FlatsTime Charters
We use only quality equipment, lines, tackle, & gear for all our charters!

Tackle/Gear

Fly Fishing: I normally target big fish, and for them I usually use 9wt Scott fly rods & Lamson 3.5 Litespeed reels, 9wt. WFF line, and 9ft to 10ft leaders. I can provide all the flies you’ll need. You can bring your own fly rods & reels if you’d like, but nothing under an 8wt for big drum please. They can be caught with them, although they tend to frequently break, we want to protect our breeder-size red and black drum, and prolonged fights with lightweight gear can over-stress and sometimes kill them unnecessarily, especially in Florida’s summer heat when our water have a low dissolved oxygen content. Also, prolonged battles can clear a shallow grassflat of other fish for hours.

Spin Fishing: I can spin anglers with all the lures & tackle you’ll need. You can use your own rods & reels, or we can provide you with quality spinning reels on 7ft., 1-piece MH graphite rods, spooled with 10 to 12lb-braided line. We will gladly let you keep your legal catch, but we also encourage anglers to practice catch & release while fishing in this area.

*All our sportfishing charters are sightfishing with artificials; we don’t use mono line, or bait.

Flats Boat
To successfully and consistently sightfish shallow grassflats you need a shallow-running, shallow poling skiff, and a sturdy bow sightfishing platform can be a great asset for a sightfishing angler. There are many different brands to choose from, but Action Craft’s flats skiffs best deliver what I need. They’re extremely stable, and their patented hull design makes them the driest running skiff I’ve ever been in. Equipping a skiff with a smaller outboard makes it easier to pole, helps keep the hull level, and lets you get in shallower water.

Action Craft - 1600TE flats skiff w/60hp Mercury outboard
Equipped with a bow casting platform, below-gunnels rod holders & more, a 48qt. Igloo cooler, and a rear mounted 55lb Minn-Kota saltwater trolling motor on a removable Birdsall mount, which can also be mounted on the bow. True draft is 7” including anglers and motor.

My flats skiff is stable, white, simple, & clean, and is kept in immaculate condition. I provide ice and bottled drinking water. In a flats boat storage space is limited, so please bring only what you really need.

Canoe
For a personal, quiet, back-to-nature trip book a charter in my custom canoe. It’s stealthy, slow-paced, and has an extremely shallow draft. Because it’s so quiet with minimum bow or hull-slap we can get very close to the fish. It’s really a sightfishing angler's dream, and many big fish have been caught on fly in my canoe! All canoe trips are one-person, shallow saltwater Old-Florida style sightfishing. You can fish or just sit back and watch or photograph birds & wildlife while I pole the canoe.
Stillwater fiberglass canoe 17ft. w/rear poling & bow casting/fly line stripping decks

At around 120lbs. and 40” wide, my square-back, flat-bottomed canoe is very safe & stable. It is equipped with Spring Creek outriggers, 4 vertical rod holders, 2 cup holders, and a seat up front. It also has a casting/fly line stripping deck and an aft poling deck. The bench seat and decks can hold over 300 pounds. It’s big for a canoe, but storage space is limited.

I planned the layout concept for three years before finding the right new canoe to begin with, and then I stripped it down and customized it. I designed it for poling & sightfishing the pristine waters of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge’s no-motor-zone, but we have an optional small horsepower outboard to use in other areas. It’s not a high-speed runner, but in my opinion it is the best all-around two-person platform available today for inshore shallow water no-motor-zone sightfishing, bar none. Anglers are constantly offering to buy it, and quite a few of them have never been in it! When the winds are light it is sightfishing and nature watching at its finest! We get very close to the fish; many times we can actually see their eyes! You only have to fish in it once to appreciate its sightfishing capabilities and stealth potential.