New Year’s Eve of 1981 was a memorable event because we, the three couples that collectively owned the house in Bayou Vista; Jerry and Sammie Masters, my brother-in-law and his wife, Jim and Pat Buck and my ex-wife and I, decided to jointly put on a big New Year’s Eve party in our new beach house.

The party was rolling along and around 10:00 PM I had lost interest in all of the small talk and went down stairs and was sitting on the boat dock when I heard the unmistakable “pop” of a trout hitting the surface right out from where I was sitting. “Pop”, another one, and I was up in a flash and into the ground floor of the house and out with a rod, reel and silver spoon with a yellow bucktail attached.

The rod that I grabbed had a silver spoon with a yellow bucktail already rigged up and Jim grabbed one with a 52M, MirrOlure attached.

The only light was from a full moon overhead as I whipped a cast almost across the canal and began a rapid retrieve and “Whamo” a good trout nails the spoon and the fight is on. Now I think, how am I going to land this fish with no landing net since I’m standing at least three feet above water level. In my haste I had forgotten to bring out a net! I swing/flop the Trout out of the water into the yard, run to it, get the hook out and carry it inside and put it into a forty-eight quart cooler, sans ice.

Back outside, this time with a long handled net, and cast again, and again “Whamo” another Trout, which I subdue, net and add to the cooler, just as Jim Buck comes downstairs asking, “Brother-In-Law, are you OK? I thought you may have fallen in,” as he sees me putting a fish into the cooler.

He grabs another rod and reel, this one with a M-52 Mirror Lure attached and makes a cast. We catch four more Trout before the school moves on, all nice fish two to two and one-half pounds. We wash our hands, get some ice out of the fridge we have downstairs, cover the fish with it and go back upstairs to the small talk.

Nobody else missed me but Jim.