The Legacy of Captain Ray Rosher and Miss Britt Sportfishing

Introduction to Captain Ray Rosher An Old Salts Series

If Capt. Ray Rosher said he felt on top of the world, he wasn’t kidding, or exaggerating. Not once, but twice, back-to-back in 2005 and 2006, Rosher and his team won the Rolex/IGFA Offshore Championship Fishing Tournament, then held in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In 2005, his team caught eight billfish caught on the fourth and final day, and jumped from seventh to first place. Rosher, a native Miami, Florida-based charter captain, his wife Charmain, and fellow anglers, Chicagoans Scott Segal and Tom Schramm, each pocketed an engraved Rolex timepiece for their efforts.

The next year, the same foursome upped the ante by successfully defending their title by setting a single-day record, catching and-releasing 10 marlin. Flying one blue-and-white marlin pennant, a red release flag, and a white towel with a black marker-inscribed ‘10’ told the story as they arrived at the dock. Dead-baiting versus the rest of the fleet’s use of lures or live bait did the two-in-a-row trick. As Ray says, “We didn’t invent anything. It was all about figuring out we could be just a little better than the next guy.” It’s a recurrent theme in his forty-plus-year sportfishing career, one that will be honored in October as he’s recognized by the International Game Fish Association as a 2023 Tommy Gifford Award winner.

Back-to-Back Rolex/IGFA Championship Victories

Winning the Rolex/IGFA Offshore Championship twice was certainly memorable, but even more so were the people Ray met from all over the world. “We fished against some 70 teams representing over 30 countries,” Rosher said. “In 2007, I had the privilege of filling in for Capt. Peter B. Wright for a few weeks in Australia when he was inducted into the IGFA Hall of Fame. After that, we made a several hundred-mile detour inland to Brisbane to visit Bodo and Robyn Muche, trophy makers for the Rolex/IGFA tournament. So, to be amongst such an international group, and to be successful, was just one of many amazing experiences in this industry that I call ‘riches that don’t fit in your wallet.’”

Roots in Florida: A Family Tradition of Fishing

Born and raised in Miami, Ray caught the fishing bug early from both his father and grandfather. He started as a preschooler, traveling to his father’s camp in Big Cypress, in the Everglades, where the two would fish for bass. Ray’s grandfather arrived in Miami in the 1930s, after leaving England as a teenager to work as a steward on a Merchant Marine ship. He would drift fish several days a week on party boats docked at Pier 5 and would often sneak his grandson out of school to join him. Ray caught his first sailfish while fishing with his father at age nine. He credits his paternal family’s patriarch with teaching him the fundamentals of bluewater fishing. 

“Catching your first sailfish and your first snook were rites of passage when I was a kid growing up in South Florida,” Rosher said. “The first snook I caught was off the Juno Pier with Pete Schultz. Pete owner of the Fishing Headquarters tackle shop in Jupiter. He was one of my early mentors on the inshore side. When you caught both of those, a sailfish and snook, you felt like you climbed a mountain. That’s what fed my passion for fishing.”

Rosher’s father worked as a plumbing contractor, and as the family’s only son, Ray was expected to do the same. Yet, a few years before, his father introduced him to one of his fellow bowling buddies, Capt. Bob Lewis. Lewis is famous for using a kite to catch sailfish in South Florida. Ray became fast friends with his son, Jimmy, and even before the two boys could drive, they’d take a skiff out and go fish. Shortly thereafter, at age 16, Ray landed a job as second mate with Lewis on his private boat, Chief, a 32 Prowler, and soon after as mate on the Tropicat, a 38 Bertram that Lewis ran for the Kelly Tractor family. This kicked off a five-year stretch where Ray attended Miami-Dade Community College to study construction management two days a week and spent the other five days a week fishing with the senior and junior Lewis.

The Making of a Sportfishing Career

A couple of years later, with a captain’s license in hand, Ray decided that full-time professional sportfishing was his dream job. He spent two decades, 1979 to 1999, fishing with Kelly Tractor, taking their clients out of Miami and Key Largo. “When I started working for Capt. Bob Lewis, he had patented the modern fishing kite,” Rosher said. “So, of course, he, Jimmy, and I did a lot of kite fishing.

But during these years it was the Dudas family that were pioneering things like learning how to lead the kites with split shots on the outside edges of the kites to cause the kites to separate. It was a fun time to be in the fishing business because there were a lot of innovative things being done by guys like Bob Lewis and Capt. John Dudas Sr., Capt. Buddy Carey and Capt. Bill Harrison. Guys that are real pioneers. At my age then, I didn’t realize the caliber of captains I got to fish with. You just think they are regular people and then later in life you realize how special they were.”

Ray met Harrison, who was easily recognized by his handlebar mustache and respected for his wealth of knowledge gleaned from his sportfishing career that took him around the globe, in 1980. Opportunity knocked and Ray and Jimmy answered by taking a couple of month hiatus from the Kelly’s to commercial fish as deckhands with Harrison out of Key West. Catching deepwater snapper, grouper, and tilefish with hydraulic bandit reels proved a real revelation and a remarkable education. Volume and efficiency were key lessons. For instance, is it better to fish 8 hooks on a tilefish rig or 30? Or is it better to use a rod and reel for commercial dolphin fishing or a hand line?

“Bill was an extremely intelligent captain,” Ray says. “He challenged you to figure out the solution on your own by giving just enough information and asking the right questions. He gave you the tools to become a better fisherman. He could have easily told us what to do. Instead, he would make it challenging and cause us to think. So, I would say Bill didn’t tell me how to fish, he taught me how to think.”

Recreational fishing ruled with the Kellys and their clients. In the early 80s, Ray remembers fishing Chub Cay in the Bahamas for 56 days straight and another 40-day stint with a new group of customers arriving to fish every other day. However, there was a little tournament fishing too. Tropicat fished the Miami Billfish Tournament, winning the one-day Sponsor Tournament in 1984. It was Ray’s first win as a captain, at only 21 years old.

“That was the first thing I ever won,” Rosher said. “It wasn’t a big tournament, but I’ll never forget the feeling of going in front of everybody and holding the trophy and sharing that moment with my crew and anglers. It was super special. And it made me want to be a better fisherman, and more analytical.” The Tropicat fished the Bertram Hatteras Shootout at Walkers Cay in the Bahamas every year too. They topped the leaderboard in 1988, both for Top Boat, and with Ken Grimes as Top Angler. This was Ray’s first blue marlin tournament win as a captain. Pretty impressive for a boat focused on entertaining guests.

The Charter Business: Miss Britt Sportfishing Charters

Ray decided to start his charter business in 1999 to spend more time with his young daughter, Brittany. The Kelly’s graciously helped him transition to self-employment, assisting with the purchase of an engine that sped him on his way. Ray built his first boat, a 34-foot express boat called Miss Britt I, with builder Lou Rambo, in Riviera Beach. He started operating out of Coconut Grove, where he still operates today.

“I put into practice something I learned from Bill Harrison,” Rosher said. “He’d travel the world to fish, often with Ralph Christiansen of Puerto Rico, or a variety of other people. Then, he always had his commercial boat to fill in any gaps. It’s a formula I applied in the beginning. I wasn’t sure if I would make a living chartering, commercial fishing, or working on private boats so I was prepared to do all of it.”

That first year, Nick Smith booked Miss Britt I for the South Florida sailfish tournaments. The two fished competitively together for many years either on Miss Britt I or Smith’s 36-foot Billy Knowles, Old Reliable, winning several West Palm Beach Fishing Club Silver Sailfish Derbys. The two also won the Miami Sailfish Libertad Challenge in 2000 and 2001.

Global Sportfishing Adventures

The 2000s saw Ray capitalize on opportunities to fish with a variety of people in places both close to home and around the world. In 2006, he captained the 53-foot Viking, Get Lit, to first place overall in the Silver Sailfish Derby, a feat that made him the first captain to win the event five times and the first captain to have his anglers earn the Rhea Trophy six times, Kitt Toomey that year. Rosher also guided anglers Toomey and Peter Miller, along with mates Jon Cooper and Charmain Rosher, to a win in the World Sailfish Championship in Key West, in 2003 and 2007, on the Get Lit. 

Ray fished as a mate and or angler aboard several boats in the 80’s and ’90s in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, with Ralph Christianson and Bill Harrison on the Pescador, Harry and Cindy Shufflebarger on the HT Hook, Damon Chouest on the Chach, and Walter Shikany on the Never Enough.  Ray also fished in the World Cup and other billfish tournaments from West Africa to Bermuda with angler Stephanie Choate. In 2017, with Choate in the chair aboard Capt. Cragin ‘Curly’ Curtis’ Holton 48, Reel Addiction, the team won the Bermuda Triple Crown, with Curtis’ mate Alex Mackenzie and Rosher’s mate Steven Stallings. It was the first year a Bermudian charter boat beat all the American boats and won the series. “To see the whole country celebrating Curly like a national hero, and to be part of that was amazing,” Rosher said. This Series was one of over 30 billfish tournaments Ray has won in his career.

Family and Future Generations

“Everyone thinks Miami is a great big city, but it’s a small town,” Rosher said. “Everybody knows everybody and if you’ve been in the fishing business in Miami for any length of time, you’re going to cross paths. Curly had come down to Miami and swordfished with me years earlier. The same applies worldwide. You think it’s a great big world, but it’s a small town of great people enjoying a great sport.”

Today, Rosher owns and operates a fleet of three charter boats in Coconut Grove out of the Grove Harbor Marina. He still has his Miss Britt I. Then there’s Miss Britt II, a 43-foot custom walk-around built by Jim Bacle in Key West in 2006, and a 34-foot SeaVee center console named Miss Cheyenne, after his youngest daughter. While Brittany has made Ray a proud grandfather, his younger kids, Dakota (age 17), and Cheyenne (aged 16), both still in high school, work with him on the boats. “One of the things that make it fun for me is fishing with them, and with my whole family,” Rosher said. “I hope they always have great memories of the times that we spent together on the water, regardless of what direction they go in life.”

From Mentee to Mentor: Fostering the Next Generation

Earlier in his career, Rosher never wanted his best crew to leave. Now that view has taken a 180-degree turn. As he says, the real privilege is not just fishing with them, but seeing them succeed. Mentoring brings him great satisfaction and is one of his jobs as a captain today. Mates like Jason Cartwright, Alex Castellanos, Robbie Ramirez, Jeffrey Liederman, Nick Carulo, Jimmy Mulcahy, Steven Stallings, Brett Wilson, and many others have all fished with Ray and become successful in their own rights.

“One of the cool things about the charter business is all the relationships I’ve been able to have with so many people,” Rosher said. “I tell young crew today you can’t look at the dollars and think that’s going to be the determining factor of success or failure. A lot of the value in this job is not dollars, it’s the relationships, whether it be with anglers, fellow crewmen, people who work in the marina, and just people you cross paths with.”

Rosher adds that earning the Tommy Gifford award this year, an honor from his peers, is indicative of the special and global group of people he’s been able to fish with over the years. “It’s a team, just like football,” he said. “A football player can’t win the Super Bowl on his own. That’s what sportfishing is all about. It’s not me, it’s us. I don’t say that to deflect the honor, I say it because it’s 100 percent true.”

Dive Deeper into the World of Sportfishing

Unlock Exclusive Savings: Enjoy 50% Off Your Subscription!

Are you ready to explore the thrilling world of sportfishing from the comfort of your home? Subscribe now and embark on a journey filled with captivating stories, expert insights, and insider tips. Choose between our digital or print edition and secure an incredible 50% discount on your subscription.

Subscribe today and get ready for an adventure like no other. Click here to subscribe and elevate your sportfishing experience with InTheBite Sportfishing Magazine.