Docks gearing up for spring: Charter boat captains are waiting for a boost to their business

DESTIN — After a long, slow winter, the local fishing fleet is starting to come alive again.

The party boats are going fishing more often, and many charter boat captains are working on their vessels to get them ready for spring.

“Traditionally, the charter season gets kicked off March 15, as far as it starts getting busy,” said Mike Eller, captain of the Lady Em. “Depending on which schools get off when, what business we’ll have will be the last two weeks of March and the first week or so of April. We eagerly await March 15 because we know, historically, the phone has rang and we’ll go fishing.

“It’s important, too, because it’s our first little boost after the long four or five months of winter,” he added.

Although nowhere near as busy as the summer, springtime typically brings a fair amount anglers to the Destin docks. College students typically take fishing trips on one of Destin’s party boats, whereas families are more likely to pair up and charter a fishing boat, Eller said.

When captains need to order a part for their boat or even pull it out of the water to work on its hull, one of the first places that gets called is the Destin Fisherman’s Co-op behind Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant. Brad Biggers an employee of the co-op and a freelance captain, said the docks have been busy lately.

“They’re out there, people are sanding and grinding and gel-coating their decks today,” Biggers said. “Probably half the people are down here working on their boats today. It’s pretty busy.

“We’re hoping next week it will pick up even better,” Biggers added.

Some projects can’t be completed at the docks. Captains sometimes must pull their boats out of the water to scrape and repaint. The co-op’s dry dock in Freeport can hold more than 20 boats at one time, and Biggers said most of the spots are taken.

Eller said he was expecting a soft start to this year’s fishing season mostly because of more stringent fishing regulations. In the past, he said he would fish up to 25 days out of the month in spring, but now averages 12 to 15 days.

“April and May used to be really, really big fishing months in Destin, Florida,” Eller said. “With the changing of the red snapper season to June, that really curtailed a good percentage of my April and May business. April and May used to be great months, and now it’s just so-so soft months. I expect that to be more of the same this year.”

Just five years ago, the red snapper season lasted nearly six months, and each angler aboard a fishing boat could keep five of the popular fish. This year, the red snapper season opens June 1 and will last between 51 and 61 days, depending on the number of fish caught. Each fisherman can only keep two red snapper per day now. More stringent regulations are also in place for grouper and amberjack.