Pay Scale?

[joeksr]

everyone thinks about the captain and mates how about the owner how much does he get paid per day percentage or tips oh he just gets the bills and doesnt matter if he makes money or not as long as everyone else makes it

Set me straight on this. I dont think anyone can run a newer boat 40' and above and "make money" charter fishing. Captains I know and have spoken to on boats this size dont own em. The captain, Mate, boat maintenance is an expense. The boat is a tax write off for the owners.
If your gonna own a boat might as well get a write off. Nothin wrong with that. Actually was thinking of doing this with a couple of friends of mine one time.
Does anyone think that investing 1/2- 1 mil or more in a boat and chartering is a good profit business ? I think if you are looking for profit you could do better elsewhere. Not trying to piss people off but inquiring minds want to know.

[swell rider]

I don't want to sound like an A** hole but if you can afford the boat and a hired Capt and crew, you should n't be complaining about pay. If that's the case sell the boat or run it yourself like the rest of us.Ken

[Caveman Sportfishing]

We have upped our price so much recently it does not make much sense to go by the past pay scale that we used in the past for mates. 12 hour day troll-jigging trips starting at $2695.00 and overnight trips close to $4000.00 now. These trips were in the $1600.00 (day) to $2600 (24 hour overnight) just a few years ago. We have always paid the mate 10% of the trip plus mates always kept 100 % of the tip. I run almost all the trips now and only use a paid captain a few times a year when we do back to back overnight trips in the fall and never on day troll trips. In the past when I used paid captains they got half the tips on all trips as they worked the pit along with mate. I feel a good mate makes or breaks a trip many times but wondering what type of pay scale would be fair these days with the high prices for trips we now charge. It is going to cost me around $1500 a day in fuel charges if we run 60 miles or so which is the closest canyon and in years past we often ran 80 miles to get the good water. Currently diesel fuel is about $5.00 a gallon at our marina. I have been thinking about all this recently and want to be fair but very concerned about the mate pay scale and how much it now costs to run offshore trips in our area. I do not know what to do on this issue and have been paying my mate $100.00 per inshore trip plus they keep the tips which average about $200 per trip on our spring Black Drum trips. We usually get around we $1000 for 8-10 hours and I burn app 50-60 gallons of fuel and $70.00 for two bushels of surf clams for bait. Any thoughts on all of this and I do want to be fair but the charter world is nuts these days with the fuel costs we all face.

[sportfishingusa]

I am not sure what the pay rate is on other boats but i feel that a overnighter is worth about 300 for the night plus tips.. since the tips are based at 20 percent of 4000 i would say that 800 for the tip plus 300 for the trip.. 1100 a night?!?! sign me up john.. i will work with you anytime buddy!!

but seriously that is more than fair i believe.. i dont want to get anyone mad by that statement but i think that is more than fair.

I know party boats that have 4 mats are paying 60-75 a day plus tips split 4 ways.. that only works out to 100 or so per day..

100 for inshore plus 200 dollar tip is perfect.. do not see anything further needed john...

[Capt. Terry]

""I am not sure what the pay rate is on other boats but i feel that a overnighter is worth about 300 for the night plus tips.. since the tips are based at 20 percent of 4000 i would say that 800 for the tip plus 300 for the trip.. 1100 a night?!?! sign me up john.. i will work with you anytime buddy!!
but seriously that is more than fair i believe.. i dont want to get anyone mad by that statement but i think that is more than fair.I know party boats that have 4 mats are paying 60-75 a day plus tips split 4 ways.. that only works out to 100 or so per day..100 for inshore plus 200 dollar tip is perfect.. do not see anything further needed john..."" SportfishingUSA

SportfishingUSA, trust me a 8 to 10 hour drum trip on the Delaware Bay is a long day and $100 for the trip plus a $200 tip is good pay for the day on a drum trip as a mate. I would suggest John that for the offshore trip the mate be payed a base of $200 maybe $225 to $250 if he is exceptional. The mate can make the trip but it is also helpful if he and the captain work together like a fine tuned machine. Keep em happy cause I know from the past as a mate it is easy to get burned out and also caught up in the hype. As far as the 24 hour over nighters fishing I say $300 is a good base pay. Now as far as tips I truefully believe that suggesting to each and every charter that 15% to 20% is the norm. I can remember trips getting $500.00 tips back when we came back to the dock with 3 or 4 release flags or a box with 18 yft in it. I can also remember trips getting the normal $150.00 tip for a day when I cut my self and got pocked by frozen butterfish fins catch 23 tunas and you count your cash in the stateroom down below and ask yourself what just happened here - I was here @ 3:30 am this morning, put in a solid 14 hour day and including my normal pay of $150 plus my $150 I only made $300 when you feel as though you should have maybe broke the $400 mark. Now as far as the 20% tip on a $4000.00 overnighter charter - I think that there will be a common sense factor here within the charter and the mate. I would say on charters over say $2600 or so that maybe a 15% tip may be customary. I mean lets be realistic here, you don't want to necessarily drive your customers away for God sakes. Expecting 6 perople to split $4000 evenly is $667 a man adding $140.00 roughly a man to that equation for a 20% tip on a $4000.00 overnighter trip equals out to over $800.00 a man. Now I don't know about any of you cats out there, but I am a happily married 100 Ton USCG Liscensed Captain myself, and to go and ask my wife if I could just go and drop $800.00 + on a fishing trip not to mention gas, beer, food, hotel and vacation day (or two) and what have you, would probably be like telling the Lotto system to pick my 5 digit number on the Saturday night lottery. So to Speak anyway, I just think that is a lot to ask of anyone myself. It would fly in my house I guarantee it with a little boy that I will be sending to college buying a car for, etc. But anyway what I am saying is to expect as a mate to make $1100.00 for a 24 hour trip, ......maybe its time that you take a chance and start your own company, venture, etc for that type of money. Heak I own a 1/3 of a w.t. company and I sell jobs to companies for acid cleanings etc. The 24 hour acid cleaning that we do on a boiler say 500 hp goes for anywhere from $8000 to $9000. Two employees do the job stay awake for what works out to be about 30 hours straight. I pay for their hotel fee, food bills, water, ice, and snacks which ends up being about $325.00 or so. The chemical for the job cost me some where around $3500.00 or so. Plus maint fees on my pumps and equipment. They bust their a*s for 30 hours. I make sure they each get $1200 a piece, which is supposed to work out to $50.00 per hour but it never does cause something always goes wrong in the job which extends the job by like 2 3 or 5 hours. I make it up to them as well at the end of the week - I just give them the Friday off with pay so they can go FISH. A 24 hour fishing trip $1100 good luck with that one. I guess what I am trying to say is that it is the hard working people who appreciate hard work and will tip great most of the times. Now sometimes this may not always be true. I think it is all in the attitude of the crew. Don't cuss especially with kids on board. Keep it clean and fun and normally your pay will reflect that. I do however agree with many on this post who have stated that you have to love it and stick with it and good things will come as Wahoonbox has said. I personally think that it is a disease. I have a full time job now, because I stepped away from charter fishing many years ago to chase big money. I am a third owner in the company that I went to work for now. I find myself looking for pt cockpit duty openings and I fish on a small 30 private boat now and fish tourneys - Basically I still can't get it out of my blood - I gotta have it. Its not abou the money anymore. Yeah I agree to accept tips to replace the gear that I supply on trips and spreader bars that I make and rigs that get torn up and what not, but trust me I could come no where near close to breaking even if I tried, unless we won the WMO of course. I do fish under a percentage on the boat 15% for all tourneys which I feel is plenty fair due to the fact that I get tips and some reimbursement for tackle and all of my work, but think about it like this. Some one else is paying for the registration, the fuel, the bait, all of the calcuttas, the beer, the food, and the slip rent, the maintenance, the fusl filters, etc. I can sympathize with what some of you are saying, because I remember the days counting up all of my money at the end of the week and after a car payment, gas, insurance, food, rent, etc there was not $300 left to save before I bought a beer. But like I said, I got out of it full time in 1999. I couldn't imagine now. I like it this way for me for now, but I just have to fish so this currently works for me. Who knows maybe I will have a small charter boat one of these days and hopefully a youg eager mate as I was years ago who just has to have blood on their shirt everyday if you know what I mean....

[Flatdog]

Just out of curiosity, what if you never chartered the 60ft boat! And wanted a full time skip and pit boss on a salaried set up $45k for the pit and $55 k for the skip plus % of the winnings if any? If you entered any comps though I would imagine there would be at least two poss three a year.
How long is the season? 6 months? seems like a good deal, boat out the water/ not operating for at least 4 months of the year, is this the norm for this style of set up?
With the way things are going cost of running wise on a 60ft boat, going to a set salaried Idea for your staff has to be the way to go , plus if you have the greatest pit boss and skip they can relax knowing that they can afford to pay that "car" at the end of the month, plus the rent, if you do charter then thats a bonus, from the tips side, thats what tips are a "bonus" not salaries!
If you do not perform you do not get period, I feel that forcing anyone to rely on tips as an income is both immoral and plain down right, just not right ! It's just fine while you are young and foot loose, start to settle impossible..
I too have worked on those lines for three or four years as a game ranger in Africa paid peanuts, and lived off tips, you can only work 5 years max then the wheels come off, even with a total dedication to the work, and love of what you are doing you still need security. Anyway sorry to have mouthed off now but it burns my goat that in this day and age it still carries on. Smacks of child labor in the far east.
There may be things that I do not have a grasp of with owning a large boat, but people need to live a full year not six months of it.
My 2 cent worth!

[brad regan 01]

i was just wondering i work on a bay fishing boat and split the tips with the capt. 50/505. is this right?

[Capt. Terry]

i was just wondering i work on a bay fishing boat and split the tips with the capt. 50/505. is this right?

Brad, that is b.s. you work hard I have seen you bud. I watched you pump out your carolina skiff for like 40 mins two weeks ago the day before the OC tuna tourny and then go throw netting for bait fish that you sell. I don't think that you should have to split tips on a bay boat, a charter boat, on a any boat etc. The only tips you split on a boat Brad is when you have two mates in the pit or two mates on a head boat. I been in dis game for a while. Don't do it. I don't know what bay boat your working on, but most small bay boats are owned by da capt's so he/she is double dipping and in my mind thats ignorant. If he/she owns the boat, he/she is da capt and he/she is still interested in getting tips, then tell him/her that you'll run the boat (I know you are too young to get your captain license at this point, but don't worry your day will come sooner than you think little brother) and you will take the charter pay for the day and have them put the minnows and the squid on the hook and work for half tips - see what he/she tells you. I am on the 30' Grady 3 slips to the east of your carolina skiff.

[Chris/Producer]

Preach on Capt. Darryl!

[BubbaBert]

I've read this entire thread and understand the majority of of the comments are based on charter boats.

I have often given thought to a full time Captain for my 54' Bertram. She gets fished maybe 4 days a month. The boat is in Veneice LA. What would a reasonable salary be? what benefits would be normal? Would it be reasonable to expect the Captain to personally keep the boat washed and clean? Perform normal maintenance like oil changes?

With more boats becoming "dock queens" is it becoming harder to find good Captains? Last, is there such a thing as a "part time" Captain who spreads his time between 2 or 3 boats?

Thanks for your comments!