Gloucester Fleet Deep Sea Fishing & Charters

I have nothing but great things to say about The Lady Sea. With over sixty years of deep sea fishing experience, I have come to truly appreciate the wonderful comaraderie, and laughter that I have come to enjoy with every trip. I have experienced trips with lots of fish, and plenty of keepers; and trips that were not quite so fruitful. Regardless, I have always left with a smile on my face, and a great story to tell.
I am continually impressed by owner, Booty and wife, Carolann. Contrary to other reviews, I have always enjoyed the professionalism and knowledge of Captain Mike, and his crew — Timmy, Joey, Chris, and others. They run a great expedition and I would highly recommend to anyone/​everyone. Again, while I certainly enjoy the fishing, I enjoy the wonderful atmosphere even more.

Our fishing trip on the Lady Sea started out great. The owner Boody took our reservation and was charming on the phone, and even suggested various lodging where we might find last minute reservations.
Chris, who mans the snack bar was also full of interesting information about the area, and helped us with our poles and lines. So far we had a really great impression of the trip and were enjoying ourselves immensely. Here’s where it started to go wrong.
During much of the trip, we would find ourselves hitting schools of dogfish sharks, which aren’t a keeper fish, but we enjoyed catching and releasing anyway. The captian told us that they are a non edible species that fisherman dislike. Which explains the behavior of the young deckhand Timmy I guess… after releasing about a dozen back in sea, he gleefully stomped one to death. Prior to that, he’d seemed like a really nice kid. Guess someone should tell him it’s probably not a good idea to let the tourists see him joyfully subject the small sharks to a violent death for his own sheer amusement (even if it is just a fish.)
Ok, so maybe I’m being touchy, but I was starting to get upset at this point. In Key West we’d gone on a similar trip and loved it, the staff had been so professional. Apparently, I hadn’t seen anything yet. Shortly thereafter, another deckhand, Joey, removed a dogfish from someone’s hook, took out his knife, and laughingly severed its spine. He threw the still live but now paralyzed creature into the sea, where it floated helplessly, until it finally drowned and sank. Wow.
Needless to say, what should have been an enjoyable tourist trip leaves me hours later disturbed and disgusted at the cruelty of the Sea Lady staff. My husband is an experienced fisherman with many previous party boat expeditions under his belt, and he tells me that it is not customary for the staff to stomp to death or purposely paralyze the non-​edible fish. I understand that removing the hook sometimes requires stepping on the fish, and sometimes they are damaged. I am not confusing this commonplace activity with what happened today. What I saw were two people purposely go out of their way to viciously torment the animals while taking great delight in doing so. Very upsetting and unprofessional!

If you have the opportunity to ride on the Yankee fleet i’d say go with that option. They are roughly the same price but the overall service and quality of poles is much better on the Yankee Fleet. They had only two ship mates attending to the whole boat of 40 ppl so many times we’d get stuck waiting for someone to come untangle our lines. For a good 20 mins two of our reels were not working so we lost that time fishing.

I 100% regretted going on this trip when I spotted Captain Mike throwing trash (plastic cups, dirty rags, and cigarettes) into the ocean when there was a trash can right by his side. If you care about the environment, do NOT support this fleet. If you are still considering purchasing a ticket after reading this, please note that the fishing was also awful. Among all of us (about 40 people) there were only a few keepers during a whole day of fishing.

There are a lot of choices out there for fishing in the Gloucester area, but I’m sure glad we chose Gloucester Fleet. We found them through the internet on my iPhone and when I called them Carolann arranged a great trip for all 25 of us. (Originally I thought there was only 15 — but no problem). We all had been to my Cousin’s wedding on Saturday in Manchester By The Sea, and many of us just wanted to keep the fun and party going, Mike is a fantastic Captain, and Booty, (the father) manages logistics and ticket sales Turns out Carolann is Booty’s wife so it’s a real nice family run operation. Everything Capt’n Mike suggested was wonderful, his local knowledge of fishing spots was fantastic. But the real highlight was just about everybody catching fish. At the end of the ½ day afternoon trip we starting landing really big keeper Cods, and he stayed right with it even though we ran over time. B-​e-​a-​u-​t-​i-​f-​u-​l !
I would HIGHLY recommend Gloucester Fleet Deep Sea Fishing for anyone considering fishing in the area. Their equipment was top shelf in excellent condition, and well maintained, and every time somebody hooked a fish the mates immediately showed up out of nowhere to help as if on queue.
I’ve done all kinds of fishing all over the place on many different boats with many guides and outfitters. Thanks Captain Mike for a great afternoon of fishing! You run a first class operation!

I had a great time on my trip! We did a ¾ day deep sea fishing trip. The crew is super nice and very helpful. They helped me catch a «Propah Cod» which was DELICIOUS! I would definitely recommend them to anyone who asks!