Mills charters are awsum, they let you keep everything and theyr the cheapest to by far

Last time we were on they ran out of bait but

Me and 9 of my mates went out from hillaries last year.   We had so much booze I think tha skipper and deckie thought we had over estimated. Tha skipper sorted out accomadation on rotto and had all tha basics covered breakfast lunch dinner.   Tha goal for our trip was to catch enough food to feed everyone at tha wedding.   It was a great trip we didnt manage to get onto anythng of big size but did get our fair share of edible fish.   We also pulled into a spot off rotto and jigged for squid wich was also succesful.   When we pulled back into hillaries tha eskies had no piss in em but had enough fish to feed a laid back beach/backyard wedding bbq.   My only complaint was that none of tha fish were scaled (thought that was what tha deckie was for?)  We had two dudes get sea sick but tha decision was made that they would suffer and we wouldnt be taking anyone back in.   I think tha skipper was glad to see us get off his boat but at tha same time I think he still enjoyed tha 3 days!!  Nothing like having tequila for beakfast with a rod over tha side of a boat and great friends.   Would love to be able to do it again one day.

I have been on a few charters over the years and had great experiences out of Shark Bay and Exmouth (lots of fish, good crew, good food, lots of laughs) but I always take my own gear as often the gear supplied by the charter companies is way too heavy.  I have had a couple of bad experiences, one out of Exmouth and one out of Darwin, both many years ago.  

The Exmouth experience involved the skipper failing to find fish, and after moving around for a while trying to put us on fish, he eventually gave up and we just drifted aimlessly with nobody catching anything. I could see the sounder and we were on crap bottom, but he just wanted to get the day over as quickly as possible I think.

In Darwin, my brother and I went out on a small charter boat advertising "sportsfishing".  I rang before hand and said we wanted to throw poppers around for trevally, queenies and jacks etc.  They said "no problem, that's us".  But when we got on board, there were 3 grey nomads aboard who just wanted to float around with a handline over the side, which is what the skipper did for most of the day, with my brother and I throwing poppers aimlessly from the stern.  We eventually jacked up, and the skipper did put us on to some great queenies, but it was pretty clear that his priority was to get paying bums on seats, not live up to his "sportfishing" advertising.

Bottom line is, do your homework if you are planning on a charter.  They can be great, or a complete waste of money. 

I went out on mahi mahi II out from coral bay, there were stacks of people but I took my own rod and was alowed to fish from the bow which saved me quite a few tangles. caught heaps of great fish and had an absolute ball.

hope mahi mahi is a good at delivering.. I have a week at the monties with them later this year... so I will all let u know how I go... ;)

i have been on heaps of charters off Broome, coral bay, hillaries and mandurah and i have to say that fishing with no more than 6 people on board, a great skipper and deckie.....Absolute Ocean Charters is my pick of the best!

I have been on many charters, locally, interstate and internationally. The best charters are the ones when you are not packed on like a sardine, i.e Perth metro. I used to charter Andy Youngs boat [went under the name of Corsair Charters, I think...]whenever I was at the Makerels, and we would ask for a price for the boat for the day, this way we fished with no more than six of us, and I think those charters would have to be my best experiences.

the only charter ive been on was saltwater charters of hillarys, to be honest..i didnt like the gear personally, and there was a lot of driving around more than fishing BUT...the fishing spots were awesome, everyone on the boat caught a decent fish, including pink snapper, queenie, blak arse, sambo etc.

i will definetely go with them again, just this time have my own gear ;)

Actually just got back from a trip with Saltwater Charters.

We got non-stop pinkies all day yesterday, but that was because we pretty much only fished the 70m mark where we were.

The fun really started about half an hour before sundown last nite with two YTF and then followed by two big wahoos. No, we weren't in Perth.

The boat needs some work to be a good troller. Despite the width, its actually hard to get a decent spread up because none of the rod holders point out from the boat and there are no useful ones on the back left of the boat, just that baitboard. 

All in all it was good trip!

mixed experiences. from those that have had a good trip out you seem to have chosen the right ones. would be good to hear of a few more so others know which ones to go out on and the ones to avoid

i went on a charter out from shark bay total disaster first they were half an hour late on the boat ramp then they didnt do any safety procedures or any thing, there was too many people on the boat, the deckie was on work experience didnt know i thing about fishing but it wasnt his fault they should of had another deckie helping him that was experienced. then we finally got to the spot there was no rods rigged up we had to wait for the skipper to make rigs. It was so packed one person had to wait and then swaped with another person when they got a fish. every time you dropped down and got a fish you would get tangles everytime and then you had to untangle them yourselves because the deckie was seasick the skipper tried to help but there was just to much for one person. we then ran out of bait and had to use fish we brought up which attracted the sharks mayhem every where. then to top it all off we ran out of sinkers NOT HAPPY. We got back to the ramp no apologies and then we went to the cleaning bench to clean the fish and met people that went out on another boat, same charter company and had a awesome time, there catch put ours to shame they were on a bigger boat and had less people on it. i couldnt beleive how a charter company was so bad NOT HAPPY

Southern Cross Charters all the way

class outfit and would reccomend them to anyone and the forum posts back this up, good to the FW members also. Seems to be ditto with SaltWater but personally haven't been out with them

Faulkner family- yea thats the company we went with the skipper just didnt want to be there my uncle was talking to him on the way out and asked him if he liked being the skipper of the boat and said he didnt like being a skipper he wanted to get into something else. you could also tell by his body language he just didnt want to be there. im pretty sure it was the son of the owner of the fishing charter company

But a few years ago i went out on Ten66 out of freo . we where out there for about 2 hours and an old guy decided he would take a sea sickness tablet 30 minutes later lines up had to head in because he started having signs of a heart attack. ended up getting half price charter for the next one out of it , so out i went again with a mate . the skipper was umming and arrhing about going out 4/5 meter swell but decided to go , we got half way out and the skipper got sea sick . good on the deckie for having a go and got us out there . As soon as the boat stopped 10 guys all sitting around the bin all chucking up . So my mate and i had the whole boat to fish off . look back at it now and its funny but was pissed off at the first trip when it happened.