Have you ever met someone and instantly knew you’d like them right from the start? Captains and brothers Jimbo and Rick Thomas are the kind of guys who definitely fall into that category. They’ve been a fixture in the South Florida charter fishing and tournament scene for more than four decades, running their yellow 1977 42-foot Post aptly named Thomas Flyer. Like other famous sibling combinations over the years—Peyton and Eli Manning, Eddie and Alex Van Halen, Kyle and Kurt Busch—these two have continued to live their passions every day as they keep putting smiles on the faces of their clients, just as they have done for more than 40 years now.
A LOVE OF THE GAME
As with nearly every other charter dock in the world, a typical day for the Thomas brothers begins early at Miamarina at Bayside. A thin haze of blue-tinged diesel exhaust hanging in the still morning air means the engines are warmed up and ready as their party for the day arrives, at which point either Jimbo or Rick will surely quip that “you can’t catch ’em at the dock.” But their passion runs considerably deeper than you might think; as true watermen, it’s what drives them to continue to succeed in a career path that is known for razor-thin profit margins; incredibly long, hard hours; and the uncertainty of the clients, the fishing, the weather, and the ever-present mechanical and cosmetic needs of maintaining a hardworking old sport-fisher. But they’d be on the water regardless of whether they were