About the Captain

Born and raised in a French town named Mobile, just inland of Dauphin Island, Alabama, Tanner Deas first got his hands on a fishing pole while spending time with his dad yet his own passion for fishing would later click in his twenties while recovering from a near tragic, work-related accident. He suffered extensive injuries from being pinned between a flatbed truck and a loading dock while working an industrial job in Mobile, Alabama.

Miraculously, he lived. His journey to healing would involve extensive therapy and treatments, including the need to learn to walk again, all six feet five inches of him. Being the same height and stature, Tanner’s father, Shane Gilchrist, moved into Tanner’s home to care for him. Some of their down time included Shane sharing YouTube videos of people fishing. This is where the interest in fishing grew inside Tanner. Rather than doing therapy around in circles of an apartment complex parking lot, Shane drove to Dauphin Island for more scenic views and to cast a few lines himself. Tanner started small, at the first, only getting out in the sand in a wheelchair but later would transition to taking steps with a walker. “Walking a quarter mile was like running a marathon yet the fish were calling”, he says. Putting one foot in front of the other paid off! Before long he was catching Sheepshead and Speckled Trout with many of his supportive family members including his mom, Heather (Heath) Sanders, grandmother, Virginia Tanner, his siblings and other family members.

Tanner continued therapy and got outside more and more, which facilitated healing. Eventually he was walking beaches and finding areas to access fishable water around Dauphin Island, a place he had grown to love and now calls home. He explains, “I found myself walking all over the island and fishing down here almost every single day”. Tanner recorded over 275 days a year spent on the water fishing in the last three years. “The sandy beaches, mesmerizing waves and salt air became my home and place of healing. I spent more time with God and got closer to myself, learning who I am more in those years than I ever had in my entire life. I fell in love with the fish, the hunt of getting the bite, and the feel of the thump as they eat your lure”, he says.

It is clear Tanner’s friendliness is contagious, his kindness towards people and enthusiasm for business cannot be contained. Fishing, he says, is what he has decided he wants to do forever. And that is why he is now called Captain Tanner Deas. Tanner tells us “my dream is to experience the water, the fish and the healing environment of God’s creation every single day. My hope is to share this beautiful place and the peace it holds with anyone who wants to experience it.” His intentions are to “contribute to this community and the conservation of this magnificent resource so that we can pass it down for generations to come”. If you get the privilege of chatting with Capt. Tanner Deas, you will surely agree, he is a keeper!