All-Star Casting

Tools of the Trade credit: Ron Modra

It’s a cool November morning in Palm Beach — just 70 degrees but the sun is shining overhead and the temperature is inching upwards as we motor towards the open sea on the fifty-one-foot sportfishing charter Geno IV. Although Palm Beach is best known for swanky parties and well-manicured golf greens, the ocean has riches of its own, including exciting deep-sea fighting fish such as dolphin, marlin, kingfish, wahoos, tuna, sailfish, and sharks. Since the deep water runs so close to shore, we’re just a mile or so out when Captain Geno Pratt kills the motor and swings the boat around to face the distinctive shoreline.
 
Unlike nearby Fort Lauderdale or Miami with their skyscraping condos and hotels, Palm Beach boasts a low-to-the-ground silhouette. There are several resorts at either edge of town — the Ritz-Carlton to the south, the Breakers to the north — but from this vantage point they look like Mediterranean sand castles emerging from the white sandy beach. In between, the mansions of Billionaire’s Row dot both sides of the oceanfront road, blending tastefully in shades of white, pale peach, and lemon yellow, occasionally topped by a red or sand-colored rooftop.

“There’s Mar-a-Lago,” says Karen Pratt, Geno’s on- and off-board mate, pointing towards Donald Trump’s residence turned private club just in from the shore, “and there’s the Rockefeller place. There’s the old Vanderbilt estate. The Hearsts own it now...”

A few years back, the late William Randolph Hearst, Jr., an enthusiastic fisherman, enjoyed this very same view on the Pratts’ previous boat, Geno III. Hearst is just one of many bold-faced names that Geno and Karen have welcomed aboard. Others include actors Kevin Kline and Ed Burns as well as comedian Don Rickles, who dished out nonstop, hilarious ribbing between casts. Another favorite is the king of Bahrain, who, as Karen points out, was still just a prince when he fished with them.

“He would charter us once a year,” Karen says. “He was so nice and gracious.” Most anglers make it a point to tip the mate after a good trip. But the prince took it up a notch, leaving Karen a pearl necklace one year and Waterford crystal another. After his latest visit, he asked Geno what Karen might like for a gift. Geno suggested top-of-the-line Melton rods and bronze Penn reels. Indeed, the very rods Karen is busily arranging in their holders for us to use today came courtesy of the prince.

It’s not mandatory to have a famous name to fish on Geno IV. The Pratts host plenty of regular parties, many for resort guests looking for something to do besides shop or sip poolside cocktails. Other clients, many of them hard-core anglers who come to Palm Beach primarily to fish, are repeat customers whose parents or aunts or uncles fished with Geno’s parents, Geno Sr. and Mae, who started their charter boat business in 1961. Geno’s mom also worked as her husband’s mate, so as Karen confidently carries on with her work — baiting hooks with a combination of ballyhoo and bonito strips topped with pink or purple plastic skirts — she is actually carrying on a family tradition.

“Mae worked a lot harder than I do,” Karen says as she loads the cooler with a case of Gatorade, dumps a bag of ice on top, then scurries up the tower’s ladder to confer with Geno.