Cameron County fishing captains receive prestigious award

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas – Seven fishing captains from Cameron County have been awarded FishingBooker’s Angler’s Choice Award for 2025. Five of the seven winners operate from South Padre Island.

The recognition acknowledges charter operators for exceptional customer service, reliability, and quality of fishing trips. This year, out of 8,732 captains who partnered with FishingBooker, only 672 were recognized for their excellence.

“We’ve been awarding the Angler’s Choice Award since 2015. With this award, we wanted to honor our most committed captains and make it easier for anglers to identify the very best guides on our platform,” FishingBooker CEO Vukan Simic said. “We couldn’t be more excited to highlight their hard work and dedication.”

The award, highlights South Padre Island’s central role in the region’s fishing excellence and its concentration of top=rated captains. Other locations that also have winners are Rio Hondo and Port Isabel.

The winners in no particular order are:

Douglas Dunkin of Dunkin Guide Systems, IJ Reyna or TJ BOOM Fishing, Joaquin Pena of Drift Waters Charters, Arturo Calderas of Get’m Hook’d Fishing Charters, Jerry Bradford of Laguna Madre Madness, and Ruben Garcia of Reel Off Charters.

To be eligible for the award, fishing guides had to meet the following criteria over the past 12 months: Receive a 4.8 or higher out of a 5-star review rating from 10 or more verified reviews, 98 percent reliability score and response rate, and full business verification.

FishingBooker is the world’s largest platform for connecting anglers and fishing guides, with over 50,000 fishing trips available in more than 2,370 destinations worldwide. FishingBooker has made fishing trips easy since 2013.

For more information about the criteria for the Angler’s Choice Award, as well as full ranking of all 34 states, you can go to the website, www.fishingbooker.com.

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