Start Me Up Sport Fishing Charters

Great crew (Ross, Ekolu, Will), great trip. Our 8-hour tour started with catching live mackerel for bait fish, then headed off the southwest corner of Lanai for our first run. All 9 fish were pulled in within a matter of 30 minutes -- fast paced thrill ride with lots of action. Multiple fish on the line at the same time.

The remainder of the trip was spent hunting for marlin, but unfortunately none were taken, but all good!

Fish were cut up into filets and allocated to each crew member -- enough for a large dinner per person. The remainder of the fish was sold to local restaurants and the money goes back to the crew, which I certainly support!

Looking forward to my next trip with this crew!

What a fabulous experience! Our family of 4 had so much fun on the water with Captain Timster & his first mate Ryan. We had never been before, so we didn't know what to expect. They took their time to teach us boat/fishing safety & protocol. Then we got to the fun stuff-sport fishing. We all caught something & made lasting memories doing it. I would recommend this company for your sport fishing adventures.

Slow, rough day out on the water but you never know what the conditions will be like when you're taking out a charter. Our whole boat only got one mahi and a few small tuna. Loved being able to bring home a filet and enjoy for a few meals! Crew was great and very helpful!

If there was a way to post a -negative star I'd post a -100000! The Captain was outright rude! We chartered the boat for 6hrs, showed up a few mins before 6 and the boat was no where to be found. After calling no answer and talking to other boat staff, someone contacted the Captain of the boat and he pulled back in, the Captain was rude and said I've been here since 4am and you are late! He got us in the boat, sat us down and pointed to the Primary contact and said "You don't look happy, I won't take anyone out who is not happy". Everyone exited the boat!

This is our last day and planned this special boat charter paid well over 1k woke up early and now have to figure out what to do to save our last day!

This Captain should be FIRED! No way to treat customers!

Had a great time fishing with Captain Tim and Derek. Caught a beautiful Mahi Mahi they cleaned and filtered for usand enjoyed it for dinner.

Booked a 6 hour private charter with Start Me Up for myself and two sisters in March 2023. None of us had ever been sport fishing. Captain Tim called to tell me to be at the dock at 4:15am, he wanted to be a little earlier than the 6:30am departure orginally booked. Believe me, it was a great decision. The moonlight cruise to the fishing spot was beautiful, and at dawn we dropped our first casts and had fish on the deck in 5 minutes. Over the span of 2 hours we landed more than 12 Mahi Mahi. Great fun! Exhausting, exhilarating. Time and Derrick were fantastic guides, especially with us newbies. Add in some closeup whale sightings, and it could not have been a better day. Thank you Tim and Derrick, definitely a bucket list memory.

My family and I had a fantastic time finishing up our trip to Maui with Captain Timster and crew member Ryan. We caught an amazing 45 pound Ono! They made it a really great experience and were very knowledgeable! I can't wait to come back in the future and do another trip with them and my friends !

Ugh, what a bad experience. Ross the captain was laid back and that turned out to be symbolic of the entire experience.

They had two pieces of live bait going out only, really badly prepared. Then they tried to catch some mackerel to use as live bait and that didn't happen.

Then they gave everyone a number that is to be called when a fish is on the line. Ross said, remember your number because I won't! He wasn't kidding.

They called a Child's number first and he caught a fish, then his dads number was called and he caught. Then it was supposed to be my turn and he called the child again. Pretty unbelievable. I asked him if he could please call my number the next time. There wasn't a next time.

The father and son left with 3 fish and the other two families were never called.

We were in an area where we started to catch and then he immediately left and began trolling and we caught nothing. Worst charter I have ever been on. Really unfortunate experience.

Went on a charter the first week of March 2022. Captain Steve and Ryan made sure that the most important thing on the trip was that we enjoyed ourselves. Made us feel right at home. Got us on the fish and we had an excellent time. Highly recommend them.

I was a bit nervous about booking after coming on here and reading the reviews and seeing the star rating but the trip wasn't bad at all. We caught 2 Onos. As other folks have highlighted they state on the website you can keep it but the crew will want to keep your fish (boo) if you actually catch some. This is not the norm when we've done chartered fishing elsewhere as anywhere else they let you keep your catch and in fact most places help sort the packaging/shipping of the fish back home but this is (as we learned) not the standard in Hawaii. We would've preferred to keep all our catch, but it got kind of awkward when we raised it and we ultimately just took 3 fillets enough for our dinner that night and let them have the other fish. Good trip overall, just come on board with that expectation and you won't be disappointed.