My first encounter with a tarpon was in the spring of 1953, when my dad took Bobby Baldwin, Walter Freeman and me to fish for them near the mouth of the New River, near Freeport, Texas.  To create a safe harbor for Freeport, the New River channel of the Brazos River, was man made.  What this created was a five-mile long fish haven and prior to their beach runs of the summer, tarpon loaded it up in the spring.

Dad and Dub Middleton had fished this area the past weekend and caught and released two tarpon.  Both were caught on red and white Zara Spooks, that were wooden, top water plugs.  The fish were caught by “walking the dog” past the schools of surfacing, rolling tarpon.

“Walking the dog” is a term used for a specific type of retrieve—twitch the rod tip and then reel one turn of the reel handle, then twitch and reel, twitch and reel, for the entire retrieve.  The lure is moved along slowly, twitching to each side, resembling a small, injured fish.  This is still one of the most favored retrieves for fishing for trout and red fish.

One more point, these fish were caught on light, split Calcutta cane, popping rods and Shakespeare Criterion reels, loaded with fifteen or seventeen pound, braided line, linen, I think.  Below is Dad’s old, circa 1933, reel with the original braided line still on!

The reel had no drag system and, to control a fish, pressure was applied by using the angler’s thumb. Blisters were common and often, band aids were used, for as long as they stayed on.!

We, Bobby, Walter, Dad and I, arrived at the fishing spot right after sun up and walked about a hundred yards to the river’s bank.  The walk seemed like a walk through a garbage dump, the area being littered with the remains of tarpon.

Tarpon aren’t a food fish and common sense says they should be returned live to the water, but these fish were caught, killed, I’m sure pictures were taken, smiles and all, and then simply left to rot.  What a waste of a fine fishing resource.  By the early 1960’s the tarpon had left New River.  Useless killing of fish played a role in this disappearance, but the main culprit, thought by most fisherman, were the huge chemical complexes that sprouted up around Freeport.

After passing through the stench of rotting fish, we started fishing, casting to rolling schools of tarpon.  They were everywhere along the river and, up and down you could hear folks holler when one was hooked.  Being teenagers, we watched the show and then my dad, under his breath, let out a “Hmmpf”, his rod bowed and a silvery/green tarpon cleared the water then headed upstream toward Rosenberg!  “Did you see that?  Wow!”  We shouted all at once and just then, the hook pulled out, leaving Dad with a sore thumb!

I still have my dad’s, scarred up, Zara Spook in a picture box display of all of his fishing plugs.  The spook must be eighty years old!

No more tarpon that day and not another one until 1998.

This past Wednesday morning, after dropping Layla off at the Killeen airport, she’s running a Senior Softball tournament in Pensacola, I drove on down to Corpus and, too late for lunch, met Randy and his friend Wayne at a local sporting goods store. Unbeknown to me, we were going to fish Wednesday afternoon and that involved a fairly long drive down Padre Island.

Padre Island, 70 miles long, is the longest barrier island in the U.S. and the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world! Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning we would be fishing in the Laguna Madre, specifically behind Bird Island, along a big grass covered sand flat. An interesting fact is that the Laguna is the only lagoon in the U.S. saltier than the ocean!

After meeting our host, another Wayne, we drove 15 miles down the island and took the Bird Island road and arriving at our embarkation point. The tide was out and donning our wading gear, both days we’d be wading in up to thigh deep water and we planned on covering a mile, or more, of the flats.

Wayne and Wayne both had spinning outfits with 8 pound line, while Randy and I were using my 7-1/2 foot, popping rods with green reels loaded with 12 pound line. Both, casting and spinning, were excellent choices to throw the baits we’d be using, 8 inch long, “do nothing” lures, packed in a “can’t help but catch them” fish attractor.

We started chunkin’, and for 15 minutes, nothing, then I had a big strike and the fish took of, heading for parts unknown! No circling of our positions, probably not a big trout, and we tentatively identified it as a red, a nice red fish, or channel bass. Out a ways from us the fish swirled on the top of the water, the bronze back giving it away as a nice red and I still held on. What fun being man to fish, the red running, but stubbornly giving in to the pressure of the rod and drag combination. After we netted the red, we guessed its length as 24 inches. Thinking to myself, It’s been 5 years since I caught one of these and the old zing is still there, I have got to do this more often!

Wading and casting, soon Randy’s friend Wayne picked up a small flounder, barely a keeper, but on to the stringer with it. Our host, Wayne, caught 2 under size speckled trout that he threw back. Nothing of size since my big red, but we kept chunkin’ until sunset, then we slogged back to clean the fish.

Supper Wednesday night at the premier fish place in Corpus, then snoozing at a friends, up before the sun to drive out and meet our host, Wayne for a morning of more fishing. Arriving, the tide was in covering our flats with water all the way up to the marsh grass, maybe this was what it would take to really turn the fish on? We started casting and walking, more of a shuffle, we shuffled because of the stingrays, stingarees locally, Urotrygon, specifically, that have a barb at the base of their tail that can inflict a painful injury! Alert for stingarees, we noticed many jelly fish too, or Ctenophora, their long tentacles packing a terrific sting, we avoided them too!

Wayne, Randy’s friend, struck first with a 20, inch flounder a good fish and good eating. Having another strike, probably a keeper, that bit my “do nothing” plug in half, changing baits, I switched to a different kind of swimming plug, still with no results. Reaching our outward boundary, we turned back toward the cars, still shuffling and chunkin’.

Shuffling along with water up to almost my waist, I shuffled into a 1 foot deep hole with mud on the bottom, floundering, down I went with only my head above water. Friend Wayne shuffled over and helped me up, but everything, reel, fishing license and my car keys were wet. Frustrated, I closed up shop and shuffled back, a little more quickly.

Everything turned out OK, everything dried out, I cleaned the car “unlocker” and it works fine, my rod and reel, veterans of being under water before, cleaned up to my satisfaction and I did have 2 nice red fish, fillets, 1 to be fried and 1 to be marinated in Italian dressing, then grilled with the skin and scales still on, scale side down toward the coals.

Just remember, as someone once said, “A bad day fishing beats a good day working,” or something like that!

Hopefully, while this is being read, I’ll be tied on to a big red or trout in some bay around the Corpus Christi area. Two weeks ago Randy invited me to go with him on a fishing trip around Corpus, he’s mixing business with pleasure, his church, Bay Area Fellowship, is having a staff meeting and one of the staff invited him to go wade fishing. He immediately called me and “we” accepted.

Goin’ back to wade fish in the bay, even though it’s not Galveston Bay, is exciting for me because I know there’s some really great spots around Corpus, but I have no idea where we’re headed.  I’ll stop Layla by the airport in Killeen, she’s off to Pensacola to run a Senior Softball tournament, then drive on down to Corpus and meet Randy and his fellow Pastors for lunch on Wednesday, then we’ll be fishing on Thursday, hence this post.

My last go at salt water, fishing was just before I retired and it’s on my post, “[One Last Trip]”, of June 1, 2008. Hopefully, this trip will be successful like the last one!

Norman Shelter had been after me to take him fishing to a new hotspot that my barber had shown me, the spot was called the tripod and was near where the San Barnard River and the Intercoastal Waterway, or Intercoastal, as we called it, crossed. The Brazos River flows into the Gulf at Freeport, while the San Barnard enters ten miles to the west. The tripod was a small cut off the Intercoastal, that led into an unnamed little bay with a gas well in the middle. The apparatus on the well was tripod shaped, hence the name.

Our fishing target was a reef on the west side of the cut leading into the little bay. The gas well wasn’t a problem, but once or twice a week an inspector came out and checked it and the fishing stopped for about a half hour until after he left. We would anchor in the middle of the cut, cast toward the mid point in the opposite bank and let our rigs drift to our left on the incoming tide. We fished about 18, inches deep and when your cork stopped drifting and appeared to be hung up, you set the hook and held on.

Saturdays and some afternoons when the tide was right, or we had been blown out of our regular bay or jetty spots, my Dad and I would head to the tripod and consistently caught fish. One trip I caught 2, flounder, both over 8 pounds, huge ones, and another trip we caught several 6 and 7 pound reds. The trout were never over 2 pounds and it’s funny, we never saw another boat at our spot. I often wondered why?

A beautiful spring morning found Norman, Tony Welsh, a neighbor of mine and I heading toward the tripod. We pulled up, anchored and cast our rigs out and, until the tide changed, enjoyed a morning of good fishing. We iced down over 20 flounder, 5 reds and 10 specs and the 88 quart, cooler was full when we loaded the boat on the trailer and began the, slightly over one hour, drive back to southwest Houston.

We were about to cross the railroad tracks at Post Oak and Highway 90A when I noticed the car was acting sluggish. Turning the corner, Norman glanced back toward the boat and trailer and told me, “Jon, looks like a bearing has gone out on the trailer!” Pulling over, sure enough, we had lost the trailer’s right wheel bearing. We were stuck!

Across the highway was a truck stop, so we “creeped” over and asked for the manager, (we had been well trained, always call at the top). Explaining our plight, I distinctly remember his reply, “What kind of fish are in the cooler?” “Flounder, specs and reds,” I replied. “How many flounder,” he asked? My reply of 20 sealed the deal. He told us “Boys, I’ll fix the bearing right now for the flounders.” Not a good deal for us, frankly highway robbery, but we got home OK and the following Monday saw me install bearing buddies on the trailer.

Several years later I made my last trip to the tripod and as we motored west on the Intercoastal, approximately 3 miles west of the San Bernard River, we started looking to our left for the channel leading to our old spot. Not there. We came about and began searching back toward the river and it still wasn’t there.

Motoring all the way to Carancuha Bay, five or six miles, still no channel. All we saw was an extra wide spot on the south side of the Intercoastal. We came about again and motored to the bait camp where the river and Intercoastal crossed. Asking the owner, “Where’s that little cut, that channel leading back to the gas rig, the tripod?” “Not there,” he answered. “A while back, that gas well blew up and rearranged everything. We call it the Blow Out Hole now. Good fishing in the winter”

Now I found out why we never saw another boat in our spot!

Taking the 2, plus hour drive from southwest Houston down to the coast, we, my dad and Dub Middleton and me, met my uncle, G.A. “Unkie” Pyland and his son George at the specified bait camp in Port O’Conner, Texas.  It was still dark and we’d have a 20, minute boat ride to our destination, a place Unkie called the fish trap.

With the tide coming in all morning, we cranked up our boats and headed down Matagorda Bay towards Pass Cavallo, the fish trap was located just north of the pass, with a small channel leading into a hundred acre lake, the trap.  Arriving, we anchored the boats, jumped into the water and started casting, our lures of choice were silver spoons with a treble hook, with a pink attractor attached to the hook.  Each of us was using a black reel, with a 7, foot, popping rod.

Bump, bump, “Fish on”, I yelled out, as the rod bent with the strike, soon, not using a net, I grabbed the small red, not big enough to keep, behind the gills, unhooked and released it.  First fish of the day, but soon we were all catching small reds and if we’d kept them all, we’d had a good mess!  The small reds finally quit hitting and we remarked that funny, no big reds and no specs either.

After almost 2 hours of this fun, Dad, Dub and I told Unkie and George that we were going to try our hand in Espiritu Santo Bay and see if any birds were working, knowing that early April was a little bit soon for bird action.  We pulled the anchor, and since Unkie and George were still fishing, we crept out of the fish trap and once in Matagorda Bay, headed north.  Rather then going all the way back to Port O’Conner, we took a short cut into Espiritu Santo, a small pass that led into the east end of the bay.

Not 2 miles into the bay, we saw a bunch of birds hovering over the water, a sign that something had driven the shrimp to the surface.  After changing to do nothing, slow sinking lures, we coasted up to within casting distance of the birds and Dub was the first to let fly and he immediately had a hard hit.  What was it, spec, gafftop cat or lady fish, but circling the boat the fish soon identified itself as a nice trout and when we netted it, a 3 pounder.

Dad and I cast out below the birds and both had hard strikes that proved to be identical fish to Dubs.  The birds would break up and 5 minutes later, here came the shrimp back up to the top, we could see them hopping about evading the specs below, but the birds would converge on the hapless shrimp and what the specs missed, the birds would get.

We stayed with this school of fish for almost 30 minutes and boxed a dozen then they quit.  For a while we stayed around, but we noticed the tide had changed and was going out, probably the reasons for the fish’s lockjaw.  No more bird schools that day and we headed home around noon.  It was a fun trip and we caught 12 nice specs, along with a lot of small reds.

The fish trap is no more because several years later a hurricane rearranged the coastal area around Pass Cavallo!

The spring had been unseasonably warm, Gulf currents had arrived early and raised the water temperatures to over 72 degrees and with the warm water came the pelagic species of fish—kingfish, Spanish mackerel and cobia (Ling). Since the past season I had been promising Suzanne, my daughter, and Mike, my son-in-law, an offshore fishing trip. Mike brought along one of his, and our, friends, Dick Reilley. The timing was good for all of us, so we picked a Friday in early April to try and get out and catch some big kings. Just out from the beachfront the big ones come in first to spawn in the shallow water and they were our targets for the day.

After last night’s big storm, heavy clouds hung low over the water, but 7 miles out there was no wind blowing as we rounded the end of the south jetty and headed for my favorite spot on the Gulf side of the rocks. Since the tide was going out, the water on the Gulf side was moving toward the beach and as we anchored, I noticed small fish hanging close to the rocks, a real good sign!

Our tackle for the day was 7, foot popping rods, black Ambassaduer reels loaded with 15, pound line and because of the kings and smaller mackerel, a 2, foot fine, wire leader with a circle hook, weighted with a “OO” buckshot. Our bait for the day was live shrimp and baiting up we cast our rigs out toward the rocks to drift with the current. Right away Dick got hung on a rock and had to break off and while he was re-rigging Mike had a big strike and was fast into a nice red fish. If the conditions are right this spot will always pay off!

The action was fast and furious, no kings, but specs and reds, along with several Spanish mackerel, very good eating when filleted with the blood line cut out and 2, big sheesphead, 4 pounders that are top table fare, when I heard a “Hmmpf” from Suzanne and saw her rod nearly bent double. Maybe this was the big king? The big fish moved down the rocks to our right, then out to sea, as Suz held her rod tip high and hung on. Stopping its run, she regained most of the line and as the fish wallowed around the boat, we identified it as a big red and soon we boated a very nice 28, incher that she had battled perfectly. For a day that was “iffy”, we now had nice mess of fish and our big cooler was close to one 1/2 full, so as the tide changed, we headed back to the yacht basin, 4 grubby, stinky, fisher persons with a box of fish to clean!

This particular day, we were the only boat that had gone out, so as we loaded the boat on to the trailer, we drew a nice crowd of onlookers who, when we got the cooler down and opened it, appropriately “oohed and aaahd” over our catch. Mike, Dick and I were kidding around, chewing tobacco and spitting, and cleaning the fish when a well to do appearing lady came up to Suz and asked her, “Did you catch some of these fish?” and Suz replied, “Yes Mam, I caught the big red.” The lady replied “Good for you!”

We finished cleaning the fish, iced them down, then as Dick and I were lifting the big cooler up to Mike, he leaned over to grab it and, by accident (?) belched. We paid no attention and just kept loading the heavy cooler. The well to do lady turned to Suz and asked her, “Young lady, just who are those men?” Suzanne replied, “The big guy over there with gray hair is my dad and the big guy in the boat is my brother-in-law and the other big guy is Dick, a friend.” “Well, they’re gross and ungentlemanly,” the well to do lady said as she turned and hurried off!

Suzanne has been fishing with me since she was eleven years old. She can bait her own hook, cast the bait out, land the fish with a net and take the hook out, all of this even though she is a former student at Texas A & M University.

During the spring of 1994, Carl Parkinson and I had been out to the Galveston Jetties trying to catch some gulf trout, white trout or sand trout, Cynoscion arenarius, and after filling up our 88, quart cooler with the early arrivals, were cruising back in. We headed back through Galveston harbor, under the bridge to Pelican Island and followed the channel out to the Intercoastal Waterway, when we thought we’d see if any speckled trout were around Swan Lake.

Cutting across the bay, as we approached Swan Lake, we saw, what appeared to be a boat up close to the bank. The closer we came to the boat, we saw a woman sitting in it and we saw that a man was pulling it with a rope. Pulling up to the boat, we saw that the man was a friend of ours, Danny Bourgeois, not only a friend but he was one of my employees and one of Carl’s coworkers!

Speaking to Danny’s wife and almost shouting over the motor’s idling, I asked, “Danny, what in the world are you doing pulling the boat?” His response was what we expected from someone from south Louisiana, “It broke down back along the Intercoastal, the float stuck closed, I couldn’t fix it and was pulling it back to the launch ramp,” and he’d already pulled the boat almost two miles! This particular ramp was between the railroad bridge and the Galveston Causeway, over a mile away, as the crow pulled!

Offering Danny a motorized pull back to the ramp, he declined our offer and said, “It’s no problem me pulling the boat back because the water’s shallow, not over 3 feet deep and we don’t have anything else to do this afternoon.” “Danny, do you want us to go on to the ramp and wait and help you load the boat,” I asked and “No thanks I can handle it,” he replied?

This story really happened, but you had to know Danny, if he couldn’t fix it, he wasn’t going to let the motor beat him, he’d just pull it back in, then fix it! Pulling away, we weren’t surprised at his refusal of aid, anyway, one time a real smart guy said, “Whatever floats your boat!”