Fishing Good--Business, Not So Much

There is no doubt snapper fishing is good. "As quick as somebody dropped a hook then somebody was yelling fish on, fish on. I couldn't get mine off the hook fast enough to get it back out in the water," says Nat Walker on a family trip from Louisiana.

But the business of fishing is not as good according to Thad Stewart with Zeke's Marina. "The opening day of snapper season was awesome. All of our boats went out on opening day. The day after it went down a little bit. Since then it's tailed off a little bit. Weekends have been pretty steady but during the week its not like it was say in 2007, 8 or 9."

Take a look at slips in the marina and you kind of see how the seasons going so far. Over here the slips are empty. They're out fishing. But over here a lot of boats are still here and waiting.

Last years oil spill practically shut the charter boat business. The perception that gulf seafood is not safe to eat may play a role in the decline in business but the economy could also be a factor. "We used to take a lot of companies fishing where as now we're taking more families," says Stewart.

That is what brought the Walker's from Louisiana to Orange Beach. "My grandson turned 12 years old and this is what he wanted to do for his birthday. So, we all came deep sea fishing."

"The family business is growing. So maybe it will just take time for families to find boats they like, find marinas they like and stick with it," says Stewart.

But time may not be on the side of charter boat captains who are depending on a red fish to get them through one more year.

60 percent of the charter fleet at Zeke's Marina are booked during the week, 80 percent during weekend. That's down from the last summer snapper season in 2009.