Blame it on Fay

Tropical Storm Fay has made the fishing docks look almost like a ghost town.
When I drove down to the docks around noon on Monday, the parking lots were virtually empty and the boats were moored in their slips.
Why?
It’s Fay’s fault.
“We’ve had people calling all the time,” said Capt. Olin Marler of Olin Marler’s Charter Boats. “I was beginning to think we were the weather forecasters.”
With meteorologists predicting that Fay was headed our direction, “it was messing our trips up big time,” Marler said.
However, Capt. Tommy Klosterman of the Tropical Winds at Marler Docks, managed to make it out on the Gulf.
Klosterman fished on Sunday and brought in a “nice catch of red snapper, amberine and mingo,” Marler said. “He had a good catch.”
Marler said they almost closed the reservation booth over the weekend, but kept it open instead.
And it proved to be rewarding. Marler said they booked some trips for September and October.
Capt. Ken Bolden on the Just B Cause was another captain that made it out on Sunday.
“I had a long trip planned for Sunday, but they canceled on Wednesday,” Bolden said with the threat of Fay.
Nevertheless, he had a “walk-up” on Sunday for a four-hour trip in the afternoon.
“I got my limit of red snapper,” said Bolden who docks at HarborWalk Marina.
“It wasn’t too bad,” he said. “We had 3- to 4-foot swells out of the southwest. But nothing out of the usual as far as being rough ... the pass was a little bit higher.”
Bolden says he has a six-hour trip on Saturday and Sunday this week. But nothing on the books until then.
“It’s definitely having an impact,” Bolden said. “If it weren’t for Fay, we’d probably at least have people walking up and booking trips.”
Bolden was down at the docks Monday and checking on the boat when the rains came.
“Who knows what it’s going to do,” he said. “Hopefully this thing will get out of the way and we can get back to work.”
Capt. Eddie Dykes, who docks his boat the Shamrock at East Pass Marina, said he only had one trip booked for this past Friday and it was canceled.
“This time of year it slows down anyway,” Dykes said. “But I’m sure it (Fay) hurt some.”
Dykes said he has trips booked for Thursday and Saturday this week — if the weather holds.
Hopefully the weather will ease up — as well as the talk of storms — so the charterboats can get back to what they do best — fish.
See you at the docks.