the shirt away as it wreaked of fish smh. I gave the guy a $60 tip just because. I know that’s not a lot but I don’t even feel like he did anything and the trip wasn’t what we had asked for. I got a thing later from the site asking for my review. I didn’t put any details in just put 3.5 stars. I typically understand everyone has their off days. Well then I got a reply to that saying really? And this long public review of how my day went that they had squeezed us in like they were doing us a favor and how my friends tipped $200 and I only tipped $20 which is a lie and how if I’m going to give a subpar review I should give details and let them know. Also to call someone else next time I’m in town. I was just going to let it go but when you lie about my experience and my tip and call me out I guess I’ll put on here how my experience with them was a waist of my time and money. I figured it was just a combination of bad things and that was a one time deal which I can take with a grain of salt but to put the reply on there it just shows theIr true colors and character and I would advise now that if your looking for some professionalism and honest people to give your business to look elsewhere as I’ve been advised to do the same by this company....

YOU SHOULD RUN AS FAR FROM REEL EASY CHARTERS AS POSSIBLE. This business has taken a nose dive!!! I booked a trip with Captain John personally over the phone, after using his team before because the fishingbooker.com website said he cancelled our trip due to not having availability for the day we booked. I was understanding to the pitfalls of fishingbooker.com's site and showed up this morning at 7:45am for my 8:00am departuring "OFFSHORE" Fishing trip with 4 of my 6 kids. Steven Ray, Captain John's son, showed up right right after we got to the marina and began cleaning his boat. I didn't think it was our boat, so I went to the other Reel Easy charter and they informed us we had the other boat. I approached Steven Ray and let him know we were his charter. He directed us into the boat and continued to clean the boat and get ready. He asked us our target fish, that I already let Captain John know about, but I asked if Maui were running right now. The attitude of Steven Ray just went from bad to worse. He explained that his boat was not equipped to go out for Maui and that Reel Easy did not have ANY BOATS that can do offshore fishing well. I was very confused and SR just kept trying to talk about why his boat couldn't do deep sea fishing, which I already understood and had moved on from by asking "what can we fish for?" He let me know at that point he was going to call his dad. When he returned my son tried to let him know we were OK with inshore fishing, but SR informed all of us that he had already cancelled the trip and there was no negotiating. We were all just completely taken aback. We just drove 8 hours from Tampa to go deep sea fishing today and already have plans for tomorrow before we go back home on Sunday. These guys TOTALLY ruined our vacation because the owners son didn't really want to go fishing and was obviously having a bad day, but he didn't have to be on a mission to turn his bad day into everyone else's. Captain John called me after I texted him I was not happy with the way the entire conversation went, but that call was more to blame me for the misunderstanding and told me that I was the one that was the problem. Said I was "the one who showed his son attitude from the get go". What John doesn't understand and showed absolutely no empathy for is that we all work hard all year to be able to enjoy these chances for a memories with our families. We sometimes only get one shot and he and hos son COMPLETELY ruined this opportunity. That's great customer service. It's obvious that the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree here and there's nothing redeemable with this organization. No chance we will use these people ever again and I suggest everyone find someone reliable to...

Super disappointed with our charter. Got this for my dad and I and ended up with a guide/captain who was ok with unsustainable and irresponsible fishing practices. Had baby yellowtails and mangroves go in the live well with baitfish when he brought the traps up before we went out, not sure if they were used to bait or not as I was at the front of the boat while he was putting the baitfish in the water. Then we ended catching some small red snapper, one of which I believed to be of size at the time but the other seemed small to me so I asked him to measure it and he kept giving me the runaround leading me to believe there wasn’t even a measuring device on the boat. He then kept that fish in the live well while the other bigger one was thrown on ice. Assuming this was just in case FWC showed so he could release the fish alive. Caught some yellowtails too that were borderline and never found out if they were even sized right, he was using the mouth of a bucket as a reference and said they were all “good”. Got back to the dock and took the smaller of the two grouper to a cooler at the dock with a measuring tape and found out that it was indeed 3 inches short of the 20 inch limit. Very disappointed. As a captain, you should be advocating for the protection and implementation of these fishes and their regulations. They’re there for a reason and if he did it with us, I’m sure it happens all the time, especially with visitors who know nothing about...