But a Longboat Key customer did. One day, the guy asked Walker to use it to take his wife fishing. He started doing it with groups of people, using boats he rented, but Walker did it for free. He did so until the woman he took out said he needed to charge for his services.

“She told her friends and so forth,” said Kellie, one of Walker’s two children. “That’s how it started,” Jonnie said.

It proved the birth of a Sarasota fishing legend