This past week, I’ve talked with two people who have read “[The End Of The Line”] and both had positive things to say about it.

First was R.C. Edmundson, a retired ag. teacher and girls basketball coach who said, “It was a good read and I liked it.” Asking R.C. to send me an e-mail with his synopsis of the book, he told me that he’d given up e-mailing. End of review!

The second comment was from Karen Steelgrave, a second cousin, a retired teacher and school counselor. She did send me an e-mail and a portion of it follows:

“Received your book in the mail today. Didn’t put it down until I finished it. I really enjoyed the stories and the pictures.”

I’m glad that these two enjoyed the book and let me know what they thought about it.

(I must be getting liberal because it makes me “feel good” too!)

In 1957 there was an ice house in Perry, Texas that was, at that time, the home of the cheapest gasoline in our part of the State. I’m talking about $.18 or $.19 per gallon, when all the other stations in central Texas were selling it at $.25 per. The proprietor of this establishment was a man called Zippo. No other name, just Zippo.

My Dad, John H. Bryan, had, as is said, never met a stranger and accordingly he and Zippo became fast friends. They were such friends that Zippo told my Dad that he could go fishing in his small lake, approximately one acre. The lake was located on a dirt road, just over the railroad tracks, across Highway 6, from Zippo’s place. There was one stipulation my Dad could only keep one bass!

Being hard at work in college, I couldn’t make the mid May trip up to Marlin and I especially missed going to Zippo’s little lake. Our technique of fishing small lakes and stock tanks was to begin walking around the edges casting our trusty, yellow “Piggy Boat” spinners. Then we would wade out until the water was belt deep and cast back toward the shore using Lucky 13’s. During the heat of the day we would switch to Pico Perch’s, an early plastic, swimming minnow type plug.

My Dad started off the Lake Zippo epic by walking around and casting his yellow spinner toward “bassy” looking spots. His first cast produced a three-pound, bass! Now he faced a dilemma, stop with this one or try for a bigger one? He released the first bass, kept fishing, the bass kept hitting and he kept releasing.

Finally, having caught a dozen or more, his dilemma was solved when the bass, pictured, a five, plus pounder hit his spinner bait, jumped four times and was finally slid up on to the bank. He kept this one. Calling it a day, he stopped by Zippo’s, showed him the fish, filled up his gas tank with the cheap gas and drove back to Marlin, where before filleting the fish, my Aunt Lil took this picture.

Shortly after this, Zippo, closed his operation and either died or moved away and we lost contact with him. Every time we would pass through Perry, my Dad would comment about the little lake and the nice bass he caught the one time that he fished it!

Day was just breaking as Jim Buck and I rounded the end of Galveston’s South Jetty and headed toward our favorite fishing spot. We knew that with the lack of wind, the gently rolling Gulf of Mexico and the clear green water that we would hammer the speckled trout this morning!

We eased up towards the rocks, Jim slid the anchor into the water, and right away, we knew that we were in trouble. The anchor line dropped straight down, the boat didn’t swing around into the current because there wasn’t any current. There was no water movement, just the slight breeze blowing into our faces off of the rocks. No water movement meant no speckled trout movement. Looks like the tide charts were off a little!

We decided to make the best of this bad situation and cast our live shrimp back toward the rocks. We were using our standard jetty rigs; six and a half foot popping rods, red, Ambasseduer reels, loaded with fifteen-pound line, with BB weights clipped twelve inches above a small, treble hook.

As our shrimp swam and bumped along the rocks, both of us had solid strikes! Surprised, we set the hooks and held on as the fish ran along the jetties, no rolls or boat circling like big specs, just a dogged pull. Soon, both of us saw Jim’s fish, a big, sheepshead that we netted. Then, netting mine, a duplicate of Jim’s, I muttered to him, “Any port in a storm”, and we baited up and cast out again.

Sheepshead, Archosargus probatocephalus, when properly cleaned and prepared, are fine tablefare. They are found around rocks and pilings from the mid Atlantic to the Texas coast.

Within two hours we had filled up our eighty-eight quart, cooler with two to three pound, sheepshead and headed back on into the yacht basin. No specs today but we decided that since I had just obtained a commercial fishing license, we would sell these fish. The local commercial fishing house on the harbor paid me $39.00, around $.40 per pound for this catch.

It was still early, the tide was just starting to move, so we re-shrimped and headed back out to the south jetty to have a go at the specs.

We were down at our beach house in Jamaica Beach, on the west end of Galveston Island, and one Sunday afternoon in late April of 1969, Norman Shelter and I decided to take a run out to the Galveston Jetties to try and hook up with some white, sea trout or sand trout, Cynoscion arenarius. These are fine eating fish but because of their soft texture they are difficult to freeze. The best way to try and keep them for any length of time is to freeze them in water and be sure to squeeze the air out.

It was a strange day, not much wind, light out of the southeast, but huge swells rolling over the ends of the north and south jetties. Within the jetties, they served their purpose well and broke the big swells, but as Norman and I rounded the end of the north jetty, it was gut check time. We could’v gone through the boat cut, but decided that the shortest way to the fish was to go around the end. We raced up the side of two big swells and then sped down the front of the next one and we were safely into the calm water.

Anchoring up, we bated our lines with fresh, dead shrimp and cast back toward the jetty. We were fishing with six and a half foot, popping rods, red, Ambasseuder reels, loaded with fifteen pound line, on the bottom, about thirty-five feet down, right among the rocks. Both of our casts were met with solid strikes and after short battles, we boated two nice, sand trout, two pounders. Good fish, since the bigger ones like this were usually caught miles, off shore. Both fish had a mouth full of teeth, no spots like speckled trout and a pretty, a bluish hue covering their heads.

This was repeated over and over until out eighty-eight quart cooler was full of fish (and ice). Then, Norman said the famous last words, “I’ll make one more cast.” He cast out toward the open gulf and the bait had no more hit the water than he was greeted with a savage, strike! The fury of the strike hurled the king mackerel ten feet or more out of the water. Then the king ran!

Wrasslin’ with the anchor, it finally pulled loose and I started the motor. As I came about, the king, a nice one, forty pounds or more, hit the end of the line, spooling Norman. The line gave a popping sound as it separated from the reel.

Since our cooler was full and our anchor was up, we headed back to the yacht basin. Going back we smartly chose to use the boat cut!

Early April 1970 offered some beautiful Gulf coast weather. Light winds and warm days had raised the water temperature to over seventy degrees, the speckled trout, or specs, had spawned and now had moved onto the sand/shell flats prowling for food and it was mine and Jim Buck, my Brother-In-Law’s, plan to intercept some of these monsters.

Our ambush point was the sand flats, on the south side of the spoil banks of the Intercoastal Waterway, just west of Greens Cut, but not as far as Karankawa Reef where the sand flats turned into mud/shell. Two months earlier, on a warm February afternoon, the mud had offered us some good fishing, but now the specs had changed to their spring and early summer pattern.

Jim and I were using live shrimp under a popping cork, but weren’t blind casting and drifting. Our targets were the slicks made by the specs gorging and regurgitating bits of their prey. The oil released will pop to the surface as a pail or washtub size, shiny, oily slick and the trout will be under the slicks. A telltale sign produced by the slicks is a distinctive water melon, smell and many times we’d pick up the odor before we found the slick.

We were idling along in my new seventeen foot, deep vee, cross wind to a light southeast breeze, and sure enough, Jim said, “I smell ‘em” as I also picked up the unmistakable scent of watermelon. Scanning the immediate area, we both saw slicks popping to the surface less than a hundred feet to our left and cutting the outboard, we looped short casts between two of them and were both rewarded with solid strikes. After a few short runs, a boat circling battle ensued and we let the specs tire before slipping nets under them and claiming a brace of fine three pound, trout!

Pictured is my new, 17′, deep vee. It was so new I hadn’t even applied the state required registration decals.

Restarting the motor, we continued looking and sniffing and came upon a tub size slick to our front. Jim shot a cast toward it, popped his cork once, a spec smashed the shrimp and headed off across the bay. Rod tip held high, Jim’s fish began the first of three circles of the boat, each being closer, until laying on its side, I easily slipped the net under it and hefted a nice five pounder aboard. Jim had been fishing for specs for the past four years and this was his best one to date. He was happy and, smiling, told me, “I’ll drive the boat and you catch the next one!”

Within fifteen minutes we both caught the scent and as I cast toward the emerging slick, I remarked to Jim, “I’ll bet this’l be a nice one.” No sooner as the shrimp hit the water, there was a smashing strike! The fish headed “south” and all I could do was hold on. Finally, stopping the run, I was surprised when the fish headed back towards the boat. Most times a good spec will begin circling, conserving its energy, then really put up a scrap beside the boat, but not this one.

Reeling madly and barely keeping pressure on the fish, it rolled a short distance from the boat, revealing a flash of silver and we both remarked, “That’s some spec!” It made several short runs and stirred the water to “a froth” around the boat, but finally tired as Jim netted it and held it up for both of us to admire. We guessed that it weighed over six pounds.

We had already filleted the other three fish and belatedly decided to, at least, take a picture of the big ‘un!

We had four very nice specs in the cooler and called it a day. We loaded the boat and drove to Red’s, 7 Seas Grocery, to weigh my big fish. Red, the owner, was holding court with several of his friends, and even though it was before lunch, he and his pals were well into the sauce. Declining his offer to join into the festivities, I asked if we could weigh a big trout that I had just caught? “By all means,” he replied.

Showing off the big fish, it brought “ooohs and ahs” from the group and placing it onto his meat scales, the meter stopped at seven pounds and two ounces. This was a “best” for me for the next twenty-one years!