It was a beautiful summer day on the beach in Galveston, the girls out in force with their 1950’s, “skimpy” bathing suits, nothing like now days Bikinis, light wind from the southeast and no waves crashing on or over Galveston’s South Jetty. However, this trip, Bobby Baldwin and I didn’t have eyes for the girls, but we had walked out the concrete walkway then, holding on to our rod and reels and carrying our live shrimp in a bait bucket along with one tackle box, literally climbed out on the slick, rocks of the jetty, ending up a hundred yards past the topping.

This was to be our fishing spot and our target for the morning would be speckled trout. Both of us were armed with 6 foot, popping rods, direct drive reels spooled with 15 pound braided line, both reels having the luxury of a star drag system and later in the morning, mine would be tested severely! We were both using popping corks with a 2 to 3 foot, leader, the bait of choice was live shrimp. We’d cast along the rocks and slowly reel in while popping the corks, the pop simulating the sound a trout makes while feeding on the surface, hopefully attracting other fish to the shrimp.

Casting our baits out, it was no time until both corks went under, setting the hooks, mine came back hookless, but Bobby was fast into a Spanish mackerel and obviously, my leader was cut by another’s sharp teeth! Swinging his mackerel up on to the rocks, in our haste to get to fishing, we both remembered we’d left the net in the car, so for the morning we practiced swing and catch the fish. This proved much easier said then done, since a 3, pound trout doesn’t swing very good, let alone they’re slimy and hard to hold on to!

Threading the mackerel on to the stringer, it dawned on us there was no place to tie it off, our choices being a cleft between two of the massive stones used to construct the jetty, or loop it around the tackle box that was wedged in securely, we chose the tackle box. Wouldn’t you know it, after I rehooked and cast out, I had a big strike, with the fish wallowing and splashing on the surface, quickly identifying it as a big trout, I tried my best to land it, but as I swung it up out of the water, it didn’t swing very good, the hook dislodged and, plop, back into the deep with it. Smaller trout, along with the occasional mackerel, were no problem, but how do you tell a big fish not to eat your shrimp?

We’d caught maybe a dozen trout and two mackerel, when I cast out and had a huge strike, really a pole bender! All I could do was hold on as the reel’s star drag was zinging as the unknown fish took out line. Zzzz, zzzz, zzzz the star drag was singing as the fish headed down the jetty for parts unknown. Finally the end of my line was reached, pop, it gave way, leaving me with an empty reel and unbowed rod. That was some fish!

With me with no line and since I drove, I called it a day and Bobby followed suit. The fishing and catching was fun, the rock hopping proved to be dangerous because a friend, not two weeks later, slipped and fell, cut his leg, that required ten stitches to close. This one event brought our rock hopping to an early end!

Years later, I finally figured out what kind of fish was probably on the end of my line. After catching many kingfish on light tackle, I bet it was a 15 pounder that stripped me. It was too fast for a shark, they fight more doggedly; not a tarpon, no jumps; not a big redfish, no head shaking and not a king size speckled trout, no wallowing; it had to be a king!

Another thing, we never looked at the girls in their skimpy bathing suits and besides we were goin’ fishin’ not girlin’!

This was big time fun, we’d cast out, the cork would go under and we’d reel in a 12 inch speckled trout, this was repeated so many times that our arms were getting tired! Giving no thought to the fish cleaning that lay ahead, we kept on catching the trout, all the same size, 12 inchers.

We were using our standard trout gear, direct drive reels on 6 foot, split cane, rods (our dad’s of course), with 20 pound braided line. This was the summer of 1954 and I’d just graduated from high school and George Pyland, my cousin had just finished his first year at Texas A&M College (now the 7th largest university in the country). Our bait was live shrimp, fished under a popping cork, we’d cast out, pop the cork once and it would go under. Being youngsters we thought this fishing was the ultimate!

We had started our fishing trip at Bobby Wilson’s Bait camp, where we bought a quart of shrimp. We then drove around to what was then called East Beach, it is no more because a hurricane came right up the Galveston Ship Channel and washed away a fine fishing spot.

We waded out and began casting and right away we began to catch specs. We only had about a quart of shrimp, roughly around a hundred and within two hours they were used up. Then we had a bright idea, we’d tear off small bits from my tee shirt and use that for bait, but after a couple of fish, the fish still hit the small white patches, we ruled this out because I would be shirtless if we continued.

Our stringers were loaded with trout, over 50 on each so we decided to go back in and clean the fish. Why we didn’t use the cleaning table provided at Bobby Wilson’s I don’t know why, so we sat ourselves down on the pier and began the cleaning, cutting their heads off and scaling them. Soon I noticed that I was getting sun burned, my legs below my shorts, were red and getting redder, but we still had half a hundred to go.

By the time we finished, my upper legs were fried and it was over a week until I could wear anything but shorts, playing baseball then, I even went on the DL because of the sunburn. After that trip I always wore long pants when I waded!

The summer of 1982 was one for the books. Very nice weather, so nice that you could plan an offshore trip for the next weekend and, sure enough, the weather would turn out to be nice! An early Monday in mid June, we’d planned to take off from work on the coming Friday afternoon and fish around the oilrigs east of Galveston. These rigs, near the Heald Banks, had been consistent fish producers for us for several weeks. In fact, I caught the biggest king mackerel, maybe a state record, at one of these rigs, see my post “State Records Make Good Eatin’”.

The fishermen, Dewey, Max, Clem and I, reported for duty at Dewey’s boat sling at the Galveston Yacht Basin. Clem, a business associate of ours, was a Cicero and had never been offshore fishing before. We figured that the three of us could help (control) him and make this baptism successful.

Passing the first rig, 7 miles out from the end of the North Jetty, we circled the rig but the water didn’t look right, we didn’t see any signs of bait or fish activity, so we motored on. From experience we knew that no bait in the water, equaled no fish

The next rig, over 10 miles out, we pulled up close to it on the down current side and let out three lines. We were using 6-1/2 foot, popping rods, black reels packed with fifteen pound, mono, a three foot, steel leader and two hooks with the eye on one threaded through the other, a fish getter! Attached to the hooks was a six, inch, frozen, cigar minnow that we’d purchased at the Yacht Basin. The frozen bait gave us the weight needed for short casts and they quickly thawed out and became excellent baits for king mackerel (kingfish) and/or cobia.

Drifting away from the rig, we had two solid strikes. Clem picked up one rod and was welcomed to catching a kingfish. His fish ran and took out line for a good 50 yards, made another shorter run, and with more instruction, Clem brought the fish up to be gaffed. We gaffed it, flopped it into the cooler and his only remark was, “It sure pulled hard!”

Max boated the other king, a 25 pounder, we rebaited, resumed our drift and soon had another strike. Clem grabbed this rod too and held on! Another long run, two shorter ones, gaffing the king and flopping it in the box, Clem, under his breath said, “This could be like work!”

No more strikes so we headed on out. After about 20 miles we pulled up to a working rig and tied up to it. Soon, the cook came out, started up a conversation with us and told of some nice tarpon and cobia that he’d seen lolling around the rig. This got our attention and we put out four lines.

Strike, strike, and thinking that it might be a tarpon, Dewey and I picked up the rods, but the long runs identified the fish as kings. Another strike and Clem picked up the rod, the line started out and a 6, foot, tarpon cleared the water, Dewey and I were working our fish toward the boat. Then, Clem yelled, “How do I fight this thing?” Max was up talking with the cook as the tarpon cleared the water again and headed south. One more jump and it was all over as the hook came sailing back toward us.

Prior to the late 1990’s tarpon were extremely rare in the northern Gulf, but we told Clem not to worry; we’d all lost tarpon that they’re very hard to hook, have tough mouths and their aerobatics make them difficult to land. We didn’t tell him that the first thing he should have done when one hits a bait was to really sock the hook to it, then give the fish some slack when it jumped and then hold on!

We always tried not to take Cicero’s, beginners, out offshore fishing with us. Several times we relented and each of these times we were burned. We were very slow learners about taking Cicero’s offshore with us!

Having fished all over the U.S., Canada, Hawaii and Mexico, my favorite spot still remains the Gulf side of Galveston’s South Jetty!  As I remember back over the years, I must have tried over 200 times to get to this secret spot and I know that I was successful well over a hundred of those.  Having posted several stories of my adventures at the secret place, I thought it would be good to summarize and catalog them, here goes!

My first stop at this place was in 1963, see my post “[The Last Click]”, and who knew, that this spot would be my speckled trout catching place for over 50 years!  Now I know why we stopped that fateful morning, one was to judge my salt water fishing ability, but the second, most important, was to judge my aversion, pro or con, to seasickness.  Yes, I am averted towards seasickness, many times I have “trolled” for kingfish, going out or coming back from an adventure offshore, but never inshore in my search for speckled trout or redfish.

Another memorable trip was with my dad and we loaded up on speckled trout, see “[Jetty Pros]”.  We filled a cooler with specks and had to come in because we didn’t have anyplace to put them, and yes, they were still biting when we left.

Or the time Jim Buck and I loaded a bigger cooler with sheepshead, see my post  “[Making Do]”, and sold them at the local fish market for $.30 per pound.

Another time, I took Norman Shelter with me, my post [“Gut Check Time”] and we got caught in some of the largest rollers we’d ever seen!

On another trip to my spot, Brad’s rod, reel, hook, line and sinker (with flounder attached), went bouncing over the deck, I caught it just before it went overboard and one of my friends yelled across at me, “[Good Hands]”!

Suzanne even visited the spot with me and caught a very nice redfish, “[The Big Red]”.  The events afterwards are still talked about when the family gets together.

Finally, one of my last trips to the secret spot was with Carl Parkinson, a long time employee and neighbor of mine, when I hooked and landed a huge trout, see the post “[I’m Throwin’ Her Back]”.  Thinking of the big ones that I kept, I released it so it could spawn again and again.

For all those years, it’s a funny thing, but I never saw my friend, or any of his family, fishing at this spot again, thinking back, I never saw anyone fishing at this spot!