CAPTAIN
CHARLIE
ABOUT ME
The guy on the back of the boat
As a kid, I vividly remember the excitement and disbelief I felt when my parents told my brothers and I we were going to Disney World for the first time. Not only were we going to the Most Magical Place on Earth, but we were also skipping an entire two days of school; which, for the Martin family, never happened except for the occasional doctor’s appointment or sick day. And not only were we going to the Most Magical Place on Earth and skipping school to do so, but we were going with my aunt and uncle and favorite cousin. As an eight or nine-year-old kid with a vivid and wild imagination, it was almost too much to handle at one time. I could’ve exploded with happiness. My emotions for the two or three weeks leading up to our departure fluctuated between never-before experienced levels of excitement, impatience and constant counting down of the calendar days and disbelief that it wasn’t actually happening, and my parents were just playing a bad joke on my brothers and I.
The day before our departure finally came, the car was packed, and we were ready; our excitement now close to peaking. For the first time ever, I think my brothers and I actually volunteered to go to bed early so that we would go to sleep and our early morning departure for our three-hour road trip would come sooner.
Right….
It’s very hard to sleep when the wild possibilities of three days at Disney are racing across your mind like shooting stars in the night.
The night before a fishing trip is very much the same now that I’m older and more of the world is available to me. The night before is spent rigging rods, selecting flies, filling the cooler with ice and drinks, putting the rods in the skiff, rechecking knots and flies (again), checking trailer tire pressure, trailer lights, the whole nine yards. The anticipation builds and your mind races with the wonder of what spots to fish, what the tide will be doing, and whether or not we’ll have enough sun to sight cast and see fish.
My demeanor now before a fishing trip is much like my eight-year-old self the night before a Disney trip. Except the “magic” happens in the vast natural terrain that’s been relatively the same and unchanged as the Lord intended it. And the means by which we get to explore it, via skiff, allows us to see places few have ever only dreamed of- yet alone know exist. It’s 18’ feet of fiberglass, a steering wheel and a 60hp motor. Throw in a push pole and a couple of fly rods and it’s comparable to a magic carpet ride.
From redfish swimming and eating in water so shallow their entire backs and even eyeballs are out of the water; snaking and sliding over mud banks and around oyster bars. A snook laid up under a mangrove branch, waiting to ambush a school of baitfish as they casually swim past. Or a tarpon rolling in the early morning, the rising sun reflecting orange and silver off its armored back. Seeing a flock of pelicans fly in single file line just mere inches above the water’s surface rising and falling with the swiftness of the wind. Or a vibrantly pink Roseate Spoonbill stalking shrimp and small baitfish on the edges of a shoreline waving it’s spoon-shaped bill back and forth in the water.
These are just some of the many experiences this vast world has to offer that are often times only accessible by a skiff and knowledgeable guide.
I’m Capt. Charlie Martin and my entrance to the world of fishing started when I first discovered the wild characteristics of redfish in the muddy, fiddler-crab-crawling, grass laden marsh of North Florida. I started chasing Jacksonville redfish with live shrimp and mullet, throwing them off my aunt and uncle’s dock on the St. John’s River, catching bull redfish in the late hours of the night. My passion for catching redfish grew, as did my techniques, and before long I was swinging the fly rod around every oyster bar and mud bank I could find. I graduated high school and headed south to St. Petersburg Florida to begin my college career, leaving behind me the marsh and oyster bars and instead trading it for mangrove shorelines and turtle-grass flats. My path crossed with snook and tarpon and my passion for catching redfish was now rivaled with the feeling of watching a snook blow up on a topwater or a 100+ pound tarpon slurp a 3” black and purple fly. I finished my year there and transferred to West Palm Beach to start a new academic path.
Within my first year there I had bought my first skiff and began exploring the vast network of South Florida’s waterways. From Naples down to Chokoloskee, through Whitewater Bay, down to Flamingo and Florida Bay, down to Islamorada. As my skiffs and gas tanks grew in size my range and exploration grew too. I learned to navigate the backcountry of the Everglades without a navigation unit committing turns, trees, coves and spots to memory. I traveled frequently back and forth from Jacksonville and West Palm and added to my cranial arsenal of spots St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra and Amelia Island allowing me more flexibility while planning trips and working with tides. While I still have much to learn and learn something new every time I’m on the boat, I look forward to sharing what I know with you and am confident a day on the water with Feather & Fin Guide Co., will be a day you’ll not soon forget.