In the spring of 1966, severe flooding over the headwaters of the Trinity and San Jacinto Rivers and Buffalo Bayou had flushed out Galveston Bay.  The bay was fresh and muddy and almost all of the baitfish had departed and taken up residence along the beachfront and the Galveston Jetties.  The trout and reds quickly followed presenting a real opportunity to catch some fish and try out my new boat, a 16foot, semi-v, with a internal bait well (this was a real big deal back then), pushed by a 75 horse outboard.  This boat was a great step forward from my last, a 14, footer.

So that I could make my afternoon appointments, this particular day in early May, 1966, my dad and I had decided to sneak off early in the morning, fish our South Jetty spot and be back in town by 10:00 AM.  Dad was retired, never missed a chance to go fishing and, unlike me, had no schedules pressing on him.

We bought a quart of shrimp, put it in the internal bait well, then launched at Bobby Wilson’s Bait Camp and sped at 35, miles per hour around the east beach flats, not there anymore since a hurricane rearranged the landscape around the end of Galveston Island.  With one exception, now that I owned a jetty worthy boat there would be no more wading for us, the exception being only if it was too rough to get around the end of the South Jetty, we would wade.  No problem today since the wind was blowing lightly out of the northeast.

Just after sunrise we motored up and slipped close to the jetty, quietly dropping the anchor, letting out some line until the anchor caught.  Looking up and down the jetty, we were the only boat out.  We ended up 35 or 40, feet from the rocks, in 10 feet of water.  The depth dropped from 0 to 10, feet in 40, feet!  The tide was flowing to our left toward the beach and it’s funny that when the tide is flowing out of the channel, you get a reverse effect on the gulf side of both jetties.  We could see the baitfish crowded against the rocks and we knew the trout were here!

Dad had a new, red reel with 15, pound line, mounted on a 6-1/2, foot, fiberglass, popping rod, just the right tackle.  Using a spinning reel, 10, pound line with a semi-stiff, 6-1/2, foot, spinning rod, I would be Ok unless I picked up a big red or a jackfish.  We were free shrimping with a BB size split shot attached about 10 inches above a small, treble hook.  Trout poison!  For the record we had 2 coolers, foam for food and drinks and a new 48, quart Igloo for the fish.  Funny thing, at that time, Igloo was one of my computer customers and my afternoon appointment was with them.

We baited up, cast toward the rocks, drug the shrimp slowly along the drop off and whamo, whamo, we were both into 2 very nice fish.  We began the “West Bay Shuffle”, circling around the boat, passing rods under each other to prevent tangling, all while keeping pressure on the fish and these were good ‘uns!  We netted both fish in the same landing net, removed the hooks, placed them in the new 48, quart cooler and the fish were identical, 26, long, 5 pounders, with their tails curling up the side if the cooler.

We shook hands, baited up and cast out and whamo, whamo, 2 more nice fish and this was repeated over and over until we had the cooler full to the top with a minimum of ice sprinkled on the fish!   Our total was 29 specs, 25 to 27, inches long, almost 200, pounds of trout and all of this in less than 2 hours!

We sold 25 of the trout, keeping 4 for us to eat and here’s my dad with the 4.

Looking up, I saw Wayne Thomas, a real jetty pro, and one of my old college and baseball playing buddies, pulling up slowly outside of us.  Yelling across the water, “Wayne, let me pull up the anchor then you ease in here.  There’s still plenty of specs around and you all can catch some fish.”

In the next day’s Houston Chronicle, Bob Brister, the Outdoor Editor, wrote that the jetty pros hammered the trout at the NORTH Jetty, looks like I made the team!  Funny, I guess he really could keep a secret?

My last attempt at fly-fishing was in the spring of 1969 at our hunting/fishing lease south of Danbury. My boat was in the shop so my dad, Lloyd Weston, my pastor and I left our southwest Houston homes before sunup and headed down to the lease. On our way down we had decided that Dad and Lloyd would fish out of a skiff and me, since I was using the fly rod, for the other fisherman’s safety, would wade.

Just as the sun was coming up, Dad and Lloyd pushed off in the skiff and started casting back toward the bank and dragging their lures off the drop off in the channel. For me, I only needed a skiff to get across the channel, and once across, after dropping the skiff’s anchor, hopped out into the thigh deep water and began laboring to cast out my small, fluorescent green, popper.

Several false casts later success was mine as the popper quietly dropped on to the surface beside one of the several duck blinds in the reservoir. As the popper lay still on the water and the rings had subsided, with my left hand, I twitched it 1 time and it was engulfed by a bass, not big, 13 or 14 inches, but I let it run around some and after several jumps, stripped in the line and slid my fingers into the bass’ mouth. This was a keeper so I slipped it on the stringer and continued my casting theatrics.

Ever now and then I would hear a holler from the other skiff as one of the guys had a strike and from the sounds they had already bagged several, but I continued my labored casting. Soon, my green popper settled beside a clump of grass and was immediately struck by a no nonsense, bass. This one took of on a run, jumped several times, stubbornly fought the rod and finally I lipped it and slid it, by my estimate a four pounder, on to the stringer, 2 nice keepers so far this morning!

As the morning wore on and the sun rose in the sky, the heat turned up and I’m sure the bass that had been on the flats moved into the deeper water of the channel. Moving toward the deeper water, more casts, nothing bothered my popper, the bass were probably off their feed. Dad and Lloyd came up the channel toward me and hefted up their stringer showing me 6 nice, bass and said they were quitting before it got too hot.

Wading and casting back toward my skiff, no strikes, nothing was happening, time to quit and get busy cleaning the fish. As I paddled back across the channel, it came to me that maybe this fly-fishing wasn’t all it was cooked up to be or maybe I was just too klutzy to figure it out, either way, I’m going back to speckled trout and popping rods and this trip turned out to be my last attempt at fly casting!

When I lived in the Atlanta suburbs, the Chattachoochie River was less, as the crow flies, 3 miles away and lured me, many times, to try my luck fishing.  Most folks liked to just lazily float down it, sip a few beers and get sunburned, but, not being a beer drinker, I just chose floatin’ and fishin’ in my 12 foot aluminum boat and electric trolling motor.  We would launch the boat at any number of places above Roswell Road, then float for several miles down to the I-285, North, bridge, and take out there.

We lived on Mark Trail Street in the Lost Forest subdivision that had previously been owned by the creator of the “Mark Trail”’ comic strip, popular in the 1940’s and 50’s. There were about 30 houses built around the hollow, in Texas called a draw and except for the ice storms, a great place to live!

Some interesting notes about the area where we lived in Georgia, Sandy Springs, finally incorporated in 2007, was bordered on the west by the Chattahoochee River, we lived a mile up an unnamed creek and just downstream and across the river was Soap Creek.  Where the river and creek joined, a large Civil War battle was fought and 2 of my Great Grandfathers participated in this fight.  This area is also part on the 6th Georgia Congressional District, where I had the opportunity to hear speak and vote twice for Newt Gingrich.  He lost the election in 1976, but won in ’78 and went on to lead the successful Contract With America and becoming Speaker of the House of
Representatives.

Finally the fishin’ and one trip stands out, Benny Evans, a coworker and fellow Texan and I launched the 12 foot boat way up the river, close to the gun club and made about a 6 mile, drift down to the 285 bridge. We would drift the middle, drift around the eddies and drift along the banks, casting to the numerous falls, trees down in the water. We would drift, then electric motor back over promising spots, trying to keep our baits, Mepps #2, Spinners, in the water as much as possible.

Here’s my Mepps #2 Spinner, the survivor of several floats down the river. This bait is over 40 years old, was fished several times in the Colorado and Black Rivers in Arizona and remains poison for small mouth bass, pan fish and fresh water trout.

We avoided all the tubers and ended the day with a mixed, mess of fish with 4, 15, inch large mouth bass.  Our stringer included the large mouths; 1 small mouth bass 12” inches long, a rainbow trout 12, inches long, 4 hand size bluegills, topped off by a 15, inch channel catfish! We probably caught over 50 fish and had twice that number of strikes. We even caught several good size, pike, or chain pickerel, returned to the water because of excessive bones.  This was by far the best day I enjoyed on the river!

Tubing was a family sport, and from May until September, the river was crowded with all sizes of tubes and people and in the late spring Georgia Tech University held its annual, “Ramblin’ Raft Race”, a true civic highlight. The future engineers at the school would design the most motley collection of floating contraptions imaginable. Prizes were awarded, classes cut, beer flowed and a grand time was had by all!  However, I’m sure by now the “Friends Of Wildlife”, “The Green Movement” or “The Nature Conservancy” has put a stop to all of this fun!

Besides getting sun burned, flashed or mooned, tubing, for me, was a serious waste of fishing time.

In early May 1968, my dad and I took off work early one afternoon and towed my second boat down to Galveston Island, bought a quart of shrimp for $4.00, launched it and headed out into west bay on the east side of the causeway. Our objective for the day was to find a school of birds, sea gulls, working over shrimp that the speckled trout were driving towards the surface.

This day we’d be using live shrimp and our tackle was 6-1/2 foot popping rods, Dad had a red reel and I had a direct drive model, both spooled with 15, pound line, popping corks, a 2 to 3 foot leader and small treble hooks.

We headed out to the Intercoastal Waterway, turned right, cut the motor down and started looking. Not 400 yards ahead, there was a big bird school and with no other boats in sight, we’d have this one to ourselves. Positioning our boat down wind from the birds, we drifted up and at 40 yards, made our first casts. Dad sailed his cast right in front of the birds and before he could turn his reel handle had a big strike and me, trying to hard to make a long cast, had a wonderful backlash!

While I picked at the backlash, Dad was in a big fight with the spec that later proved just under 5 pounds, but soon he wore it down and as I slid the net under it, Dad unhooked it and put it in the cooler, rebaited and cast back out. Finally proving victorious over the backlash, I cast out and we both had big strikes, good fish that circled us around the boat, wallowed on top and we finally tired both specs out and netted the almost 5 pounders. Having only one net on board, I netted my dad’s fish, then he netted mine and, while we were wasting precious fishing time with this school of fine trout, it fell to me to untangle the mess.

Untangling us, we baited up and cast out and had simultaneous strikes, 2 more nice fish, but mine slipped the hook and Dad brought his spec in, I netted it and added another to the box. Baiting up and casting out, Dad was immediately into another nice spec, while I had the Mother of all backlashes. This one shut down my fishing for the afternoon, Dad added 2 more almost 5 pounders giving us a total of 6, almost 30 pounds of speckled trout!

The birds finally dissipated, Dad cast out several times with no strikes, so we drifted for almost 15 minutes hoping the specs would gather back up, they didn’t, so we headed back in, filleted the fish and drove back to our southwest Houston homes, all the while me thinking, I’ll have to get me one of those smooth casting, red reels.

On a spring morning, just at first light, I lowered the 22 footer into the canal behind our Bayou Vista home, headed down the canal and chugged, speed limit 5 MPH in the canals, into Highlands Bayou.  Cranking up the big, outboard I finally skimmed the back way into the Intercoastal Waterway.  This was the same track Randy and I took several years earlier and he collided with a live, oyster reef.  See my June 18, 2009 post, “[A Close Call]”.

Having a 11:00 AM meeting with customers, this would be a short trip, but hopefully a productive one.  My destination, with the tide coming in all morning, was the sand flats that ran from Green’s Cut up to South Deer Island.  The target was to find sea gulls working over feeding specs, the specs driving shrimp toward the surface and the birds gobbling up the shrimp the fish missed.  Classic food chain stuff!

Armed with a 7-1/2 foot, popping, rod, 12 pound line spooled on a green reel, rigged with a popping cork over a live shrimp hooked through its horn with a small, treble hook, I was ready for action. The action wasn’t long in coming. Of all things, I noticed several shrimp hopping out of the water and casting right in front of them, bam, a big strike.

The fish took off peeling line from the reel, not the circling fight of a 3 or 4 pound trout, not the head shaking, weight of a big red, then the fish, a skipjack or ladyfish, (Bodianus rufus) cleared the water.  They’re real hard fighters, jump a lot, but aren’t good table fare.  Many times they will be feeding on shrimp, driving them to the surface where the ever hungry, birds will congregate over them.  No birds this time, so I landed the skipjack, guessing its weight at 3 pounds and tossed it back into the bay.

Two hundred yards away there was another good sign, several birds were sitting on the water, probably marking one or more good sized, fish, maybe even a school that was just getting together!  Lowering the trolling motor, I slipped silently to within 40 yards of the birds, quickly baited up and let fly a cast toward the center of the area among the birds.  The splash of the bait and cork hitting the water caused the birds to take flight just as my cork disappeared and I felt a big tug!  Another run, more jumps, finally the rod and drag beat the fish, another skipjack, identical to the first that I landed, unhooked and tossed back in.  Thinking to myself, This spot is full of skipjacks so I’ll just move down about a mile and try my luck.

Moving the mile down toward South Deer Island, just ahead, several birds, one hovering over the water, looked very interested toward the depths, cutting the motor I drifted up and let fly a cast beside the bird.  When casting with the wind a little slack will undoubtedly get in your line and the gull took this slack line opportunity to quickly grab my shrimp.  As it grabbed the shrimp, it immediately took off, wrapping the line around one wing and unceremoniously plopping back into the water.  Reeling in the squawking sea gull, before lifting it into the boat, I grabbed a towel, swung the bird into the boat and, in almost 1 motion, covered its head and eyes.

Thank goodness, the gull wasn’t hooked just squawking, so I unwrapped the line from its wing, uncovered its head and flipped it back over the side, where it caught the wind and sped away.  Looking at my watch, 8:30 so I’d better get back in.

No luck today, no fish to clean, just some throwbacks, but some good memories!

Jake Shroder and I were both fisherman and some of our first adventures together in Arizona were several trips to Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix, at the time a 20, minute trip up Interstate 17. Now the town has almost surrounded the lake.

Back then, the spring of 1972, Jake had an original Skeeter Bass Boat with a 55 HP, 3 cylinder, outboard. It was an early model of the Skeeter with a flat bottom and, of all things, not a steering wheel, but stick steering. If I remember correctly, you pushed the stick forward to turn to port (left) and pulled back to turn starboard (right), however, it served our purposes well!

We would put in at the State launch ramp and head straight for the dam and try to fish inside the restraining cables. The dam had a watchman, or “The Troll” as we called him. We never met him, but almost became friends, because he ran us off from inside the cables so many times, he surely couldn’t have been a fisherman. Until the “The Troll” would run us off, we would cast up on the side of the dam and bounce our special multiple jigs back down the side, awaiting a strike from a white bass.

White bass in Arizona you say? Yes, years before, Texas had traded millions of white bass fingerlings to Arizona for a large number of Rio Grande turkeys. Texas repopulated most of the State with turkeys and Arizona, at Lake Pleasant, created a great fishery for white bass.

This particular trip was on a beautiful desert morning, clear, no wind, and for a while we were the only folks fishing around the dam. I asked Jake, “Do you see “The ‘Troll’,” “No ‘Troll’ in sight,” he replied, so under the restraining cable we went. After several casts, I had a strike with some weight behind it, must be a catfish I thought. It made a nice run, more like a red fish, then swirled the top of the water and took off again. Soon we lipped it and swung it into the boat, maybe the biggest white bass ever. We estimated it was 7 pounds or more. What a fish! Onto the stringer it went, and back to casting.

Catching another white, much smaller, out came “The Troll”. “You boys get behind the restraining line, OK.” His first warning were always nice. We waved to him and kept fishing. “Behind the restraining line!” More firm. We waved and kept fishing. He was beginning to annoy us. “Move that blankety-blank boat or I’m going to give you a blankety-blank ticket, blankety blank it!” It was time to move, so we started up and headed out into the lake. We noticed a fisherman in a boat right up on the restraining line laughing at our encounter with “TheTroll”. He said, “I saw you caught a nice white, let me see it.” We showed him and said we thought it would weigh 7 pounds or more. “Real nice,” he said as we motored off. We took both white bass home and ate them.

Several months later I got a call from Jake and he said, “You remember that big white bass you caught out at ‘Unpleasant’,” our new name for the lake. I said, “Sure do, it ate real good!” He went on to tell me that the fisherman we showed the fish to was an outdoor writer for the local newspaper, and of all things, he wrote and was published in a national outdoor magazine, an article about the white bass fishing in Lake Pleasant, and most embarrassing, about 2 Texas boys who caught a monster white bass, easily a new state record, didn’t register it with the state, but like all good meat fishermen, took it home and ate it.

Always remember, that if records interest you, most times the state will keep the fish, and you can’t eat it

In 1970, the spring fishing for speckled trout had been as good as it gets with me setting a new personal record a 7, pounder caught just out from Greens Cut.  We hadn’t had a damaging freeze on the coast for 16 years and game fish and baitfish stocks were at record highs.  Weather permitting, the Galveston Jetties were loaded with keepers, the weather had cooperated and our freezers were already full of filets.

After receiving another promotion from the large computer company, I had purchased a beach house at Jamaica Beach, 10 miles west from the end of the Galveston Sea Wall.  Launching at Jamaica Beach, I was now 5 to 10 minutes from some great bay fishing spots; Green’s Cut, the wreck, Confederate Reef and North and South Deer Islands.  My favorite South Jetty spot was only 30 minutes by boat, less time than it took us to drive and launch it at the yacht basin!

Brad was 9 years old and had been fishing with me for the past 2 years.  He was fun to take along, could bait his own hook and never grumbled about getting up early or cleaning up the boat and tackle.  My uncle, and his great uncle, Alvin Pyland, aka Unkie, and I had planned a trip on Friday morning to sample some of the great trout action under the birds, on the east side of the Galveston causeway.

“Unkie” and a nice mess of specks!

This area, 10 or 12 square miles, bounded on the east by the Texas City Dike and Pelican Island, on the south by Galveston Island, on the north by the mainland and west by the causeway, had been a consistent producer all spring.  Telling Unkie to be at The Pleasure Island Bait Camp, our fishing headquarters, at 7:30 AM and be ready to fish, Brad and I had the boat in the water at the Jamaica Beach launch ramp by 7:00 AM and started our15, minute trip to Pleasure Island.  I noticed storm clouds in the Gulf south of Galveston Island.  Rain coming, what’s different about that?

After picking Unkie up at the bait camp and buying a quart of shrimp, we headed out to find the birds.  Trout, feeding on shrimp, push the shrimp to the surface, where sea gulls see the disturbance, and always looking for a free meal, the gulls literally swarm over the shrimp and feeding trout.  This can be fast and furious action, trout are jerked into the boat without using a net, and many times we would use artificial baits rather than taking time to re-bait the hook.

Seeing several groups of birds in the distance, we sped toward the nearest and began a morning of catching specs as fast as we could, and a morning of, we did not know then, high adventure.

We noticed the storm that I had seen earlier had moved almost to the Island and storm clouds were also gathering north of us over Hitchcock and Texas City.  Being in the bay, in a 17, foot, deep vee, boat, we felt secure since we were but a short run back to  Pleasure Island.  Then the southern storm moved onto the island, and we found out later that it dropped 10 inches of rain there, and shortly, most of that fell on us.

We kept fishing and catching specs, the northern storms getting closer.  We paused to look at the storms and noticed they both seemed to stop right at the edge of the bay.  Storms north and south of us, and birds working, we started back fishing. I have since learned to not tempt Mother Nature.

All of a sudden a large electrical storm, lightning popping all along its front edge, filled the gap between our northern and southern storms, barreling east, right down the bay and right toward us.  We were a mile east of the causeway and the new storm was about 2 miles west of it.  Plenty of time left, keep fishing.

Craak!  Boom! Lightning hit a channel marker not 300 yards from us and almost to himself, Unkie uttered his infamous remark, “Let me make one more cast.”

He cast out and hooked a nice spec, which we took valuable time to land.  During the fight with the fish I got Brad’s life jacket on him and donned one myself.  Craak!  Boom! Another bolt hit a channel marker not 150 yards from us.  “Let’s get going,” I yelled as the rain started to batter us

Really getting pounded by the storm, we noticed that because of the lightning, we couldn’t head back to the bait camp because almost a solid wall of lightning was between us and the camp.  Full speed ahead to the northeast, our only partially open choice.

Northeast of us lay the Texas City Dike, a nine mile, red granite wall built out into Galveston Bay (this was some of the last granite mined at Marble Falls, Texas).  Its purpose was to smooth the bay waters for the Texas City harbor and channel, however, and I repeat, however, we were heading in on the rough side!  The wind hit us then, the waves building up, all working to slow our speed.  We barely kept ahead of the lightning, and the rain was blinding!

We kept heading northeast and kept getting pounded by the storm, wind, rain and 4 foot waves, which were huge for the bay, since the distance between the crests was probably only ten feet.  Very, very rough!  Wave tops in the Gulf in 4 foot seas are 24 to 27 feet apart.  Lots of up and down for us, and luckily the drain plugs in the boat did their job, at least we didn’t swamp.  Looking down toward Brad, I believe he liked this and glancing over at Unkie, he didn’t have a care in the world.  Personally, I was scared to death!

Plowing on through the rough water, we finally spotted the dike and could make out a bait camp on our side and headed straight for it.  Closing on the dike, with the bow pointing into the storm that had slacked off some, I anchored the boat.  We got out of the boat and waded to the shore/dike and some smart aleck on the dike said, “Kinda rough, wasn’t it?”

No cell phones then, so I went into the bait camp and called my ex-wife in Jamaica Beach and told her about our ordeal and asked to bring my car and boat trailer to us.  It had rained 10 inches in Galveston, everything was flooded and she was stranded out on the island and couldn’t get into town.  We were stranded on the Texas City Dike and couldn’t get out and the storm was now picking up in intensity.

All I could do was call a cab, leave Brad and Unkie to watch the boat and then cabbed slowly through the water, back through Galveston and out to Jamaica Beach.  Picking up my car and trailer, I drove back to the dike to load up the boat.  By the time we took Unkie back to Pleasure Island, the skies had cleared so we cleaned the fish and mused that this was a close call and we should learn from it, however  I did not profit from this experience!