The Bait and Switch

I did not get into fishing at the age of 12 to meet girls. I was enchanted by the fish.

Still, my early teen fishing obsession was quickened by an outdoor magazine article about wade-fishing for Jack Crevalle in Miami.

The story featured color photos a pretty blond woman in a bikini wielding a spinning rod, waist-deep on the flats at Key Biscayne. The next photos showed her holding up good-sized Jack Crevalle that she’d caught. Pretty fish, pretty girl. Gorsh!

Half a century later I remember those photos like they were yesterday. But in my early teens, the blue and green sea grass flats of Key Biscayne were a thousand miles away, while birds were diverse and abundant close to home. I switched from fishing to birding, a somewhat less male-biased activity, but only somewhat. The fields of ornithology and recreational birding are now, thankfully, well-mixed flocks, while fishing remains entirely too much a boy’s club. Even as a birder, it became clear that other social graces would have to be cultivated if I didn’t aspire to be a hermit.

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In researching this post, I tried to find the original article so I could show you the photos that made such an impression. I checked the archives of Field and Stream Magazine from 1969 to 1974 with no luck. The story must have been in Outdoor Life Magazine, which I could not find archived from those years. 

Could AI re-create the images? I haven’t tried AI image generation yet, so I figured I’d give it a go.

I asked ChatGPT to create an image of a young woman with blond hair below her shoulders, standing waist-deep on a tropical salt flat, wearing a light blue bikini, and holding up a glistening Jack Crevalle about 20” long. ChatGPT responded that it does NOT make images of women in bikinis, with the implication that I should go take a cold shower and behave myself. The AI engine in WordPress, on the other hand, actually offered to help me produce such an image.

Pretty close. The woman has shoulder-length hair, and is sitting, not standing as I’d described. For no discernible reason, the AI engine could not convincer her to stand up. The fish is very handsome, if somewhat plastic-looking. It even has the requisite yellow fins but it’s shaped like an Amberjack, not a Jack Crevalle. I’d call it an AI Hallucination Jack. The AI-generated lass is holding this invention the way you’d hold a plastic fish that had no interest in escaping or capacity to do so. A live jack doesn’t stop fighting when you land it so, so you’d best hang on tight to the skinny part near the tail (the caudal peduncle).

This is a Jack Crevalle, one that I caught recently in Jupiter Sound, onboard the boat of former student turned fishing guide Mike Haines. Note the secure grip for a quick photo prior to launching it head-first back into the water.

Google is not so modest as ChatGPT and found half a dozen images that matched my description, though not the ones from the article in the early 1970s. From their genuine grins and their practiced grips on the fish, most of these young women appear to have caught their fine jacks themselves – congratulations!

My wife Gray advised me to limit the number of sexy fish photos in this post, so I just kept the one closest to the original. Still, even today, the ratio of online photos of men versus women holding Jack Crevalle is about 50 to 1.

Since I moved to Miami 33 years ago, I’ve spent plenty of time on the flats around Key Biscayne and I have yet to see a woman do anything serious with a fishing rod. The famously gorgeous women of Miami are abundant on the beaches, picnicking, reading, sunbathing, taking selfies, even bird-watching. They can be seen doing all manner of things in the water – except fishing. When I wander past them, covered head-to-toe in SPF-50 outdoor clothing, as per the dermatologist’s orders, I look and feel like a different species. When I say “hi” to women I know, they are surprised to hear a familiar voice emanating from under the layers: “Oh, Mayor Stoddard! I didn’t recognize you! Can you join us for lunch?”

The implication of that article from around 1971, that a fellow might be joined by pretty girls while wade-fishing the flats at Key Biscayne, fits the very definition of a bait-and-switch. Other social graces are still required.