Berkeley Charter Boats

Took a crab only trip at 6am on the El Dorado. Very unorganized and jam packed with people. 27 guests and 6 crew on a not giant boat. Left a half hour late because they had to check everyone in and the captain didn't seem to know what was going on. I don't think he was the normal captain. Ship was in disrepair and they kept having to use bailing wire and hammer the pills to make sure it didn't "cut off their arms" as the captain said. Just so your not surprised, you don't do anything except go along for the ride and watch them catch your crab for you. The first 10 pots we pulled had ok amounts but the crew member measuring kept throwing back legal crabs. Captain found out and ripped him a new one in front of everyone. But that did fix the problem. Ended up with limits for everyone which is why they still get 3 stars.

New Eldorado III-Man. Where to start... the deck hands all were big help. They educated my pops and myself on various things we did not know as well as put in all efforts to help us to get a great catch.LJ, hooked my up to keep his ling cod he snagged while we were fishing for salmon. Bobby, brought constant laughter for us and assisted with my battle realing in my hog salmon. Jeremy made sure we always had fresh bait and made sure we constantly check it. The trip was definitely better having these guys to assist. Check them out if you have a chance. It will be great.

I have been on the EL DORADO ....3 times now and the first was chaotic,all the windows leaked on this old nasty tub from waves spraying into them getting all the cabin seats soaked.Robert the captain is a good guy but his son is too profane and rough and doesnt belong around people who are paying for a service and he just wont shut up.This character thinks he knows everything and everyone else knows absolutely nothing or how to fish,he also is terrible at fileting fish and I wont let him touch mine,you have to scream to get one of these charachters to net your fish and sometimes they wont show,they usually have an array of deck hands and they are no better.One of them actually heightens the utter chaos and nasty attitude of these trips.Third trip was once again chaotic said they fixed the windows but still leakI lost a rod on that trip but they would not admit to what happened to it.i guess its ok if you want to hear these idiots yelling and screaming while fishing but I have had enough.You might or might not catch fish if they net them of course.I will choose any other option.I thought they had a challenging day the first couple times but no,it is the normal operation of this boat.Could have been better,maybe..They suck

Long time party boat angler all up and down CA's beautiful coast. If you party boat fish much this will probably be a funny read. Berkeley's been one of my favorites- Happy Hooker, Cal Dawn, and I've fished Salmon on the New Easy Rider for years...This is a review for the New El Dorado III. There's no zero star rating on Yelp so I'm forced to give one which I will now take back in spirit with my words.Crab/Rock cod combo Wed before Thanksgiving. Trip sucked, and the skipper & crew are sketchy. Read on...$140 per person just for the trip (brought my own gear) x two of us. All the boats raised the price vs. previous years... Ok, but if you're gonna do it the customer should come first more than ever right?Guess not with these guys. 29 of us on the boat, "160 something" crab caught according to the guys counting and a crew member I asked, and everyone got 4 crab. Do the math.Let's not forget the jumbos that weren't included in the count because one of the deckhands tossed them in a compartment to save for himself when the traps were pulled. Awesome.Oh, if you volunteered to work and do the crew's job for them you got one more. Take it in: THE CREW WAS PAYING CUSTOMERS WITH CRAB TO WORK WHILE DECKHANDS STOOD AROUND IN THE WHEELHOUSE. There were 6 crew, 5 of them deckhands- I've never seen this in NorCal. Then, if you put $ in the "crab tips" jar you got one more crab.Crab tips? WTF? This jar came out post-fish cleaning which we'd already shelled out $40 for 2 limits of rockfish. Asking for tips on every occasion possible was the theme along the way too. Laaame.The kicker: after they finish passing out less than half-limits of crab to the paying customers, as we pull up to the dock we watch the crew stuff 4 sacks with full limits of 10 crab. Thank you for that final bitchslap to the very essence of customer service guys.Look, I sort of get it. Done right you have a tough job that doesn't pay a lot. It's Thanksgiving tomorrow and you're looking to show up with something for the friends or fam. Doesn't make it Ok to rip off the customers and make us chumps though.I'll tie a bow on on things with a summary timeline of the trip as well:1) Arrived before 6am but left the dock at 7am after waiting around for paramedics to arrive and escort some lady off the boat who decided she didn't feel well and wanted a refund.2) Stopped in SF for gas and bait. Burn another hour.3) Let's stick to the game plan and still motor on out to the Farallons!!! Start fishing for rock cod at 10:30am.4) Stop fishing at 2pm to go drop 6 or 7 crab pots in the water for later days. And the deckhands aren't very good at it. Burn another hour.5) Pull pots until 4:30pm with not many crab in most of them because someone else ran through the gear when it was left out to soak for 3 days.6) Get back to the dock at 6pm and promptly flee from the entire experience.Will never fish with these guys again, and if asked I'll steer folks away. Too many other boats to have a good experience on. Deuces El Dorado III.

El Dorado 3--Went on a salmon trip with my son that was changed to halibut at the last minute? Okay but then Captain Shawn started off by watching his first mate punch me in the face with the butt end of the net after I caught the first fish! He kindly apologized and promised me he'd make it up to me by giving me a trip on the house next time. Well next time was today and when I showed up at 5:30am with my 12 year old son he hesitated and then said okay to just charge me for my boy. 5 minutes later the first mate came over and said he changed his mind. No integrity! Not to mention the boat was beyond full capacity and they advertised, "Socially distant SALMON and HALIBUT trips available this summer"? And most of them didn't even wear a mask! BEWARE!

The El Dorado.....I went fishing with a big group of friends/family aug 13th. We had so much fun...just about all of us caught our maximums in salmon. I even caught the biggest one on the boat with the help of Captain Bobby. I had so much fun I went back out again aug 20th. We had a beautiful day in the water and I ended up catching 3 salmon and 1 cod. The crew was amazing..they were eager to help with the snags and reeling in the fishes...Captain Bobby even stuck it out an extra hour just so one of the young ladies would be able to catch her first salmon (and she did)!! The guys even put up with all my questions cause im trying to learn. :) I cant wait to go back!

This is for the New El Dorado III boat......Updated to 5 star. Here's why: consistently great experiences.Third time out on the El Dorado III December 2016 for Rock/Crab combo.Fast boat. It took us 2 hours from dock to lines in the water. Some boats take 3 1/2 hrs to do the same. We were second to the last boat out and first back with rock and crab limits and more than 20 lings for 17 passengers. One guy caught 11 ling by himself.Main deckhand David is awesome. Always has a great attitude and very helpful. I got tangled up a couple of times with my neighbors. He patiently cleared the mess.Fishing was great. Only issue was they had removed the rod holders. Made for a body abuse day. Could be worse, you could be the fish :)))

Had an opportunity to go out on a crabbing and rock fish trip with a group of 16 people we were going on the Malia Kai with captain Steve I could tell he put a makeshift crew together only one of the 3 seemed to have his shit together and I did tip him accordingly. After dropping pots for crab the Captain realized his boat was not big enough for the waves to reach the fishing grounds. So he decided to just float around for an hour and a half to let the " pots soak" then came the best part first pot was reeled in and 6 keepers then hear came Mr know it all deckhand #1 from yelling at the captain on how to maneuver the boat to taking over the reeling of the pots. We had 31 pots and ended up with 31 crab this guy took over the reeling as the pots were being reeled he would loose the rope off the reel and it would float down and every time no crab. Complete know it all Moran. Got to the dock and was given my 2 crab we went over to have them cooked and were the only ones that didn't get there limit of 10 each every other person that came up that dock had a full limit. Captain Steve made his money for taking us on a 11 hour cruise. Now I know why I couldn't find him on any fish count list since June he must be a summer time fisherman that needs to stay in the bay one star only because of the deckhand that cleaned all the bait and reeled the first pot

Superb group of characters every year during November for crabbing. It's all about home-made gumbo and garlic crab. Get Some !!

Very negative experience. I booked a trip through their online site far in advance for our group on a specific boat and captain. Two days before I received a text: "Hey ****** it's Scott from Berkeley Charter Boats.Booking #165648821I apologize but the ******* is way over booked this Friday and we need to move your reservation and a few others to another boat.The *****'s brother, the SEA BASS and the EL DORADO are both available and will likely have light loads. It greatly improves your success rate to be on a boat with 12 people versus 30+. We'll even include your fishing pole rental and tackle if required.Will you move to another boat Friday?"I texted Scott back that it was not OK to change boats for us. I really like the boat and captain's fishing expertise on the boat I booked which is why I did it early. When I didn't get a reply I called and got a call back. I was told by Scott this was due to the captain, which wasn't true. Scott did not get the list of online reservations to the captain in a timely fashion so reservations were added to what unbeknown to the captain was a full boat. Also I had been told I was billed by Berkeley Charter Boats $25 more than the captain charges for the trip plus an additional booking fee of $24 per person. My fishing friend who also talked to Scott got a similar story although he had spoken to the captain earlier and found out early enough to correct the situation for his group. Scott also tried to get him to arrange a salmon fishing trip on one of the boats. When told the salmon season had been closed by the department of fish and wildlife, he said no they were planning trips. ( this would be illegal.) I have fished for decades in the Bay Area and other areas in California, and this has been by far my worst experience.