Now Offering EcoTours!

Tampa Bay sunrise at Weedon Island Preserve.

One of Osborne’s favorite Tampa Bay eco tour destinations is the Weedon Island Preserve. With the use of his boat’s electric trolling motor, you will have the opportunity to explore areas usually only accessible to kayakers. This allows you to observe lush mangrove shorelines and oyster beds teaming with wildlife. Every day on the water is different, but many days you’ll get up close and personal with various seabirds, dolphins, stingrays, manatees, sharks and even the occasional raccoon.

For more information, please visit this link. https://tampafishingguide.com/ecotours/

Choose Your Guide Wisely!

Fish up six anglers safely and in comfort, aboard my spacious 24′ customized Sheaffer boat.

Occasionally, I get a call from a fishing party that was left stranded at the boat dock by a guide they booked online. Many times, it happens just minutes before the scheduled departure time when the captain calls and abruptly cancels.

Here’s a tip: Online charter bookies take up to 30 percent of the captain’s fee for simply being listed on their website. If the fishing guide you booked gets another inquiry for the same date directly, meaning he doesn’t have to share his fee, he books that charter and cancels the online booking you may have made weeks, if not months in advance. It happens all the time. I’ve taken countless people fishing who have been canceled on at the last minute.

Heck, one day a jilted charter that I rescued from identical circumstances was shocked when the same unscrupulous guide who canceled on them that morning shows up with another charter in their original time slot. You just can’t make this stuff up!

Bottom line: Spend a little time browsing your potential guide’s website and do some research before booking a charter. You will be glad you did.

To learn more, please visit about Osborne/Afishionado.