iirc it was “fishers of MEN” being a play on the word fisherman to fishers of men...
changing it to “people” loses the poetry
You’ll need to direct your objection to the Zondervan Society, publishers of the now-politically-correct New International Version. If I could find the 1984 version of the NIV online, I would use it rather than their recent revisions; but in spite of my diligent search, I have not located it—it has disappeared in the past two years.