Full disclosure: I’m a FishingBooker employee and this fishing trip was organized as an annual corporate retreat. The review itself has not been sponsored in any way and represents an honest opinion on Soolyman charters’ operation.
A blast - the first word that comes to my mind when describing our 2 full day charters with Captain Dylan! I’ve been on fishing charters a dozen times in the US and Europe, and this was the best fishing experience I’ve had so far!
Both days on the water were great, but I’ll describe just the second day to keep it short and sweet.
I’d first mention that Yellowfin 3 is an awesome boat for fishing, a spacious center console 38-footer with a lot of space to move around - this was important as the Mahi turned out to be pretty stubborn so the person holding a rod had to change positions all the time. The boat is also super fast, equipped with twin 250 horsepower Suzuki engines, which makes it easy to reach the fishing grounds in no time. This meant more time for fishing.
Although very young, Captain Dylan is very knowledgeable and a great professional. He’s fished his whole life and just looking at him doing stuff like casting a rod 80 meters away with ease makes you think everybody could do that. And not just that - Dylan is also a great and easygoing guy. In other words, the captain you’re hoping to get on your fishing charter.
After catching live bait fish, we got to the first buoy and were put on fish in no time. Dylan used a popper to see if the fish were around and then cast a rod close to the place where the fish appeared. After the first bite, the other Mahi came closer to the boat. In just a couple of minutes, 5 of us were holding a rod with a fish hooked on! We were running around trying not to hit each other, and, eventually, we all managed to catch our first Mahi! By the end of the second hour, we managed to reel in 12 of them! Since we had enough fish from day one, we decided to aim for catch and release. In the end, we released 11 out of 12 and kept only one, a 22-pound Bull Mahi that was injured.
When we exploited the buoys we switched to trolling near many oil tankers nearby. Trolling can be boring if nothing’s going on, but this time it wasn’t. The Mahi frenzy did slow down, but it was interesting to watch Dylan’s decision-making process while trying to improve our chance to catch more. I liked that Dylan was active and doing his best during the whole trip. When there was no bite, we chatted about fish species, fishing, boats, and much more.
By the end of the trip, we managed to land 6 more Mahi and ended our day at 18. More than satisfying.
In a nutshell, we had a great day out on the water, caught a lot of fish, and this was my best fishing experience so far. I’d definitely recommend Soolyman Charters and am looking forward to coming back. :)
Full disclosure: I’m a FishingBooker employee and this fishing trip was organized as an annual corporate retreat. The review...