MIAMI’S FISH SCHOOL

FOR 16 SUMMERS NOW, Capt. Mike Puller has been teaching Miami’s youth the art of sport fishing. On the surface, the lessons these kids learn not only include knot tying, cast-net throwing and kite-fishing, but beneath, the underlying lessons that create the foundation of moral socialization, appreciation and teamwork are also embedded. For Puller, it’s not just the satisfaction of teaching his students to master a new skill set, but it’s also the joy of seeing the way they mature—as humans—navigating obstacles and connecting the lessons to everyday life without even knowing it. He’s not curing cancer, he says, but perhaps one day, one of his kids will.

In 1996, 28-year-old professional mate Mike Puller stepped off an airplane from Italy, where he had been fishing for the previous few weeks. His brother, Jim, broke the news: Their father was selling one of the family’s charter boats, a rode-hard, put-up-wet 45-foot Key West No. 1 called Lisa L. With two boats on the charter dock, he opted to keep the other: a nice 46-foot Hatteras named Sea Vous Play.

Key West No. 1’s are known as solid, commercial-style fishing platforms that were also used to smuggle drugs in the 1970s and ’80s, but as a Miami charter boat, it had served the Puller family well for the past 12 years. Jim had been but decided to go out on his own, and his father, Capt. Wes Puller, who started chartering out of Crandon Park Marina on Key Biscayne when Mike was just a kid, didn’t want the hassle of owning two boats. He was going to sell the iconic . “Bells went off in my head,” Puller says. “I had to have her. To me, she was the most beautiful thing on the ocean.” And although his father fought him tooth and nail, Wes gave in. Puller remembers these words the most: “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”