Fish Tales and Boat Sales: Meet Pat Kelly of HMY Yacht Sales

Hi, I'm Katie Flanagan with HMY Yacht Sales. And I'm Pat Kelly with HMY Yacht Sales. Today we're on board a 70-foot Viking, and we're discussing Pat Kelly's recent trip to Costa Rica. Pat, you've recently been named the current number one broker at HMY Yacht Sales. Congrats. Can you tell me a little bit about your past here at HMY? Well, before I was with HMY, I was a boat captain, and I traveled the world fishing the east coast, Mexico, St. Thomas, Venezuela. And over the years, I developed a relationship with the owners of HMY. And over time, we felt that I could be an asset to them, and that was 20 years ago. And today, obviously, I feel like I can still be an asset if I'm the number one guy in the company. It's been a long process. It's been an enjoyable process. And we've seen a lot of changes, but it is the best company to work for, the best brokerage and new boat sales company in the world. So you mentioned that you were a boat captain originally. How was the transition from being a private captain to a yacht broker? Well, the advantage is I had a little bit of time knowing that I was going to make the transition. So I had a year before I was going to come on board with HMY. So it helped me get my ducks in a row a little bit. And I just finished up the fishing circuit, and I hit the ground running. The first week I was with HMY, I was in Fort Lauderdale working at the Dania office, and I managed to sell a boat the first week. It's progressed over the years, and we've developed a great rapport, a great clientele basis, and haven't looked back. It's just been an amazing journey. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? When did you start fishing? Where did you grow up? How did you get into this? Well, I grew up in a small town in Maryland, Ocean City, Maryland. And at the time, it was the white marlin capital of the world, and it still is. And like everybody in a small town back then, you worked at a marina or you worked on the boat. And I started out pumping gas on the dock. And I remember as a child seeing all these boats come in fishing the white marlin open, and they were from all over the world. And I would just watch in awe as they came in. And then after the tournament, they would leave, and there was like a big void. And I thought to myself, you know what, one day I want to be on that boat that leaves here and goes somewhere else and goes catch fish around the world. And that's what I did. Speaking of traveling around the world, I've heard you've been to Costa Rica quite a bit this year. Can you tell me more about that? I have. So I started fishing down there about 15 years ago with a good friend of mine. It was generally the sailfishing circuit down there, and we would go and fish the tournaments and leave. But over time, I've really grown fond of the fishery that's down there. Over the last seven or eight years, they've developed the fad fishing down there for the blue marlin. And this summer, we dedicated the summer to making at least a trip every three weeks. Beginning of the season was a little rough. The conditions aren't the best, but as the summer went on, it progressed and got better and better. And our last trip was just an amazing trip. I believe you said you were 54 for 68? We were 54 for 68, saw 80, guesstimating saw 80. And we left. They were still biting, but we figured we had done what we wanted to. We had caught it. We had an amazing time. And it was a memory I'll never forget. So can you tell me more about the marlin fishing in Costa Rica? Well, I mean, it is fad fishing. And everybody has this misnomer that you just pull up to a fad and you just throw them out and you're going to catch blue marlins. It can be like that at times, but it's really not. I mean, it's a big ocean and it takes the current to be right. It takes the water conditions to be right. It takes bait. I mean, we've had trips where we've run the first day and a half and had two bites. We've left and run to Golfito for 150 miles and then chugged all night another 150 miles back the other way only to wake up in the morning and the conditions be wrong and fish for hours and never have a bite. But eventually we were persistent enough where we found them and we started catching them. And that's when the action starts. That's the fun part. You mentioned fad fishing. What exactly is a fad? So what they've done is you can take a look at it as there's mountains underneath the ocean and they drop a whatever they use to attach the cable to the bottom. I don't know whether it's an engine block. They're maintained by a bunch of great guys down there. And what they do is they put a fish attracting device underneath the surface of the water. You have to figure the water's six or 7000 feet deep. It comes up to within 2 or 3000 feet. And from there they've attached the fad relatively 30, 40 feet underneath the water. And what that does is it attracts the bait. And from the bait attracts the bigger bait and then the marlin. So that's really the idea of a fad. Now there are times where you don't need the fad. If you see a big tree floating, you can fish on a tree for days. I mean, you can be in the middle of nowhere, find a tree that's holding bait and still have good fishing. How long have you been fishing Costa Rica? I started about 15 years ago and I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it. I mean, it was sail fishing. I love sail fishing. I grew up in Nerson City, like I said, white marlin fishing, fished Venezuela, which was one of my favorite spots. It just kind of progressed where Costa Rica has really just become fond to me. I love it. It's not just the blue marlin fishing, the sail fishing. It's the people. It's the culture, the scenery. It's really a great fishery. So you mentioned that you guys went 54 for 68, correct? Correct. So can you tell me more about that day? Well, it started out that we started on an inshore fad and we had decent fishing and we just kind of ventured off to the next one and fishing got a little bit better. As the sun set, they really started to bite a little bit. And the next morning we woke up and we thought we were prepared with plenty of baits rigged and ready to go. But by noon, we were out of bait and we needed more bait. So it was an experience. We've seen a lot of fish before, but never had that many bites. And to catch doubles and triples and quads, it was generally just my friend Franklin Giorno and I in the last few trips. They wore us out. So we started bringing in some heavy guns to help us out. So we brought another one of our team members in that fishes with us. And the trip before, I brought my brother in. So, you know, a lot of it's weather dependent. If it's flat calm and it's sunny, if they don't bite as well, you don't really care because it's so beautiful out there. How many anglers did you have in the cockpit and how many mates? So we had, there was three anglers for this trip and we carry three mates and a captain. Okay. And generally one of the mates, he just helps out with the nighttime shift while we're out there in the middle of the ocean. But it's a great crew. They've been with us for years. They're experienced. They're great guys. And it's a great adventure. Do you guys fish in any of the tournaments? We do. We fish in all of them. Well, we fish in all the signature series down there, which are three series, one in January, February, and March. And this year we're going to fish the rock star, which is early January. So we're going to expand it a little bit. That's exciting. Well, best of luck to you in all those tournaments. Thank you. You mentioned you fish with your tournament crew and Frank and all your buddies down South, but do you ever fish with anyone else? I do. I'm a father of four daughters. And as a fisherman, I love to see them fish and they love to fish. So I do take them down there. Our last trip, we caught a half a dozen sailfish and went and caught a bunch of big tunas. They had started a few years ago having a ladies anglers tournament before the first leg of the Las Vegas signature series. Hopefully I've got four anglers that I'm bringing up down the road. So when they get of age and get a little more fishing skills underneath of them, that we can take them and let them fish that tournament. That's awesome. Sounds like you have your whole crew right there. I'm working on it. Pat, I want to say thank you for your time today. Would you like to take us out? You know, I would. I just wanted to point out a few things that HMY is truly the leader in the industry. And as a broker, from my point of view, you mentioned that I'm the top broker for the year. I don't do it alone. I do it with a fantastic support staff. We do it with a service department, but we do it with leaders in the company that give us the assets. They give us the tools that we need to make sure we are