Last week I made a post about ribbonfishing that caught a lot of flack from the charter fleet. I don't really care what other people think or how they run their business but this is my point. I get calls every day from people looking to catch "something big" or "sharks".
Today we didn't catch any sharks, but we tried. And instead of catching sharks, we caught a couple of 100+# stingrays. In over 20 years of charter fishing,
I have never had a call for a ribbonfish charter. I get calls all the time where people just want to catch something memorable. These kids will never forget the huge fish they caught today. People from Pennsylvania don't know what a ribbonfish is. Kids aren't going to school next year and bragging to their friends about the ribbonfish they caught in Virginia Beach. A stingray isn't anything amazing or anything like that, but these people weren't looking for dinner. They were looking for a memory. When these kids caught these stingrays, they will remember it forever. I gave the kids the stingers off their stingrays, and youd have thought I was Santa Claus. It took a little more effort to go do this kind of fishing. I had to run a couple miles and burn a little fuel. I had to get bait and chum. I had to try a little bit more. But my group today was happy and entertained. We didn't get the sharks they were after, but we tried. On these trips we typically catch sharks, stingrays, drum, and cobia. My group didn't have to settle for ribbonfish. When I said ribbonfish are the cheap and lazy way out, it's because that's what it is. If a group wants to catch ribbonfish, by all means. There's a whole lot of upselling that goes into most ribbonfish trips.
