Here's the short story.
Fishing was a big part of my life. Fishing is everywhere in Florida. Even the tiny pond down the street holds good bass. I started fishing my neighborhood lakes when I was 12. I built my first boat myself when I was 16. It was 8 feet long by 4 feet wide. My future wife worked the sponge.
By 18 I was fishing bass tournaments for money. I won my first professional bass tournament when I was 22. In Miami the Bahamas are only 50 miles away. The Gulf stream is less than a mile offshore. I had friends who would take me offshore fishing. Florida has some of the best Tarpon and Sailfish fishing in the US. Eventually I began fishing offshore tournaments.
One of my wife's customers at the bank where she worked was a world renowned professional sport fisherman. He and his wife were sponsored by Penn Reels. We became good friends. They traveled all over the world chasing Marlin. As my computer services business grew and prospered, we traveled often fishing as a team. We fished all over Canada, Central and South America, Australia and even spent a month in Papua New Guinea.
I retired from the computer business in 1996 and moved to Central Florida. I returned to bass fishing full time. When I applied for my Captain's License, I had logged over 3,500 hours at the helm of a boat. Between tournaments, I guided, wrote about fishing and supported my sponsors. At one time I was a weekly columnist for local newspapers and magazines. I have probably owned at least 20 boats from the eight foot boat I built when I was 16 to a 40 foot sport fisherman I owned for 10 years.
To cut this story short, I developed spinal stenosis in my back and arthritis in my arms 10 years ago and I can't fishing for more than 3-4 hours. My son who owns the business I started in 1969, takes me fishing with him on occasion. I see parallels in fishing and video poker all the time.
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