I was wondering about the release myself. Anyone out there know the key to that? Otherwise.. was the WWII generation truly that much tougher than us, or has society just pampered us to the point where even us outdoors types look at things that were run of the mill back then and think.. that's tough. I bet they go to bed tired but happy. John Muir would supposedly throw on an overcoat with oatmeal, tea bags, and a small pot in his pockets and disappear to the hills for a week. I like backpacking and I tend towards the minimalist side, but I find that daunting.

Pretty sure I saw this video on TV when I was a kid in the fifties. If not it was very simular. Pretty awesome stuff. How did they keep the lines from getting tangled? It looked like the big ones got hooked on 2 or 3 poles. How did they do that? Anyway makes your local bluegill catch look pretty limp.

"It would take more than a stinking shark to make ya' back off now," has got to me one of the greatest one-liners ever. Did people really talk like that back then? We have become so PC and wussified that an ordinary working man seems like an action hero by our standards. Imagine someone narrating my job in a call center: "The calls keep coming, and you keep answering them. Your fingers hurt, but you just keep right on typing until 12:30, when it's time for lunch." It's just not the same, is it?

I wonder if these guys went deep sea fishing on their days off. Manly me for sure! Metros would insist on scheduled breaks, masseurs, and hot tubs on board before they'd even consider doing this.

I love it. Look mom, no nets!

JC,
If episode 2 was when you had the pizza delivered to the boat then yes, I caught it. Classic!

Joe..Cermele
Obviously, that is old footage, any idea when it was taken? If I missed it the sound. or in the writings, my apologies.

wow. now you can tell thats hardly a challenge for them. you know i might start to fish our pond with my g-pas army helmlet on.

jcarlin - I agree. If someone is out in the wilderness for more than 3 days we are astounded that they "survived." We are told we are lucky to do so, even before we venture forth. Yet, in the past (and some still do), people would go out for weeks, months, or years at a time ... for a hunt, or a trap line, or an exploration. Not a cakewalk, for sure. Maybe it was just the normal risk associated with living, or they knew from a young age how to live off the land, or they just didn't know anything else.

To learn the skills nowadays you have to take courses or read books with "survival" labels. Back then it was just passed from parent to child in the normal course of living. Yeah, we are spoiled. Our kids even more so. What happens if we find ourselves in a situation where it is all taken away from us? We get lauded if we are able to survive for 3 days. Otherwise, we get buried or eaten.

Humans are adaptable creatures and can endure much. I think these tuna fisherman just accepted the hard work to feed themselves and their families. They make me think of the crab fisherman in the north and the laborers in the foundries. There's satisfaction and pride in a hard day's work, but we want better for our kids.

I believe I'd need to do some weight lifting before I could go out with them boys, I'd be tuckered out by lunch.
Maybe they hired a bunch of lumberjacks for this video. LOL

Joe,
Maybe we should get some bullet proof vest too?

ArmchairOu,
I hear ya.

And just a side note, I wonder how many of them got smacked with a big ol' tuna. I can not even imagine doing that day after day... the blisters... the sore muscles...=deffinition of man.