In 2023, Cameron Pappas decided to take a leap of faith and quit his full-time job at a bank to make his part-time job leading fishing trip charters a full-time gig.
He had founded BlackBird Guide Services six years ago and built it from the ground up, running it entirely by himself.
“My ultimate goal is just to be a respectable business owner and a modest fisherman because the whole reason I got into it was just because I love the outdoors,” Pappas said. “And more than that, I like showing people the outdoors.”
Pappas’ services include a selection of fishing trips up and down the North Carolina coast. Each charter can last anywhere from two to four hours. Locations include Wrightsville Beach, Topsail Island, Bald Head Island, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, Figure Eight, Southport and Oak Island. The boats he uses for his charters are the Maverick HPX-2 and Bay Rider 239.
Currently, Pappas offers a variety of fishing trips for different ages and skill levels through BlackBird Guide Services. His inshore offering gives patrons the opportunity to explore the marshes of Wilmington and fish for red drum, speckled trout, flounder and more. For nearshore, participants fish off the beach in the Atlantic Ocean for a variety of fish, including false albacore and cobia. Pappas’ fly-fishing option uses long rods and targets redfish, false albacore and more. For cast and blast, those options include patrons hunting in the North Carolina marshes for clapper rails and sight fishing redfish.
Pappas also offers a variety of family fishing trips, including eco tours, which are excursions through the backwaters of Wilmington, where patrons explore islands, go for a swim, find seashells and more. He also offers family fishing, which is excursions that are more “highly tailored to kids and catching a lot of fish.”
As a kid, Pappas, a Wilmington native, was immersed in the typical coastal summer activities – surfing and fishing. However, he never dreamt of making his love of fishing a full-time job. He spent time fly fishing with his dad in Montana and Wyoming and various other places out west. It wasn’t until his early 20s that he even realized he could go fly fishing in saltwater.
“I started getting into it, and it just totally took over everything,” Pappas said. “When I find something that I really like to do, it kind of becomes all-consuming; slightly obsessive I would say.”
Pappas went to college in California for visual arts and photography in 2007 and ended up moving back to North Carolina in 2014 for a handful of reasons, such as high traffic volume.
“I always knew that I wanted to eventually move back to Wilmington, but the question was, ‘What am I going to do?’ When I was growing up, it was kind of a mixture of retirement town with fairly little job opportunity,” Pappas said.
He ended up taking an entry-level banking job and started “seriously getting into inshore fishing.” Pappas came to the realization that people can fish for a living, and although it’s not an easy way, “it’s obviously doable if you do a good job and do your research and put your time in.”
“About two years into banking, I realized I don’t want to be that person that works their entire career in something that they don’t really fully get fulfilled from,” Pappas said. “I started thinking about fishing as a full-time gig, but I still had a long way to go as far as just learning and learning fishing techniques and the business aspect of it – how you get trips and how you retain clients.”
After Pappas read up on how to start a business and make his full-time fishing job dreams a reality, he started working part-time as a fishing guide on Saturdays and Sundays. This schedule went on for about four years, eventually reaching a point where Pappas felt comfortable making his fishing charters his full-time job.
His busy season for charters is April through November. During those months, he’ll typically do charters about five to six days a week, taking Sundays off. In the colder months, he’ll take charters out about three to four days a week but notes that “the interesting thing about the types of fishing you can do around here is we do have a year-long fishery.”
His prices range from $250 to $500 a charter. The majority of his charters and specialization is with redfish, but trout and flounder are also top contenders. Just like the fish, his customers vary depending on the time of year. During his busy season, about 75% of his customers are tourists coming into town for spring break and summer vacation.
“Sprinkled in is either people that live in Raleigh or people that live in Charlotte that live on Figure Eight or have a house on Wrightsville,” Pappas said. “It’s kind of rare to have a local-local because most people that live here have a boat and want to learn it on their own, which I don’t blame them whatsoever. Occasionally, you have some local people that just don’t want to buy a boat and want to fish with a guide.”
See other stories on Hospitality & Leisure:
Developers Check Out Area Hotel Need
Avelo Airlines’ ILM Base Takes Flight
Creating a Full-Time Fishing Gig
