Captain Lain Goodwin, owner of Dirty Waters Charters, knows that muddy waters — where fresh water spills from Florida Bay’s backcountry and Everglades National Park into the Gulf of Mexico’s salty waters — are rich with the world’s best fishing.
The 41-year-old captain prefers dirty water, often discovered like treasure in the Florida Keys’ aquamarine seascape. Underneath tiny swirling clouds of mud in the flats and beds of seagrass, it’s possible to find feeding redfish, snook and spotted sea trout.
Lain helps charter clients discover the rich fishing grounds in the Everglades, Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
That inspired Lain’s charter’s name and its logo: a circle of redfish, bonefish and snook, intermingled with fleurs-de-lis symbolizing his home state of Louisiana and its French heritage.
Lain’s love of fishing began at age 6 with his first catch, an eel caught from a Lake Pontchartrain dock. Hailing from southern Louisiana, where his roots run deep, Lain journeyed down to Key Largo where island life is surrounded by the pull of saltwater.
Today he runs charters 250 to 300 days each year to the Everglades, Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. He uses Penn rods and reels on his 23-foot Shearwater day boat and 18-foot Maverick HPX.
The reflective and soft-spoken Lain, his voice tinged with a slight N’Awlins accent, majored in business management at Louisiana State University. He worked his way through LSU running four Smoothie Kings, the franchise first started in the early 1970s in his hometown of Kenner, a New Orleans suburb.
American Bankers Insurance in south Miami-Dade County recruited him straight out of college, but city life proved challenging.
“I hated living in Miami,” Lain admitted.
On weekends he escaped to the Upper Keys, where he enjoyed snook fishing in the Everglades.
Fishing has been the captain’s passion since childhood.
In an enviable twist of fate, a co-worker offered to let him live in and maintain her home near mile marker 104. Lain also worked for a computer security firm, traveling the country while living in Key Largo.
He married his college sweetheart, Mary Ann, when she finished pharmacy school. The two settled in Key Largo and, at age 29, Lain opened his charter business. He and Mary Ann now have two young children who enjoy life on the water.
Lain still enjoys fishing in Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain, the Atchafalaya Basin and Cocodrie — but preserving fishing access to Florida’s Everglades is a personal calling. A past president of the Key Largo Fishing Guides Association, he spent the last decade working to retain fishing access in Everglades National Park.
“The Everglades is just pure nature. I always tell clients it’s something we should never take for granted,” he said. “I like the shallow visuals of it. It’s an experience of above and below the water line.”
Fishing in the Everglades has a $1 billion annual economic impact, Lain advised. The park’s new general management plan, effective Jan. 1, 2016, will guide preservation and public recreational access in the Everglades through the next several decades.
Lain, his wife Mary Ann and their two children share a Keys lifestyle that includes plenty of time on the water.
Lain’s past angling clients include former Miami Dolphins center Seth McKinney, a “couple of famous hockey goalies from Boston” and the son of an infamous reputed mobster from New Orleans.
“But normally, it’s just the average Joe,” he said. “Up to 70 percent of my clients are repeat business and referrals.
“My specialty is customer service (and) my big thing is, I never sit down,” stated Lain. “I’ll take the fish off the hook, we’ll have an intelligent conversation — with any variable that’s within my control, I don’t skimp.”
He reported that his business has morphed “from older rich guys” to families seeking a day of adventure on the water.
‘’When you get on the boat with two little kids and their mom and dad from Wisconsin, and they’re all grinning ear to ear, it’s all worth it,” said the captain who loves “dirty waters.”
