Mount Pleasant Magazine Nov/Dec 2016

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Captain J.R. Waits has been
a professional fishing guide for two
decades, while Captain Hunter Allen
has been working the waters of coastal
Carolina for four years. Waits owns
two boats, the larger vessel big enough
to handle six anglers seeking fun,
relaxation and the thrill of the sport of fishing around
the Lowcountry’s beaches and jetties and in Charleston
Harbor. Allen plies his trade in an 18-footer, mostly sight
fishing in shallow water and rarely working with more
than one or two clients at a time.
They have something important in common, however,
besides the fact that they are fishing fanatics who begin the
majority of their 200 or so excursions a year at the Isle of
Palms Marina. They both earned college degrees, then later
discovered that they would rather make their living on the
water than in an office building.
“I go under the bridges on my commute rather than over
them,” said Allen, the owner of Lighter Breeze Charters.
Allen grew up in the Columbia area, but, since his
family owned a home on Sullivan’s Island, he spent
extensive time along the coast. He earned a degree in
Finance at Wofford College and spent a few years in
commercial property management before abandoning
his desk job and moving his place of business to the great
outdoors.
“The whole time I was working in an office, I was
always thinking about what was happening on the water,”
he said. “And I wanted to be my own boss.”
James Raymond Waits, owner of Fish Call Charters,
echoed that sentiment, adding that “I love to do stuff
outdoors, and I love to make people happy. People rarely
come on board with a bad attitude. They’re always happy
to go fishing.”
Waits grew up on the Wando River, north of Mount
Pleasant, and earned a masters degree in Geology at the
University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Unable to
find a job in the Lowcountry to match his education, he
decided to earn his living doing what he has been doing
most of his life: fishing.
Waits said from April to October, he serves his clients
in his 24-footer, fishing for tarpon, bull redfish, shark
and cobia. In the winter, he guides in a 17-footer, usually
looking for redfish, sea trout and flounder. He can take
six people out in “Trophy Hunter” but only three in
“Fish Call.”
“I need the larger boat in the summer because that’s
Captain J.R. Waits earned a Geology degree. Unable to find a job
in the Lowcountry to match his education, he decided to make
his living doing what he has been doing most of his life: fishing.