Gman, you son has done very well for his age. Nobody 40 years ago would believe his story. Things have changed since I was his age. My father would take me out in a wooden hull 36' Chris Craft. There was no need to travel very far as fish were very abundant only a few miles offshore. In fact, we very seldom had to lose site of land to fill up four 28 gallon galvanized garbage cans with fish. It was no problem to catch hundreds of King Mackerel in a 6 hour trip. You would come back to the dock when the garbage cans were full.
I'll never forget the day when my Father started grabbing the fish by the head and getting out his pliers and letting them swim free. I didn't understand as I wanted to pull up to the dock with hundreds of fish. He got tired of seeing all the wasted fish stacked up at the dock with thousands of flies all over them just rotting away. One afternoon when we were fueling up at the dock some guy gave my Father some crap about not having many fish. We had released about 80% that day. That was the first time I ever saw a man knocked out. I forgot to add that my father was a large man and was a four year all conference ball player in college and played pro ball.
We used a wooden plug called a Yellowjacket. It looked like a modern day popper with a slant head to keep it a few feet below the surface. It had two trebles on it. We always had about a dozen Yellowjacket's on board as the yellow and black painted bands would be lost to teeth marks. Everything would hit the Yellowjacket inshore. Kingfish, ling, and an occasional sailfish. The only other lure we would pull was a lead headed feather which the dolphin loved. This was all within site of land.
A few times a year we would go the "Snapper Banks." That was like a trip to nowhere land. When people heard you went to the Snapper banks their mouth opened up in amazement. It was two snapper every single drop. No limits and we would take extra garbage cans with us. The funny thing is that the snapper banks were only 30 miles offshore. I thought I was half way to Cuba as a kid. We used a smoke stack from a Carbon paper plant as our shore bearing. You could see the black smoke that was coming from the plant near Rockport for up to 30 miles offshore. No matter where you were, you always aimed the bow toward the smoke when heading home.
The sad thing about all of this is that we all thought there was millions and millions of fish in the Gulf. It was like an endless supply. The Jewish were killed off when the first rigs were placed close to shore. They were huge, up to 500 pounds. Scuba divers wiped them out at the rigs. My father would take me to the pier at night to catch tarpon. I was hooked with the fishing bug real bad as a kid, and to be honest I still am hooked.
Things are totally different now. Probably one-tenth of the fish as I was a kid. Now you need modern electronics, high tech rods, machined aluminum reels and high speed trolling rigs, etc. It cost a fortune to fish in current times. Boats, fuel, housing, and tackle has sky rocketed. It's not as fun as the old days because you actually have to hunt for the fish. You can even get skunked while burning hundreds and hundreds of gallons of high priced fuel.
The sad thing is when you son hits his mid fifties he probably won't be able to put a legal fish in the box. Everything that now has limits will be off limits. It will probably be a felony to keep a fish. You might even be monitored on your releases via satellite. The fun will be totally gone and the world of sportfishing will become a dead market. I hope you and your sons continue to fish as much as possible, because one day it will be prohibited. Enjoy your time now and release anything you can't eat.
