Starting off with a little history, the Houston Ship Channel, all 50 miles of it, was begun in 1875 and not really completed until 1914.  In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s it was widened to over 500 feet, with a depth of 45.  Even for Texas, it is an engineering feat!

The month of August is probably the hottest one along the upper Texas coast with the water in the shallow bays, East and West Galveston Bay and Christmas Bay, heating up to the mid 80’s causing the big trout and redfish to seek cooler water.  The cooler water we were heading out to this mid August morning in 1968 was along the Houston Ship Channel.  The weather forecast was good light winds with the tide coming in, scattered thunder storms, in the afternoon, but our plan was to finish up by lunch, so we didn’t anticipate any bad weather or problems.

In my 17 foot, deep vee, pictured above, we, my dad and uncle, Alvin Pyland, better known as Unkie, launched at the bait camp at San Leon and made the short run out to the ship channel.   We went about 200 yards on the Smith’s Point side of the ship channel and started our drift.

Our tackle was 6-1/2 foot popping rods, red, Ambassaduer reels filled with 15 pound, mono line.  We used a popping cork with a 3, foot, leader, a light weight and a small treble hook.  Our bait was live shrimp.  We’d cast out, pop the cork, reel up the slack, repeat the process until we either had a strike or we retrieved the rig back to the boat, then, if no hit, cast back out and repeat the process.

Unkie and Dad cast out and hadn’t made one or two “pops” when they both had big strikes, both fish were good ones, taking line and circling the boat, a sure sign of a big trout!  Netting Unkies fish first, a real nice 5 pounder, my dad’s fish put on a show around the boat for us and we could see that is was a little bigger than Unkies.  Finally I cast out, popped the cork once and “bam” had a big strike.  A 20, yard, first run, highlighted this fight, along with two circles of the boat, with a lot of wallows on top before Dad slipped the net under the spec, a twin of his.

We were probably 15 or 20 miles up from the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel, the Galveston Jetties, and in the distance, south of us, the morning’s first big tanker was heading our way.  My dad said, “Boy, you’ve never seen the wake these big ships throw up, have you?”  “What wakes?” was my answer, then Unkie chimed in, “Six or 7 footers, that’s what and we’d better get everything in the boat squared away!”  This got my attention quick.  We quit fishing and knowing that if you’re in heavy seas, you head into them and don’t get caught broad side, I started the engine and here the came the wake.

Looking at the wake, it came toward us, obliquely, in a long line, soon it was only 50 feet from us then, here it was!  The deep vee in my boat’s hull cut smoothly through the 7, foot wake, rode up and down it and it would have swamped us if we’d been broadside to.

Encouraged by our recent success at catching over a dozen large speckled trout along the Channel, we decided to try our luck at the same approximate spot the following Monday. Before sun up, with a light wind blowing out of the southeast and the tide forecast was for it to be coming in all morning, we left Unkie’s house, near Hobby Airport, maybe another “haul”?  By the time we drove down to San Leon and got the boat ready for launching, the wind had shifted to the south and was blowing near 15 MPH, not the light breeze that we woke up to!  Our memory of the ideal conditions of the past week faded as the bay was already showing scattered white caps as Unkie, the eternal optimist, said, “Maybe it will smooth out before too long?”

The boat handled the cross chop very well as we sped across the ship channel, slowed down and started to literally bounce across the waves. To slow our drift, I deployed a 3, foot drag sleeve that smoothed us out a lot and made it possible for us to cast and keep our balance.  Baiting up we cast out and began our popping routine, pop the cork, reel up the slack, pop and repeat the process.  Our corks would get behind a wave and we’d loose sight of them and have to fish by feel, no problem if we kept our lines tight.

Several casts later, Dad had a good strike and as the fish took off he said, “Whoa big fella!”, he exclaimed.  “This is a good one and it’s not fighting like a spec!”  Good one it was, after 2 big runs against the light tackle and several wallows around the boat, I slipped the net under a nice redfish that weighed, on the bait camp scales, over 8 pounds!

More casts, more popping and as Unkie’s cork slipped behind a wave he reared back, setting the hook in a good fish.  Not the fight of a big red, but a determined pull and soon the fish started circling the boat, a sure sign of a good spec.  Netting the trout, a 6 pounder, I looked up and coming up the ship channel was our first tanker of the morning, pushing out a big wake.

We got the drag sleeve in, getting wet in the process, cranked up the boat’s engine and headed towards the wake.  This one looked huge, but probably was another 7 footer.  It seemed to be going faster that the one last week soon it was on us and up and over the boat handled it perfectly.  No other tankers were in sight so we putted back to our approximate location, deployed the drag sleeve, baited up and started casting out again.

Adding another 5 pounder, I looked up and on the horizon, could see 3 more tankers coming up the channel, probably heading up to the big refineries of Shell and Humble Oil, (in 1972 Humble’s name was changed to Exon.)  We couldn’t beat the first one across the channel so we rode over its wake without a problem, safely getting to the west side of the channel.   The second one presented us a much different situation we couldn’t beat it to the launch ramp so we had to turn around and head into it, slide over, then follow the wake up towards the ramp.

After filleting the fish, as we stowed everything in the boat and my dad remarked, “Not a bad day considering the heavy south wind.  You know, if every time we had a meat haul like last week, this would be called catching, instead of fishing!”

The sun was almost up as Bill Priddy cast the silver Rebel fishing plug about 36 inches out from the bank and was greeted by a solid strike, with the bass immediately taking to the air.  Looks like this stock tank had been stocked with bass before, the rancher didn’t know for sure and Bill and I were checking it out.  Bill slid the 3, pounder on to the sandy bank, unhooked it and slid it back into the water, commenting, “What a way to answer the rancher’s question.”

This trip to our newly acquired McCulloch County hunting lease was set up to scout for dove, the season opened in 2 weeks, but the rancher “insisted” that we check out this 2 acre stock tank, so mixing scouting and fishing, we “killed 2 birds with one stone”!

My bait of choice was a yellow Piggy Boat, pictured to the left, an early “safety pin” spinning bait, almost snag less if the hooks were installed properly, almost weed less and a proven “killer” for small lake and stock tank fishing, but his success cast a knawing doubt, if this was the right choice of baits.   Several casts later my doubts increased, so I thought Four more casts and I’ll switch to a Rebel.

At the same time, in my peripheral vision, I noticed movement to my left.  Turning toward the movement, along came this brightly colored snake, a big one, almost 5 foot long, dark, red bands, with black, yellow and black rings.  First thing that came to my mind was the old saying “Red and yellow kills a fellow. Red and black is safe for Jack.” Letting it slide on past, I thought it was some kind of a king snake, but later after consulting “Bing”, I determined that it was a Mexican milk snake, pictured below from Wikipedia.

More casts, no hits, as Bill plugged away, out scoring me with his Rebel.  Casting down, parallel to the bank, about 2 feet out from the shore, my Piggy Boat stopped, thinking I was fouled on some unseen, underwater obstruction, pulled on the object until the reel clicked as the drag paid out, but this wasn’t a “foul up”, it was a fish!

The fish headed away from the shore for deep water, taking line, more like a redfish, then it came to the surface clearing the water and I saw it was a big, big bass.  More runs, more jumps, the splashes attracting Bill as he walked over to me, but I was winning this “fight” and soon I slipped the big, bass up onto the bank.  Lipping it, unhooking the plug from the corner of its mouth, I held it up for us to admire.  He had a Deliar in his pocket and we weighed the bass, 8 pounds, 12 ounces, not a 12 pounder, my personal best, Bill was with me when I caught that one too, see my August 6, 2007 post, [“A Really Big Bass”], but still, this was a nice one too!

Keeping on fishing, we didn’t notice any doves coming into this tank and as the morning heated up, still no doves, the bass stopped too.  It turned out, the doves weren’t watering at this tank, but we found 2 more that afternoon that they were using and had wonderful shooting, 2 weeks later.

Years later, my son’s and I went up to the lease to fill our corn feeders, after this chore was taken care of, we had some time, the boys choose to go after some bull frogs and I opted for bass. I drove up along side of Hwy. 190 and with my spinning rod and trusty Piggy Boat spinner bait, climbed out of my Suburban, went through the fence, walked over the tank damn and began casting out into the 2 acre tank.  Years earlier, before dove season, Bill Priddy and I had scouted out this tank and enjoyed some good fishing, catching several almost whoppers, me adding an 8 plus pounder, but didn’t see any doves that morning.

Catching and throwing back several 2 pounders, I worked my way around the tank and along the shore, not 50 feet in front of me, on its side, was a big fish.  Walking up to it, it turned out to be a bass, a big one, its gills were barely moving and made no effort to escape to deeper water.

Never having seen this before and putting my rod down, I knelt beside the fish.  The fish made no effort to escape my grasp as I turned it over.  There was no sign of injury on either side, so I edged out into the water and tried to resuscitate the bass by moving it forward, forcing water over its gills.  No luck with that try, so I replaced it on its side stepped out of the water and the bass had stopped moving its gills!   It was gone and loosing heart for fishing, I left the bass on the edge of the water.  The next morning, no bass, I bet it fed some turtles?

If predators don’t get ‘em, bass have the ability to live a long time, 16-20 years.  My best guess was that central Texas’ hot weather and low oxygen content of the water could have combined to kill it.  For sure, extreme cold didn’t cause this one’s death.

I’ve always wondered if this was the big bass that I had caught several years before?