Tom Phillips of Siluria, Ala., shared these pictures of himself and his father Fred with The Log.
He writes that the photos were taken by some type of tourist board and they were sent to the Birmingham News to be published. While they are not dated, Phillips notes the accompanying letter says he was a senior at the time the photos were taken, so it would have been in the Spring of 1966.
“The boat here is the Linda Anne, owned by Jewel Melvin, and docked at Jewel's old Ice house,” Phillips writes. “The Captain is Tommy Browning, I think the deck hand was Eddie Windes but cannot remember for sure.”
Phillips told The Log that the boat was an old single screw gas engine and he and his father did an offshore trip and had a great catch of one white marlin, lots of dolphin, and other things.
“I don’t think this was my first fishing trip with Tommy, but my memory fails me,” he said. “He might remember better.”
Phillips was 23-years-old at the time.
“Tommy and I had many many fishing trips and never once failed to catch a boatload of fish,” Phillips said. “We started cobia fishing in the ‘60s when it was a new thing. In those days we called them ling. Several of us were ‘Ling fishing’ off the Destin Pier as early as 1958.”
Many of the Destin Boat captains started fishing as youngsters on the Destin Pier and I met several, Phillips said.
“Tommy got his own boat, the Finest Kind, soon after this,” he said. “I chartered that boat many times mainly offshore trips and cobia trips. We caught over 30 cobia at times.”