Captain Hook Party Fishing Boat at Shelter Cove

• Boat: 70 feet long, 21 feet wide
• Offshore trip: 5.5 hours, 9 a.m.
• Adults: $75 to $85
• Gear: rods, bait and tackle included

Captain Hook is the big white party boat on Dock C at Shelter Cove Harbour & Marina, and the largest party fishing boat on the island: 70 feet long and 21 wide, family-owned and inspected by the Coast Guard. It has an enclosed cabin, shaded seats along the fishing rails, a galley selling hot and cold food and drinks, two restrooms and an upper sun deck. On a party boat you buy a place, not the whole boat, so you fish alongside other groups. Rods, reels, bait, tackle, ice and fish cleaning are included, and the crew walks the rail all trip untangling lines and showing beginners what to do.

Captain Hook Party Fishing Trips

• Offshore fishing: the most popular trip, 5.5 hours out to the wrecks and reefs, leaving at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. $85 for adults and teens, $75 for children 12 and under.

• Inshore shark fishing: about four hours in calmer water for blacktip, dusky, Atlantic sharpnose and hammerhead sharks, weekdays from mid-May through August, with a shorter 3.5-hour trip on summer Fridays. $80 for adults on the four-hour trip, $75 on the Friday trip.

• Night shark fishing and fireworks: on Tuesdays from mid-June to mid-August, four hours of shark fishing that finishes on the water for the HarbourFest fireworks. $80 for adults, $70 for children.

The season starts in March. The offshore trip is out on the open ocean, so the inshore shark trips, in calmer water, are the gentler choice for young children.

Private Fishing Charters

The same family runs private boats for a group of your own: Gale Warning, a 22-foot bay boat for up to four, and Gale Force, a 28-foot Whitewater for up to six that goes from a three-hour nearshore family trip to a ten-hour offshore day. They are booked through Hilton Head Sport Fishing, the family’s sister company, which also runs the offshore boats Gullah Gal and True Grits. The island’s other ways to fish are in our Hilton Head fishing guide.