Joey Palmisano was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer about five years ago. Not long after that, he sat down with his son Billy Joe to find out any plans the younger Palmisano had for the future.
“He told me he was interested in being a charter fisherman,” the elder Palmisano recalled. “He had been a deckhand for a couple of captain friends of mine. When we sat down to talk, he said he would go to college and fish during the summer.”
That would provide some time to figure things out.
“Once I got my degree, I told him I would make up my mind then about being a charter fisherman,” Billy Joe Palmisano said. “That’s when Dad decided that, if I was serious about college and being a charter captain, he would go ahead and buy a boat, and get us started and build up a clientele.”
Father and son spent almost every day on the water together last summer as their charter operation, Cocodrie Fishing Charters, got its start.
And if last summer’s total of 78 charter trips was any indicator, it will be another busy summer they can spend together on the water.