When I asked Capt. Alex Adler, who has run the Kalex out of Islamorada, Florida, for the past three-plus decades, why he chose sportfishing as his lifelong profession, he chuckled and explained it this way: “I had no choice. I didn’t get seasick. I didn’t get scared.”

To underscore that last point, Alex tells the story of a day when he was seven years old and fishing with his dad in the Atlantic south of Long Island, New York. It was afternoon when they hooked a giant bluefin tuna. In rough seas, they fought it for seven hours and 13 minutes. It was 3 a.m. when they landed the fish. By then, the ship’s radio had washed out with all the sea spray, so communications were nil. Family members ashore were just about to call the U.S. Coast Guard when Alex and his dad motored safely back into the Rockaway Inlet. “I have to say, it was a little unsettling when the radio went out, but I wasn’t scared. I was into the fight,” he says.

In the Beginning

Alex was born in Long Island, New York. He landed straight into a fishing family. His father, Harold, was an avid recreational fisherman. The family’s first Kalex, named for Alex’s mother Karen and himself, was a 34-foot lapstrake wood-constructed Clayton built in New Jersey. The family kept it in Montauk, where they were members of the fishing club and fished tournaments during the summer. He was out fishing for giant sharks and tuna by the time he was three or four years old.

“My dad was a big innovator in fishing in New England back then,” Alex says. “He was one of the first to use monofilament leaders to catch giant tuna. That was the early 1960s. He was eager to try anything new. By the mid-1980s, he retired from his career in real estate and got his captain’s license. By then, we were living in Florida.”

Before Alex’s birth, his parents traveled to fish along the East Coast, and in the Florida Keys. The couple was lured to the Keys by friends and fellow New Englanders, Bud and Mary Stapleton. The Stapletons founded the now famous Bud N’ Mary’s Marina in the 1940s in Islamorada. The Adlers continued this practice with Alex, fishing recreationally in the Keys each year over Christmas and Easter holidays. The family moved to Florida in 1969, with Harold seeing opportunities in both real estate and fishing. A year later he brought the Kalex down from Long Island and docked her at Bud N’ Mary’s.

“I was in school in Miami, junior high and then high school, and each weekend I’d head out to the island (Islamorada). That meant Friday afternoons getting on a Greyhound bus that would drop me at the marina. Then, I’d head back on Sunday. I mated and then commercial fished in the summer. When I graduated high school in June of 1976, I got the ultimatum from my parents: college or captain’s license.”

Young Salt Starts His Career

It was right after high school that Alex headed to Bahia Pez Vela Lodge in Costa Rica to work as a fishing guide. He was one of five guides, who’d each day motor out on 26-foot boats and catch up to 80 to 100 sailfish in a day. Aside from the super sailfish bite, his memories from back then include wahoo in schools like sardines, mahi that beached themselves chasing ballyhoo, and a remote setting where cattle and chickens roamed freely, including in residents’ front yards.

Back in Islamorada, Alex set up his own business. He had worked for an older captain and received much of his business when he retired. It was a great kickstart. He first ran a 42-foot Stapleton, and then a 52-foot Carolina. It was a heady time. In 1978, he fished two weeks with Capt. Barky Garnsey. During this time he also fished with Albert Johnson and Peter B. Wright.

In 1979, he built his current boat, the Kalex, a 48-foot Custom Marine Management hull with twin diesel engines. Alex and his father designed and built the craft themselves. As he tells it, the duo took “measurements and recipes” off existing successful charter boats, in areas of layout, engineering and design, and put them all into the Kalex. The result was a stable 48-foot-long vessel, with a 14.5-foot beam and a pocketed bottom that’s good for the shallow waters of the Keys. He headed to Bimini in 1980 on the new boat to catch giant bluefin tuna.

“I’d spend 40 days living there in Bimini and 35 of them would be booked. The new boat had a tower — I called it a moving tree stand — and it was easy to look at the ocean and find schools of bait. Some of the bluefins were in the 800- to 900-pound range. In the 1990s to 2000s, we’d release bluefin estimated at 1100 to 1200 pounds. One of my regular customers for tuna over the years has been Johnny Morris, the owner of Bass Pro Shops,” Alex says.

Over the years, in the Keys and the Bahamas, Alex has taken big names out to catch big fish. His charter clients include professional golfer Payne Stewart; football player Gary Dunn; race car driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr.; actor and director Andy Garcia; and writer Peter Benchley, of “Jaws” fame, and his family. Kalex has since hit the small screen as well, featured in shows such as Bass Pro Shops’ “Outdoor World,” “Roland Martin,” “Reel Adventures” and the ESPN network.

Tournament Success

Competitive fishing has coursed through Alex’s blood since he was young. His first big win was the Islamorada Sailfish Tournament in 1971. Alex was mating for his dad. Their angler was Jimmy Albright, creator of the Albright knot, which was a huge advancement in connecting different diameter lines to make a heavy-duty leader. Albright was also one of Alex’s mentors. Others include captains like Don Gurgulio, Cecil Keith, Allan Starr and Sarge Warner.

Other headline-making tournament wins for Alex include the 1981 Bimini Blue Marlin Tournament and the Cat Cay Tuna Tournament. “In the 1980s, I’d fly into Venezuela to fish as the hired gun,” he says. “I helped Capt. Ronnie Hamlin catch his first Super Grand Slam: a blue marlin, white marlin, sailfish and swordfish in one day. Then, in 1987, I was the mate on the Islamar when we caught seven blue marlin on 50-pound test with less than two hours of fighting time in the Boy Scout (USVI Open/Atlantic Blue Marlin Tournament) in St. Thomas.”

Most recently, Alex, at the helm of Kalex, has won both Florida Keys Triple Crown Series tournaments and the Florida Keys Gold Cup events.

Giant Bluefin in the Florida Keys

Alex has seen, and caught and released, giant bluefin tuna off Islamorada in the last few years. This is a real rarity, especially in recent times. The first catch came in 2018 when Alex and a group of day charter anglers in search of king mackerel, released a some 600-pound bluefin after a two-and-a-half hour fight. Another amazing bluefin day happened in March 2021, when clients onboard included Bass Pro owner, Morris.

“I woke up and had an intuition about the giant bluefins that had been coming by over the past two weeks,” Alex recalls. “I said to myself, you know what, today’s the day. I brought this crane of a rod and reel out of the archives; we’ve been using this since the 1960s, and it still works. The mate rigged up this beautiful Spanish mackerel. We headed out and saw the giant bluefins. We saw a pair, then a single and they didn’t respond. Then, we saw a dozen. There they were, right behind the boat.

“Then, one 700- to 800-pounder comes out of the pack and filed on this mackerel on a 12-0 hook. We had 40 pounds of drag on this reel, and this line was crackling off. It was unbelievable. Johnny and Jim (the two clients) were amazed to see what was going on, here in the Florida Keys, off Islamorada. Forty minutes later, we had it right beside the boat. It was quite an animal. We let him go unharmed to fight another day.”

People Pleasing & Producing

People pleasing and producing are what Alex loves best, noting that “it’s fun fishing with families. The kids are so inquisitive. They want to know why we do this or that, what’s in store and what we’re going to catch. I tell them it all depends on the conditions and the bait. It’s important as a captain to be able to understand that and adapt. Producing is also a big one for me. I’ve had people that have fished for 20 to 30 years and never caught a sailfish. They come down here and we close the deal for them.”

These traits are among those that led Saltwater Sportsman to name Alex one of the 50 Top Charter Captains in 2013.

What It Takes

What makes a great captain is attitude and intuition, Alex says. “I’m stuck in the stone age when it comes to electronics. When I started it was LORAN A in New York, then LORAN C. LORAN C and Sat Nav came in and out. Today you can run the world from your marine navigation. But I think captains today still need a sixth sense. It takes a real hunter and keen vision to move away from just looking at the electronics to find fish. Some guys ride around like they’re playing a video game, but you gotta know where to point the worms in the right direction,” he says.

Through the years, Alex has learned from some of the best, including Capts. OB O’Bryan, Randy Jendersee, Brad Simmons, Mike Benitez and Jack Morrow.

“A great captain also has to be a part-time mechanic, comedian and entertainer and have a great mate on deck,” Alex says. “A mate can make or break a captain or a whole day of fishing. It’s teamwork; not all about the captain.”

And Alex knows what great is. After all, he is one of the recipients of the IFGA’s 2022 Tommy Gifford Award, in recognition of his contribution to recreational angling.