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New Viking Fleet Trip??

PostPosted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 1:39 pm
by VikingFleet
Wow, we finally got the Starship Coast Guard approved to go 200 miles offshore. We are also working on getting the Superstar setup for the same certification.
I have to say that probably the best part of my job is that the Viking Fleet is all about trying new things. They push the envelope of traditional thought and try new things that others boats, quite frankly, don’t have the nerve to try. This is where I fit in nicely, I also dream of catching exotic fish in far away places and taking passengers to these places that other head boats can't or wont.
Capt Steven’s Far East trip is a good example of this, he wants to put his loyal customers on more world records and more exotics, and who knows what else? Fishing pieces of bottom that have probably never been fished on before with rod and reel. Kudos to Capt Steven for having the desire and nerve to go and try it!
Capt Steven, Capt Paul and I quite often bounce new ideas off each other, some make sense and others are just crazy. Now, I would like to do some kind of awesome trip down here in the Gulf of Mexico, after all we too have an awesome boat to work with.
There aren’t too many boats that catch Yellowfin Tuna and Swordfish on the west coast of Florida, mostly because of the distance you have to travel to get to them, so we are thinking of a way to do it that would be of course safe and productive but also affordable for our passengers.
Capt Paul and I went to Louisiana and spent a few days checking things out. The fishing there seems to quite steady, when we were there we saw some YFT over 100lbs and many in the 60-80 lbs size and even a nice Mako.
We have come up with some possible trips and different ways to do it. One thought is to leave Tarpon Springs stop and swordfish first then go further west and tuna fish then go into port and spend a day at a redfish camp and shallow water fish on a bunch of flats skiffs. Then spend the night on land, have a big BBQ and depart in the morning and head back to FL this would be like a 20 hr boat ride.
There also is the possibility for passengers to not steam back to FL; we can hire a coach bus to take them back to fl. That coach bus would also bring passengers to Louisiana to do the same trip in reverse. This would probably be less expensive than the first possibility because, the fuel would be stretched between two trips. This would be like a 15-16 hr bus ride.
This would be maybe a five to six day trip, around twenty passengers, plus a crew of around eight. Night Sword fishing, Day trolling and oil platform fishing for YFT, Blackfin Tuna, Snapper, Amberjack's and deep dropping for Yellowedge Grouper. Then we will inshore fish in Louisiana for a day catching redfish and sea trout.
Please post back and let us know if a trip like this sounds like something you would try and what $ you think is affordable for a trip like this.
Fair Tide,

Capt Rich

PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:12 pm
by GhostRider
Hey Capt.

It sounds great! A few questions that pop into my head are how will the charter take some fish home? Its not what is affordable...but how much expenses cost you and your markup to be able to make a living/profit from them?! talk to you later