About Captain Barry Gibson

Capt. Barry Gibson has been charter fishing and guiding out of Boothbay Harbor since 1971, when he bought his first passenger boat, the Sasanoa. Since then he has owned a succession of boats all named Shark, a tribute to Joe Russell, a Key West charter captain who guided Ernest Hemingway (and whose boat was named Shark) that Barry fished with in 1967.

Barry spent much of his chartering career catching groundfish, sharks, and giant bluefin tuna offshore, and built a cutting-edge, 36-foot Downeast sportfisherman, the Shark IV, in 1993. He sold it in 2005 and bought a 24-foot Boston Whaler named Shark Five, which he replaced with the 28-foot Shark Six in 2008. He enthusiastically chases striped bass, bluefish, and bluefin tuna in Maine’s beautiful Sheepscot/Kennebc River systems and the adjacent bays and offshore waters. 

Along with chartering, Barry spent 27 years with the Salt Water Sportsman magazine, supervising 25 home staffers, art directors, and field editors, and working closely with nearly 100 contributors. Responsible for the editorial content and direction of SWS for 22 of those years as Editor (1982-2004), he also contributed hundreds of feature articles, photos and editorials to the magazine during his tenure. A long-time proponent of responsible fishery management, he has served on numerous state, federal, and international boards, including the New England Fishery Management Council (three 3-year terms, Chairman 1992) and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) Advisory Committee. Currently he serves as Chairman of the NEFMC Recreational Advisory Panel, as a member of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Committee, as vice-president of the Northeast Charterboat Captains Association (which he co-founded in 1988), and serves as the New England Regional Director for the nationally-acclaimed Recreational Fishing Alliance.