On this particular morning’s fishing trip, Brad, a nine year old and by then, an accomplished fisherman, and I were meeting my Uncle, and his Great Uncle, Alvin Pyland, better known as, Unkie, to sample some of the great trout action, under the birds, on the east side of the Galveston causeway.

Unkie is pictured holding up two nice specs from another, less harrowing, fishing trip.

This area, ten or twelve 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.  I told Unkie to be at The Pleasure Island Bait Camp, our fishing headquarters, at 7:30 AM and be ready to catch some fish.

We had purchased a beach house in the Jamaica Beach subdivision, ten miles west from the end of the Galveston Sea Wall.  Launching at Jamaica Beach, we were now five to ten minutes from some great bay fishing spots; Green’s Cut, the Wreck, Confederate Reef North and South Deer Islands and only thirty minutes by boat, from my favorite South Jetty spot, less time than it took us to drive, launch and then motor out to the jetties!  Previously, early in the spring, I caught this 7-1/4 pound spec just out from Green’s Cut.

By 7:00 AM Brad and I had the boat in the water at the Jamaica Beach launch ramp and had started our fifteen, minute trip to meet Unkie at 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, the sea gulls see the disturbance, and always looking for a free meal, the gulls literally swarm over the shrimp and feeding trout.  This is 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 ones and began a morning of catching specs as fast as we could, and a morning of, we didn’t 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 big bay boat, we felt secure since we were but a short run back to Pleasure Island.  Then the southern storm moved on to the island, and we found out later that it had dropped ten inches of rain on the city, and shortly, a lot of that fell on us.

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

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

Craak!  Boom! Lightning hit a channel marker not three hundred yards from us and then Unkie uttered his infamous remark, “I’ve got time for one last cast.”

He casts out and hooked a nice one, which cost us 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 hits a channel marker not one hundred and fifty yards from us.  “Let’s get going,” I yelled as the rain started to batter us

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

Northeast of us was the Texas City Dike, a nine mile, red granite, wall built out into Galveston Bay.  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 built 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 four- foot waves, which were huge for the bay, since the distance between the wave crests is probably only ten feet.  Very rough!  Wave tops in the Gulf in four-foot seas are twenty-four to twenty-seven feet apart.  Lots of up and down for us, and luckily the drain plugs in the boat did their job and at least we didn’t swamp.  Looking down, I believed Brad 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 in on the dike, I anchored the boat with the bow pointing into the storm, which had slacked off some.  With the rain pelting down, we got out of the boat, soaked to the skin and waded to the dike and then some smart aleck, under an awning at the bait camp, asked, “Kind a rough, wasn’t it?”  If my nine year old hadn’t been along, there would have been violence!

Standing on the concrete spillway with the full force of Texas’, Colorado River, being held in check by the restraining balloon, I didn’t then, nor have ever found out what the air filled giant was made of, but it was over three hundred feet long and probably twenty feet in diameter and was stretched across the river from giant concrete anchors.  Tidal water, from the Gulf of Mexico, fifteen miles south, was to my front and behind me, behind the huge barrier, was the fresh water from the river.  The water was used for irrigation of the many rice fields in the area.

Surprise, one of my first casts, with an artificial shrimp tail lure, into the brackish water was picked up by a nice, channel cat and five minutes later I was stringing the eight, pounder.   Several casts later, my rod bowed as a big fish hit the lure and headed down river.  This wasn’t a cat and, because of the apparent head shaking, I identified it as a big red.  My gear, a six and a half, foot fiberglass, popping rod, 6000C, reel loaded with two hundred yards of fifteen pound line, should be sufficient to stop this fellow’s run.

Hopping down off of the spillway and running along the bank, I was able to gain some line and soon the fish slowed and made another shorter run, but something was out of whack, this fish was fighting deeper than a red.  Maybe it had swallowed the lure?  Gaining line and easing the fish up out of the depths, I had my first glimpse of a big striped bass, probably thirty inches long.

Having caught some in South Carolina, but never in Texas waters, I wanted this one for, at least, a picture and as I bent over to “lip” the striper, all the while trying to keep my line tight, the single hook on the plug, pulled out.  I could only watch, and I still have the mind picture, as this silver/greenish, striped beauty slowly finned down out of sight.

There is a small striped bass fishery in the Trinity River, below the Lake Livingston damn.  Having fished Trinity Bay, around the mouth of the Trinity River, many times, I have caught reds and specs but never a striper, although I’ve heard tales of anglers regularly catching them.  I’ve fished around the salt water, barrier on the San Bernard River and no stripers.  I think there’s too much pollution around the Brazos/New River system for them and have never caught one around there.

All I can imagine is that this fish either came into the Colorado from the Gulf, or came down Trinity to Galveston Bay, then into the Gulf for, forty miles, then up the Colorado?

Whatever, it certainly did some traveling.

After finishing my military active duty requirement, I went to work for, at the time, the largest computer company in the country and the spring of 1960 found me in Radium Springs, Georgia, just outside of Albany, to attend six weeks of computer training. Computers were new to almost everyone then.
Radium Springs featured a huge casino/hotel combination, built in 1920, but since demolished and was a beautiful and delightful place to hold the class, except for the bone chilling, constant temperature of the water, 68 degrees and, the incessant B-52 takeoffs from Turner Field, a SAC base. We were on the end of the twelve thousand foot, runway and the big bird’s wings would actually “flap” up and down when the behemoths cleared the ground.
One Saturday, while I was in town getting a haircut, I sat in the barber’s chair and watched one of Martin Luther King’s first marches down the main street of Albany. Law enforcement was brutal in the handling of the marchers. A very interesting note about this, unknown to me for years, a softball playing, friend of mine was one of MLK’s bodyguards and he too remembers this march!
What does all of this have to do with carp? The sparkling blue pool at Radium Springs, yes, the water in the springs does have traces of radium, was “covered up” with large, almost pet, carp. Being a fisherman of sorts, I went into town and bought me an inexpensive spinning reel, rod, hooks, weights and a stringer and one stop at the hotel’s kitchen set me up with some carefully constructed “dough balls” for bait.
The chef, a black lady, was eager to please, even when I told her to mix in some cotton with the dough. The cotton would help to keep the bait securely on the hook. She remarked, “I hasn’t heard of this, but if’n it works, save me two or three big ‘uns!”
My first cast produced a tap, tap and setting the hook, I held on for a long sizzling, run and soon, I pulled the, I guessed, five pound carp up on to the bank. Thinking this was a “big ‘un”, it went on the stringer.
My next cast didn’t yield a tap, tap, but the rod was almost yanked from my hands. This one meant business and almost stripped the line on its first run. Luckily, the fish turned and headed back my way and I regained some line. This fight lasted for ten minutes and the carp was too big to slide up on to the bank, so I handed my rod to an onlooker with instructions to keep the line tight and into the cold water I went and, unceremoniously, grabbed the big fish, I guessed twenty pounds, with both hands and arms and carried it up out of the water and ‘rasseled it on to the stringer. Whew!
The next one was even bigger and I barely won this fight. After stringing it, I was cold and wet and had had enough of this “carping” to last for one day. After letting the little one go I carried the big ‘uns to the chef and she was all smiles. She told me that the fish were for her family and that she would ‘bile ‘em to gets all of bones out and then make fish cakes out of the meat. Sounded good to me!
The next morning I was standing, almost at attention, in front of my Class Manager, who was almost smiling, when he told me, “The hotel manager said for me to tell you not to catch and keep any of the hotel’s carp! You can still fish, but throw them back.
His guests like to watch them.”

Having caught and released my tarpon by 8:00 AM, we had continued fishing, hoping for another one! Two kings, two cut offs and one jackfish later we still hadn’t seen or hooked a tarpon.

The tarpon were in and cruising along the beachfront early in the summer of 1998 and Bob Baugh and I had decided to take a day off and go fish with Mike Williams, owner of Tarpon Express, and considered to be the best saltwater/tarpon guide in the Galveston Bay area. We hadn’t used a local guide before but figured he’d know about catching the tarpon, where they were, and most important, he was on the water every day.

By the time we met Mike at 69th Street and Seawall Boulevard, he had already picked up a supply of frozen cigar minnows, that we would be using that day for bait. He had made the decision for us not to use artificials since the tarpon were really spread out and hadn’t been hitting them for the past week. That’s exactly the reason we hired him!

Continuing to fish hard we were rewarded with two more kings and lost several more, kings or sharks, we couldn’t tell, since they had bitten through the eighty pound, mono, leaders.

After another cut off, I tied on a new “circle” hook, applied a cigar minnow and sent a long cast, looping out to the general area where I had just lost my rig. As soon as the bait hit the water, there was a sharp tug, a short run and airborne came a twisting, turning, black tip shark.

A long run, two more jumps and after a tug-of war, the four and a half foot, shark rolled over on its side beside the boat as Mike asked me, “If you want to keep this one, I’ll gaff it? Good eatin’!” Replying to the affirmative, he gaffed it, whacked it on the head with two good licks and laid it out on his cutting board. Cutting off the shark’s head, gutting and skinning it, he held up, probably, twenty pounds of shark ready to be sliced and grilled. The shark steaks were greatly, enjoyed!

Black tips, and most sharks, are terrific fighters, offer real sport and the guides now release all of them they catch.

One hundred miles out, after a fast, less than three hour run, over a glassy Gulf of Mexico, we, Bob Baugh and his ex-wife and Layla and I, pulled up to acres of floating Sargassum sea weed and my first cast produced a strike by a chicken dolphin (small dolphin weighing less than five pounds) and the fun started. We boated over a hundred that morning, despite losing many to the numerous sharks.

Around noon, I had a big hit and immediately knew it wasn’t another small dolphin. The fish was a great match for my medium weight tackle and after it made a long run with no jumps, we couldn’t even guess what kind of fish it was. It was too far offshore for a kingfish, maybe it was a wahoo, maybe a “bull” dolphin, but they will usually jump like crazy?

After a real ‘rasslin match I got the fish closer to the boat we saw that it was a good size, albacore tuna, twelve to fifteen pounds, but it was being closely followed by a large, at least, six, foot, bull shark. As the shark clipped off the tuna’s body right behind the head, Bob grabbed for his .357 magnum pistol. The shark happily lolled on the surface just long enough for Bob to shoot it right in the middle of its head. And, the last we saw of it, it was slowly sinking.

The next morning, after a stop at some close in oil rigs and several spirited bouts with some bruiser, forty to fifty pound red fish, we headed back over a glassy Gulf, out to our weed island, a hundred miles out. Fishing around the weed patch, we caught more chicken dolphin and lost more to the sharks. Layla had a nice dolphin on and, right beside the boat, up came a big bull shark and ate the dolphin. The shark lolled on the surface and Bob grabbed his .357 and reboomed it. As it slowly sank, we noticed a second hole in its head where Bob had shot it yesterday.

I guess both shots missed any vitals, if any happened to be up there?

During the spring of 1957, Richard Frazier, an ROTC buddy of mine, and a newly commissioned 2nd Lt. In the U.S. Army, and I had been hearing stories about the great fishing behind Earl Galceran’s camp near the old Coast Guard Station at the far west end of Galveston Island. It was a private place and without a boat, we couldn’t figure out how get to it?
Earl’s camp was really several thousand, prime acres, leased for dove, quail and duck hunting, plus it had access to some of the best trout water in the state. At the time, live bait wasn’t available in the immediate area so our only option was artificials, like the Dixie Jet silver spoons, pictured, with a yellow buck tail attached.

Richard had an idea that since we couldn’t sneak into the area, why didn’t he and I go ask Earl Galceran, already a fishing legend, if we could fish behind his place. We could sight our lack of funds, honesty and Richard’s newly commissioned status as reasons we could be trusted not to do any damage to his property or equipment. Or, my idea, we could just drive down there and act like members, wave and smile and just wade out and start fishing.
We choose the latter approach, correctly thinking, “Always beg for forgiveness and never ask for permission.” If apprehended, we would plead ignorance of the private property and say we were just following the road to West Galveston Bay.
Arriving at the open gate to Earl Galceran’s we drove to a parking area, parked, grabbed our rods, and stringers and headed for the bay. Out came Earl, we smiled and waved, he smiled and waved and went back into his trailer. Whew! We must have looked like members.
Reaching the edge of the bay, a light southeast wind was blowing at our backs, as we looked out over trout paradise, a slight ripple on green, clear water with grass growing and swirling right up to the surface. Like the Rockport and Port O’Conner areas today, grass grew in abundance and the holes in the grass reminded me of holes in the moss in fresh water lakes.
No hesitation and in I went and found a hard sand/shell bottom and I couldn’t believe the grass. On my first cast and spoon landed silently past a hole in the moss, I began a rapid retrieve and whamo, a three pound, spec nailed the spoon and the fight was on! When a big trout hits, you know it, a jarring, pounding, rod bending hit, not the sideways, slow hit of a big red picking up a shrimp. Landing the trout bare handed, I secured a firm grip behind its gills, slid it on to the stringer and looked over at Richard who was also in the middle of a fight with a nice fish.
“This is some place,” I exclaimed, as I sailed another cast past a likely looking hole in the grass, and got another whamo! The hook pulled out, no fish. What I didn’t know then, but have since learned, the trout lurk in the grass beside the holes and ambush baitfish as they swim through the open area.
Another cast, another jarring hit, and this one’s hooked solid and I’m soon stringing another three pounder. Several casts catch grass, and before you know it, whamo, another fine fish soon to be on my stringer. Thirty minutes of fishing, wonderful conditions, bait in the water, trout all around and three solid three pounders on the stringer. What a day this will be!
Wait a minute, what’s going on? My stringer was caught on something. That something brushed my leg. That something was a shark! “Shark,” I yelled, as I stepped back and looked down at my stringer, which was tied, not looped, onto a belt loop of my jeans. Another lesson learned, “Never tie, always loop.”
Two bites and the shark, a four foot plus, black tip, clipped off the last two trout on my stringer, swirled around me, brushed my leg again, and came up to the surface and grabbed the last trout, all of this right by my right hand that was futilely trying to pull the fish away from the snapping jaws! The shark won, bit off the third spec and swished away!
I heard Richard laughing. I didn’t think this was funny at all. I’m left with three trout heads on my stringer, heart racing and he’s laughing. I guess Earl Galceran kept these sharks around as pets to feed on his “guest’s” fish. I quickly got out of the water and sat on the bank for a while cooling off and by that time Richard, still laughing, came out of the water with five nice ones on his stringer. He said “You ready to call it a day.” I didn’t reply, just turned around and started back to the car.
I went back to this place by boat in 1970. A big chemical plant had been built in the mid ‘60’s, on Chocolate Bayou which feeds into Lower West Galveston Bay above Earl’s old place and the grass was gone. Trout fishing changed in Lower West Bay to anchoring on reefs, fishing under the birds or drifting, with not much wading. Earl Galceran moved to a houseboat set up in the Chandleur Islands off of the Louisiana/Mississippi coasts. From what I have heard, he took some of his sharks with him.
That summer, Richard went on active duty at Ft. Hood as a Platoon Leader in a basic training company. One of his recruits was Elvis Pressley.

What do you do when a five foot black tip shark hits your speckled trout outfit, runs fifteen yards towards you (I thought it was a big red fish.), jumps out of the water ten feet in front of you, splashing water on you and, then, heads for Mexico, stripping off all your line?

In the spring of 1954 trout fishing had been very good along the broad sand flats from Galveston’s East Beach Lagoon around to the base of the South Jetties, a curving distance of approximately two miles protected from any wind except north or northeast. This area was at the far eastern tip of Galveston Island and the western side of Bolivar Channel that cuts between the island and Bolivar Peninsula. This is also the mouth of the Galveston and Houston ship channels. It was good fishing and just plain fun to go down there and watch the ships and the girls. We always tried to plan our trips when the wind was light and the tide were coming in.

The week before today’s event my cousin and fishing buddy, George Pyland, and I had made a “killing” on school trout on the north side of the flats. The fish were everywhere, plugs or live shrimp, even a bare hook. We spread the news among our fishing group and everyone awaited a break in the weather.

I got a early morning call from one of my partners in crime, Bobby Brown, saying “Things look good for the flats this afternoon”. My reply was “I can’t. I have a date”. This was totally unacceptable to Bobby. His girl friend didn’t like to go fishing and he was free today and tonight. My girl friend was game for anything. She didn’t fish but liked to wade out and watch us fish. After saying, “He would buy the gas”, all of $.18 per gallon, I called my girl and told her of the change in plans and she reluctantly agreed to go with us.

The tide was running in and the wind was light when we bought shrimp at Bobby Wilson’s East Beach Bait Camp and headed for the flats. Wading out about seventy-five yards to waist deep water, the fish were there and we started catching some nice specs, up to two pounds. Bobby, to my right, and I were about 30 feet apart and girl friend was behind me, my stringer floated off to my left with the breeze and incoming tide.

My cork went under and as I set the hook I remarked, “Hey, this is a real nice fish probably a big, red”. I struggled to keep the line tight as the fish bored toward me, my companions watched intently. Ten feet in front of me a beautiful five foot long, black tip shark, cleared the water, mouth open, teeth getting my attention, hit the water splashing some on me, and headed off to my right towards where I thought Bobby was located. My valiant fishing partner and girl friend had already halved the distance to shore and left me alone to battle the denizen.

Not much of a battle, fifteen pound braided line on a Shakespeare Direct Drive reel and a fiber glass popping rod, all being no match for an eighty pound shark. The shark headed to my right and I headed straight for the shore where my stalwart friends waited for me. At least the shark didn’t get the fish on our stringers!

This area, the East Beach Flats including Bobby Wilson’s Bait Camp no longer exists. Natural erosion assisted by a small hurricane that came up the channel in the mid 70’s, completely changed the landscape, eliminating one good fishing spot.

Girl friend never went wade fishing with me again.