My name is Capt Dylan Hubbard, I am the Vice President and Co-owner at Hubbard’s Marina, and avid near shore and offshore angler. I am a fourth generation, born and raised, Florida native raised on the back deck of our private charter and party fishing boats here at Hubbard's Marina. This is my family’s business and my passion. We started back in 1928 from row boats with cane poles and today nearly 90 years and four generations later we are now offering all types of fishing from two inches of water in the back waters out past 1,000 foot on our deep drop fishing adventures. Whatever someone wants to do offshore near shore or inshore no matter the sized group we have a trip for them at Hubbard’s Marina.
My ultimate goal is to continue to grow our family business and our footprint in the fishing industry. We are the original and longest running offshore fishing fleet on the west coast of Florida and we were the first to ever offer long range overnight party boat fishing and the first to have large group private charter options. Now we are the first to ever offer a hydrofoil assisted catamaran with USCG inspection. Also, one of the only ones on the west coast with a large fleet of deep drop fishing charters.
I started fishing as soon as I was old enough to hold a fishing rod and reel and haven’t stopped. I started working in the business around the age of 5-6 years old catching bait on the dock so I could buy more fishing tackle. I got my saltwater products license and started selling bait to other companies too around age 7. Then I started working nearly daily to save up for my first boat and at age 9 finally accomplished my goal of owning my own boat, a 17ft Carolina skiff with a 40hp Nissan Tahatsu motor that broke down on me nearly every time I took it out. This boat taught me a lot about the time, energy, love and money it takes to own and operate a fishing boat. Once I was into my middle school years I started to work on our private charter boats during the summer and weekends. I would often spend the weekend working charters or the summer offshore working the boat. This is when I feel in love with being offshore and being on the water. I continued working part time on the fishing boats through middle school and high school.
I eventually graduated and decided to attend the University of Central Florida to be sure I loved the
water I decided to go to school in a land locked area. Well it was clear after a short time I couldn’t make it without some fishing so I met some friends and we started a bass fishing league traveling around local ponds and lakes around UCF when not in class or working as a bouncer at the college bars I was out fishing the ponds.After three years of studying business management and hospitality management I left with my AA and gave up on the idea of my bachelor’s degree as I just couldn’t stand being in Orlando anymore so far from my beloved central west coast of Florida.
I quickly moved home and lived down the street from the marina inside Johns pass working full time as a mate on the big party boats. This was the life, little responsibility, hard work and a great time on the water with plenty of fishing in the mix. Well that abruptly came to an end with a serious back injury and that made me really rethink my plan of working as a mate, then becoming a captain, then learning the office side of things. Because of my back injury and recovery I was forced into the office prematurely and didn’t get to pursue my captain’s license as quickly as I would’ve liked.
Well turned out that I happened to be okay at operations, management, advertising and working in the
back of the house, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I started working in the front office as a reservationist after my back surgery and slowly worked my way to the back of the house and through staffing changes and my growth as a manager slowly made my way to Vice President.
Now it was time to move back onto the water and I got my captains license shortly thereafter, once that came in the mail it wasn’t too much longer that I was back on the water running charters and all the trips no one else wanted to do. I have finally worked my way through all our charter boats, most of our ferry boats and now I am running our largest boat the Florida fisherman regularly. It really has been quite a ride and I am excited for what the future holds. I would love to get more time on my hands to run more long range and extended trips. However, what really burns up lots of time and has become a true passion of mine is fishing education. Passing what I know along to others and also fisheries management to try and preserve our fishery access and ability to prosecute our fishery.
Nowadays I am attending every NMFS gulf council meeting without fail and nearly every AP meeting in
the downtown Tampa NMFS building to try and further our recreational fishery access and preserve our
rights to fish as recreational anglers. I currently serve as Chair of the Data collection Advisory Panel for the NOAA Fisheries National marine fisheries Gulf of Mexico fishery management council, and I sit on their Reef fish Advisory panel too. Finally, I chair the Outreach and Education technical committee for the council too.
Along the educational lines, I work tirelessly with Bass pro shops and other local tackle shops and fishing clubs to do seminars all over the Tampa Bay area to share my passion for fishing with everyone. I have also started a weekly online LIVE fishing seminar on the Hubbard’s Marina Facebook page that seems to be working out well. This is every Sunday night at 8:30pm for an hour if you want to join in. Plus, we have secured a partnership with the Reel Animals Radio show and I Co-Host the Saturday morning Reel Animals Radio show each Saturday morning on WFLA 970 from 6a-8a for the two-hour fishing radio show. Then finally, I was blessed to be asked by Fox 13 news to do a weekly live segment each Friday morning to do a fishing report live segment with their anchor, Russel Rhodes. We also film a short segment that plays through the weekend as well. Every weekend we have a news TV segment, radio
show, and then live internet show too!
All this to say, I love fishing and I love my Job and I would love for you to come join us at Hubbard’s Marina to learn more about fishing and get hooked on offshore fishing with us!
Tight lines,
Capt Dylan Hubbard