• By JOE MACALUSO
• Advocate Outdoors writer
• Published: Jun 28, 2009 - Page: 18C

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The summer day 38 years ago seems like yesterday.

Offshore charter pioneer Charlie Hardison pulled a young writer from his spot on the stern — where he was catching 4-pound croaker three at a time — and asked if he wanted more of a challenge.

Yes, sirree.

Hardison pulled a rod from a special stack and uncoiled a length of line.

“It’s called a snood rig,” Hardison said, answering the question before it came. “This is what I like to use to catch that special fish.”

Hardison’s instruction to a deckhand was simple: “Mackerel,” he said in his gruff, gravely voice.

The young man produced a 15-inch-long torpedo-shaped fish to impale on the 6/0 hook.

Hardison’s 15-second explanation was that the triple swivel helped keep a bait at the just-right depth because a heavy 4-ounce sinker kept the line from drifting in the knot-and-a-half current that was moving through the oil platform that was holding tons of fish.

The oddity of the rig was the 8-foot line piece of monofilament tied to the third swivel.

“The leader is long enough to let the bait drift into the rig with the current, but when a big snapper or a grouper, or an amberjack hits it, the (snood) rig gives you an edge when you go to pull the fish from under the rig,” Hardison explained.

The mackerel spent all of 20 seconds about 50 feet down before the young writer had latched onto a giant snapper, all 24 pounds of a red beauty.

“Remember this. Learn how to tie the knots you’ll need, and you’ll catch a lot of big fish,” Hardison said.

Over the next 20 years, the “snood” was modified to allow for targeting different species and to allow for current.