Fleet King – Captain Ralph Brewster

Want to pay good money to spend time with a miserable captain and first mate who clearly have tons of disdain for inexperienced fishers? Like to get treated like crap and yelled at for the most mundane things while trying to have a good time? If the answer was YES to either of these questions then this is the charter boat for you!
Recent talk of a fishing trip among friends reminded me that a review needed to be written for this guy. A while back a large group of us (15) hired Captain Ralph Brewster to take us out for a day of fishing off of Long Beach Island. It was the most miserable experience I have ever had fishing. The captain and his first mate were surly as hell, had no patience with the inexperienced members of our party and frequently got belligerent with us for the most mundane things.
Here’s just one of many examples of what we experienced; Throughout the day we were hooking skates and I did it myself on several occasions. Since a skate is an odd shaped fish and I didn’t know how you hold it when removing the hook I asked the captain if he could remove it for me (he had told us he or his first mate would remove any hooks we couldn’t). I purposely gave him 5 or 6 feet of slack on the line so he could remove the hook without worry of getting jabbed. The captain yelled at me for not tightening up the line — no explanation of how much less slack I should have had. About an hour later I hooked another skate. The first mate was busy so again I asked the captain to unhook it for me. This time I purposely tightened up most of the slack from the line so there was only about 3 feet between the fish and the end of the rod. The captain yelled at me again and this time told me to loosen the line, «what are you trying to do, hook me?» he barked. This pretty much exemplifies our entire day fishing with this jerk. We couldn’t do anything right and he didn’t bother to explain any hows or whys so we could actually correct the things we were doing wrong.
Do everyone that enjoys day fishing trips a favor and don’t give this guy any business because he doesn’t belong working with people. The captain is based out of Forked River, NJ but works out of Barnegat Light, NJ.