Two people book the same five hours out of the same harbour on the same boat. One pays €100, the other €400. Neither has been overcharged: one bought a seat, the other bought the boat.
Seat or charter is the one question in fishing where the arithmetic is genuinely counter-intuitive, because the answer is not simply "private is for big groups". Out of Morro Jable in the south, Corralejo in the north and Caleta de Fuste on the east coast it comes out three different ways, and the difference is decided by a number most people never look up.
- What a place on the boat costs and what the whole hull costs, harbour by harbour
- The number of anglers at which the private charter stops being the expensive option
- Why in Morro Jable that number never arrives — and why people book private anyway
- What changes besides the price: who sets the plan, what time you leave, who gets you there
- What the operators themselves publish about species and seasons, and what they refuse to promise
- Three things their pages leave open: the catch, the cancellation fee and the deposit
Everything below is printed on the operators' own pages, read on 7 September 2026. Where a page contradicts itself, that is said rather than smoothed over.
A seat and a charter are the same trip until they are not
On a shared trip you buy one place. The operator sells the others, fixes the departure and decides the fishing plan. On a private charter you buy the hull: the price does not move with how many of you come, and what you gain over a seat is control rather than comfort.
So the comparison has exactly two moving parts — the seat price, and the number of anglers the boat is allowed to take. Multiply the first by the second and you know whether the charter is dear or cheap. The trap is doing that multiplication with a headcount the boat cannot hold: a break-even of eight people means nothing on a boat capped at four.
Corralejo: the break-even lands exactly on a full boat
In Corralejo one operator sells both formats on the same 9.20 m Faeton 910. A place on the five-hour bottom-fishing morning is €95 per person, six seats released on each 08:00 departure. The same five hours with the boat kept for your group is €500.
Six seats at €95 come to €570, so a group of six is €70 better off on the charter and has the deck to itself. Five are not: €475 against €500. The break-even sits at six — which is the full boat and not one angler less.
Both numbers are promotional. The €95 is what the operator shows against a struck-through €105, and the deposit he takes online, €23.75 a place, is exactly a quarter of it; the charter is €500 against €590, with a €100 deposit. If both promotional lines ever come off, the break-even stays where it is: five anglers at €105 are €525 against €590 for the boat, and six are €630 — the charter still wins only on a full deck.
One thing he does not publish is a headcount for the private trip at all — six is what he releases on the shared departures of the same hull, so agree your number on the WhatsApp he asks you to write to before booking.
Morro Jable: the charter is never cheaper — and is still worth buying
In the southern port a different operator prints the two lines one under the other: five hours shared at €100 per person, five hours private at €400, with a stated maximum of four people for sport fishing. Four seats are €400. The charter costs exactly the same and cannot cost less, because there is no fifth angler to tip the sum.
Which makes the shared trip the cheaper way onto the water for one, two or three anglers — and at four, the choice stops being about money at all. For the same €400, the private charter hands you the plan for the day.
The operator is explicit about the difference: on the shared trip the captain decides, and his usual shape for the five hours is an hour trolling down towards Punta de Jandía, three hours on the bottom and an hour trolling home; on the private one you decide, and he recommends by the season, the forecast and who is aboard — with children, he writes, it may be better to look for small tunas near the coast than to chase big game.
One caution before you pay. The fishing page states the maximum of four and does not say which of the operator's boats goes out, while a booking widget on the same site offers a range running up to eight. Two numbers on one site is a question, not a detail: settle the boat and the headcount on WhatsApp first.
Caleta de Fuste: a second price, for the person who does not fish
On the east coast the choice is put differently. The daily bottom-fishing morning out of Puerto Castillo — 09:00 to 13:00 aboard a 12-metre Cata 356 Sportfisherman with a fighting chair, outriggers and radar — is €79 for an angler and €60 for a spectator. The operator prints both lines, which is rare and useful when one of you is coming to watch rather than to fish. Stated capacity is twelve, and a picnic and one drink are included.
What this harbour does not put on the page is a boat price: the operator's trolling and big-game trips are quoted on request rather than published. There is no seat-versus-charter sum to do here — the lever is the second ticket, not the whole hull. A couple where only one fishes pays €139 for the morning.
North, south and east in one table
Read the last column first. The ceiling on board is what decides whether a boat price can ever beat a row of seats.
| Trip | Harbour | Hours | Price | Unit | Ceiling on board |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shared bottom fishing | Corralejo | 5 | €95 (against €105) | per person | 6 places per departure |
| Private bottom fishing | Corralejo | 5 | €500 (against €590) | per boat | not published |
| Private trolling | Corralejo | 8 | €800 (against €890) | per boat | not published |
| Shared trip to Punta de Jandía | Morro Jable | 5 | €100 | per person | 4 |
| Private sport fishing | Morro Jable | 5 | €400 | per boat | 4 |
| Bottom-fishing morning | Caleta de Fuste | 4 | €79 angler / €60 spectator | per person | 12 |
One line in the table has no seat version at all. The eight-hour trolling charter out of Corralejo is sold whole at €800, with a €160 deposit — a fifth of it — and rods, reels, lures and the fishing licence in the price. It is not a dearer way to buy the same day: it is a different day, three hours longer, worked after barracuda, wahoo, mahi-mahi, tuna and marlin rather than over the ground under the boat.
What changes besides the price
The plan changes hands. That is the difference the Morro Jable operator names before any other: shared means the captain's route, private means yours, with his advice attached. In Corralejo the private wording is about company rather than route — the whole boat is reserved with the purchase and the trip is not shared with anyone else — and the booking calendar backs it up by releasing a single slot on each date.
The clock and the transfer change too, and they change the comparison. Morro Jable includes the transfer from your accommodation and back in both formats and keeps no fixed timetable: dawn departures, which the operator recommends, or evening ones that come back after dark, agreed when you book. Corralejo leaves at 08:00 with no transfer listed. Caleta de Fuste runs 09:00 to 13:00 daily, also with no pick-up. So the €100 seat in the south and the €95 seat in the north are not quite the same purchase — one of them includes getting there and back.
The included list moves with the format even inside one operator. The Corralejo shared morning lists rods, reels and tackle, insurance, the fishing licence and drinks; the private version of the identical five hours adds a snack. In Morro Jable transfer, snack and drinks are in both the seat and the charter. In Caleta de Fuste the picnic and one drink are included and fishing equipment is supplied. None of the three lists a full meal.
What is running, and when
One of these operators publishes a calendar, and it is the Morro Jable one. In his words: summer brings blue marlin, white marlin, wahoo, dorado, small tunas and barracuda. The big tunas pass twice a year — skipjack, bonito and yellowfin of 15–25 kg usually first, in February, then bluefin and bigeye of 200–300 kg a month later; around September the skipjack come through again, followed by yellowfin, then bigeye and bluefin. His conclusion is that deep-sea fishing is a good option all year round.
His rider belongs beside the calendar rather than under it: in this kind of fishing, he writes, you do not always catch something — but when a rod does go off, the fish is a good one. The Corralejo operator adds only that four tuna species pass through his water at different times of the year. Neither promises a fish, and nothing above should be read as a month in which one is likely.
The catch, the cancellation fee and the deposit
Start with the catch, because it is the question the pages answer least. Not one of these three operators publishes a rule about keeping what you land — not "you keep it", not "we release it". A catch-and-release policy is often described as though it were a Canarian norm; on these pages it is neither stated nor denied. So the question has an address rather than an answer: put it to the captain before the boat leaves, on the WhatsApp that both the Corralejo and the Morro Jable operator ask you to write to anyway.
The Corralejo cancellation terms are worth reading twice, because the site says two things. The FAQ requires a call 72 hours ahead for a full refund, states that inside 72 hours a termination fee applies — the page prints it as "$35", in dollars, on a site that prices everything else in euros — and gives no refund inside 24 hours or for a no-show. The front page of the same site advertises free cancellation up to three days before the trip. Those are not the same promise; get the one that applies to your booking in writing.
Deposits are small and proportional. Corralejo takes €23.75 on a €95 seat, €100 on the €500 charter and €160 on the €800 day, with the balance settled on the day; the operator states there are no extra fees or fuel surcharges and that tax is in the listed price. The Morro Jable site carries a separate €50 booking item for sport fishing.
Questions that come up before booking
Is it cheaper to take the whole boat?
In Corralejo, from six anglers: six seats at €95 are €570 against €500 for the charter. In Morro Jable, never — four is the stated maximum, and four seats at €100 come to exactly the €400 the charter costs.
How many people fit on a private charter?
In Morro Jable, four: the operator states that maximum. In Corralejo he publishes no headcount for the private trips at all; his shared departures on the same boat release six places. Agree your number on WhatsApp before booking, as he asks.
Can we keep what we catch?
Not one of these three operators sets a rule either way — the pages simply do not mention it. There is no published norm here you can assume, so agree it with the captain before the boat leaves the harbour.
Do we need our own tackle or a licence?
In Corralejo neither: rods, reels, tackle and the fishing licence are in the price of both the seat and the charters. In Caleta de Fuste fishing equipment is supplied. The Morro Jable pages list transfer, snack and drinks, so ask about tackle and licence when you book.
Which month is best?
The Morro Jable operator's own calendar puts marlin, wahoo and dorado in summer and the big tunas in two passes, around February and around September, and calls deep-sea fishing a good option all year. He also writes that you do not always catch something.
Is a transfer included?
In Morro Jable yes, both ways, on the seat and on the charter alike. In Corralejo and Caleta de Fuste no pick-up is listed: departures are 08:00 from the Corralejo dock and 09:00 from Puerto Castillo, and you make your own way there.
Prices, capacities, hours, included lists and the seasonal calendar: the operators' own pages, read on 7 September 2026. Harbour data: fuerteventuraturismo.es, read on 7 September 2026.
