2016 tuna fishing thoughts / how different was it really?

The BFT tuna bite off SoCal for this year is finally about over. For some reason, I just couldn't get excited enough to go fishing for them - so I passed. Did last year too. Shit, they were even bigger this year. Not that I was overwhelmed with invites - but if I really wanted to go, I could have drug my skiff down there and had a reasonable shot at getting one. I recall reading/hearing about the BFT bites that used to occur in the Catalina channel. 100 pounders....200 pounders....and even bigger. I used think, the old days - that'll never happen again. So much for that idea. This is two years in a row for those tuna. I don't know what years in the past the big BFT would bite off SoCal - early 1900's or so? When we would hang out at Yo's or Payne's, the old guys would talk about the big tuna biting in the channel. How it would mostly show - and not much go. This is the mid-1960's. So the old guys (probably about my age) in their 60's would have been fishing hard 1920 - 1950. That was the old days for them. Which just means - at some point, the bites we had the last couple of years - will the the good old days for some of the younger fisherfolks in another 20 or 40 years. The gear those guys used to use were astonishingly primitive. I would imagine if the gear we have today were used, the landings would have been vastly different. Guess that goes to all fishing - not just BFT fishing, but all fishing. The available tackle is absolutely amazing. Also amazing are the prices. I come from a world where going on the 1/2 day boat would cost 3 or 4 dollars. When I think about paying over 100 dollars to go fishing on a day boat - I am in a constant state of shock. And the tackle. I think I paid 8 or 10 bucks for my first Penn Jigmaster - a 501. At a tackle store in Playa Del Rey - near the beach on Culver. Shit, I just saw a 501 on Ebay for a 100 bucks! How the hell is that? So if the fishing is cyclic - how about some of them prices coming down to where they used to be? NOT!!!