It took eighteen years for me to have another “up close and personal” meeting with an alligator and this one was too close for comfort!
The summer of 1964 found me still working multiple jobs with little spare time. My Dad had made friends with a contractor from Philadelphia, Miss. that he had employed in his department at Southwestern Bell. Looking back now I can see that he was a “redneck’s, redneck”. In the fall he was a market hunter for ducks and had absolutely no respect for game laws, but he appeared to be an OK guy.

In past years he had spent time in north Louisiana and had made several successful float trips down the headwaters of the Calcasieu River. These were easy trips of four to six hours, floating and fishing about five miles of river. Put in and take out at State boat ramps, easy, no problem. The object of these trips was to catch small mouth bass – not really the cold, water variety – but spotted bass, common to moving water in the south and southwest.

My Dad, who was nearing retirement, and I had arranged for a weekend off in mid May, so off we went to north Louisiana. Our “headquarters” was a motel in Alexandria and we arrived at the jumping off point, a State launch ramp, at first light on a bright, clear, spring, day.

Four of us were going on the float trip, my Dad and I in one jon boat and his contractor friend and one of his relatives, who “knew the river” and would “guide” us, in the other boat. His relative saying “We got a few falls (fallen trees spanning or down in the river) to go over, under or around, but outside of that, it will be easy. I have since learned that if I hear the word, “easy”, I prepare for the worst!

The Calcasieu River, at our put in spot, was slow moving; clear as tap water, about seventy-five feet wide, for our whole trip didn’t exceed that width and we didn’t see one other boat or fisherman. The banks were lined with some pine, but mostly hardwood trees. Pretty trees. Pretty now, but we all would be cursing them by midnight!

We drifted about fifty yards from the boat ramp, I put a hand full of Beechnut chewing tobacco in the side of my mouth, and my first cast with a yellow Piggy Boat and, bam, a solid strike from a one pound, spotted bass, the fish taking line, running, not jumping like a regular bass. My Dad hooked up and soon we had two nice ones on our stringer. Looks like a good day starting. I’ll ask myself later “Why did we keep these bass?”

We eased under our first fall, a tree down from bank to bank, and up ahead we saw one resting in the water. We drifted up to it and, in the water we went, and pulled the jon boat over it. The little “dip” was refreshing. This was repeated several times during the first half-mile of our “easy” float.

We came to hundred yard, stretch with no falls and casting right up to the bank, retrieving for two reel cranks, I had a savage strike. This fish was fighting hard, running and now jumping. What a pretty sight. I landed him and onto the stringer, a four-pounder! My dad took another and we were amassing a really good stringer of fish.

More falls, it seemed one every thirty or forty yards. It was now noon and I bet in the last four plus hours, we haven’t made two miles. I asked the relative and he said, “A few more falls than I remember, but we don’t have that far to go.” Later I thought, “Who is this guy who supposedly knows the river?”

The fishing remained great! Whenever we could we make a cast, at least half of them were rewarded with a solid hit. However, it seemed we were spending more time slipping under or pulling over trees, than fishing. We caught several more nice, three and four pound bass. Our stringer was getting heavy.

We slipped under a fall and blankety-blank, my Dad let out a line “blue streakers”, and slapped the top of his head, smushing a red wasp that had just popped him. Over the side and into the water and I think, “Oh no, he’s had a heart attack,” but he came up out of the water smiling and said, “Boy, when wasps get after you, it’s better to go into the water than run.” As if he could have run anywhere. He asked for my chew of tobacco and slapped it on the sting and soon the sting was just a memory.

More falls! Over them, under them, drag the boat, we’re both soaked, so are our other 2 fishing mates, it’s close to 5:00 PM and no relief in sight! The intrepid relative said, “There sure is a lot of these falls!” We echoed his sentiments!

Ahead was something new, two trees down at the same place, a longer drag, almost a portage. My Dad jumped onto the logs pulling the boat sideways so I could get out. We pulled the bow of the boat up on the logs and he jumped down into the water and the water exploded! He just had jumped down on top of an alligator! Ride ‘em cowboy! “Alligator, look out!” the fearless relative shouted. A six foot ‘gator was airborne as my Dad scrambled back up onto the logs.

The ‘gator was long gone but here came the “blue streakers”, blankety-blank-blank, from my Dad. He was soaking, again, really mad and ready to choke our “guide”, the relative. He said in a firm voice, “Get me out of this blankety-blank place. The relative replied, “We still got a ways to go.”

He was right, it was nearly dark and we seemed no closer to the take out ramp than we were two hours ago. Something was wrong here. We pulled over to the side and I asked the relative, “What’s the deal.” He replied, “Best I can figure, the hurricane that came through here last year (Camille) just tore up these woods and knocked all of these trees down. But don’t worry it’s an easy walk out’a here.” There’s that word, easy, again.

At near dark, probably 7:00 PM, we tied up the boats to a convenient (they are all convenient) fall. The “relative” could worry about his boats later. We started “out”, carrying our rods, luckily we didn’t bring any tackle boxes, fish on the stringers and water, today’s lunch being all gone. Our “guide”, the relative led off. We guessed we had to walk two to three miles to the road, then north on the road for another mile to the State ramp and our vehicles.

The darkening sky found us walking somewhat north, through very thick underbrush and trees everywhere, carrying our rods, the stringer of fish and our water. Down and up through a dry creek bed and slipping down the “up side” of the bank I remarked “This is more like a forced march than an easy walk.” No reply from our “guide”.

We trudged on for almost an hour and slipped down a creek bank and climbing up the other side and I saw my slide marks. We had walked in a circle! “Stop” I shouted and our weary procession slowed to a halt! “We’ve walked in a circle”, showing them my slide marks. I said, “This deal stops right now! I’m taking the lead and getting us out of this damn place!” I looked to the sky and found the Big Dipper and followed its bottom two stars to the North Star. That will be my mark to keep us on line. Our “guide” is silent.

With me in the lead we headed north. After about another hour we all decided to drop our stringers of fish and leave them for the varmints. Why did we keep those fish? We finished the water and dropped the water bags to the ground. Pressing on, to our north, the artillery at Ft. Polk began booming. I thought, “This will be a good guide too.”

Still bearing north we saw a light ahead, six hundred yards later it turned out to be a Coleman Lantern hanging in a tree. We saw three men sitting around a low fire. “Hello, the camp!” I shouted. Startled, the three men jumped up and looked around. Seeing us, four apparitions coming out of the dark with no lamps or flashlights, out came their guns!

“Hold it right there! Who are you?” We explained our plight, still standing outside the circle of light and finally our “guide” remarked that he is the brother in law of “so-in-so” a deputy sheriff. The guns came down and they asked, “What do you want.” I replied, “A drink of water and a ride to our cars parked at the State

My company sponsored an annual event for our customers and the occasion for 2002 was a golf outing at an exclusive country club, southwest of Katy, Texas. The club, located along the drainage of Buffalo Bayou, was on the Katy Prairie and was still a haven for ducks, doves, quail and alligators! The geese, up to a million in the past, had, years ago, moved to other haunts. When the geese were there, I had hunted this area many times.

The club offered a challenging layout, with lots of water hazards and sand traps. Our customer’s executives enjoyed the opportunity for the relaxation and appreciated my company’s hospitality.

When I played golf, the low 90’s were my norm, then, in 2001, I took lessons, from a former PGA tour player and friend and was never the same. My slice took on epic proportions; my grounders were frequent, lost balls increased and, once, playing with three of my salesman, I actually threw a sand wedge into a pond. Retiring from the game (and sticking to softball) in 2004, 2002 found me hosting this golf outing.

My game and temper were under control and my score through sixteen holes was 82. Trying to focus on only the next shot, and trying to silence the little demon in my mind telling me that maybe I’d be in the low 90’s for a change, I stepped up to the tee box and looked down at the potential horrors lining the fairway. A dogleg left with a flowing creek all the way to the green; on the right, a berm and sand running sixty yards from the two hundred, yard marker and behind the berm, a seasonal pond.

I teed off on seventeen and my slice that had been in check all day, returned with a vengeance as the ball sailed over the berm and settled behind it. Maybe I won’t be in the water and can salvage something out of this mess. Luckily, since my lessons, I had become a fair player out of hazards since I was in them most of the time!

My playing partner, a close friend and an executive in one of my old accounts, had also sliced, but was in the sand on the fairway side of the berm. He jumped behind the wheel and we sped off toward our balls. He kinda’ slowed down as we approached the berm, but as we reached the top, he hit the brakes hard!

Right below us was my golf ball and right beside it was a monster, ten, foot, alligator! The noise of the cart, or the ball hitting it, had awakened the beast and it looked up towards the cart. It wasn’t more that ten feet from me as my friend said “Wow” and quickly backed the cart down off of the berm. He inquired, “ Will you play that ball or drop over by mine, Hahaha?”

Fading on the last two holes, I ended the round with a 97, better by ten strokes than usual, but I told my partner, “The ‘gator cured my slice!” ramp.” Mumbled conversation and a reply, “Pay for the gas and we’ll take you to your car, but no water.” “Thanks” I said, then mumbling under my breath, “You sons ‘a bitches!”

Back at our cars, my Dad’s contractor friend was quiet, not having said much for the last six or seven hours and his relative, our “guide, only said, “It was a tougher float than I thought it would be.”
Saying our good byes, Daddy and I got into h

My company sponsored an annual event for our customers and the occasion for 2002 was a golf outing at an exclusive country club, southwest of Katy, Texas. The club, located along the drainage of Buffalo Bayou, was on the Katy Prairie and was still a haven for ducks, doves, quail and alligators! The geese, up to a million in the past, had, years ago, moved to other haunts. When the geese were there, I had hunted this area many times.

The club offered a challenging layout, with lots of water hazards and sand traps. Our customer’s executives enjoyed the opportunity for the relaxation and appreciated my company’s hospitality.

When I played golf, the low 90’s were my norm, then, in 2001, I took lessons, from a former PGA tour player and friend and was never the same. My slice took on epic proportions; my grounders were frequent, lost balls increased and, once, playing with three of my salesman, I actually threw a sand wedge into a pond. Retiring from the game (and sticking to softball) in 2004, 2002 found me hosting this golf outing.

My game and temper were under control and my score through sixteen holes was 82. Trying to focus on only the next shot, and trying to silence the little demon in my mind telling me that maybe I’d be in the low 90’s for a change, I stepped up to the tee box and looked down at the potential horrors lining the fairway. A dogleg left with a flowing creek all the way to the green; on the right, a berm and sand running sixty yards from the two hundred, yard marker and behind the berm, a seasonal pond.

I teed off on seventeen and my slice that had been in check all day, returned with a vengeance as the ball sailed over the berm and settled behind it. Maybe I won’t be in the water and can salvage something out of this mess. Luckily, since my lessons, I had become a fair player out of hazards since I was in them most of the time!

My playing partner, a close friend and an executive in one of my old accounts, had also sliced, but was in the sand on the fairway side of the berm. He jumped behind the wheel and we sped off toward our balls. He kinda’ slowed down as we approached the berm, but as we reached the top, he hit the brakes hard!

Right below us was my golf ball and right beside it was a monster, ten, foot, alligator! The noise of the cart, or the ball hitting it, had awakened the beast and it looked up towards the cart. It wasn’t more that ten feet from me as my friend said “Wow” and quickly backed the cart down off of the berm. He inquired, “ Will you play that ball or drop over by mine, Hahaha?”

Fading on the last two holes, I ended the round with a 97, better by ten strokes than usual, but I told my partner, “The ‘gator cured my slice!” is car. He looked at his watch and said, “It’s almost midnight. Quite a day!” I rolled down the window, and fished out a Pall Mall and lit up, blowing the smoke out of the window. My Dad had smoked for forty years but had quit ten years past and hated for me to smoke. He said to me, “Boy give me one of those.”
I never saw my Dad’s contractor friend again. And, I never saw my Dad smoke another cigarette!

August 1945 saw the end of WW II, and by the summer of 1946, military surplus stores were thriving. Eliminating the middleman, one of my industrious uncles, Austin Bryan, U. S. Navy Sea Bee, had come across a two man, inflatable life raft that had been “lost” from a Catalina flying boat. It was unused so Uncle Austin made a plywood box for it and shipped it back to the ‘States, to his brother, my Dad. We now had a “fishing boat” and me, being young, thought pumping it up was neat.

Our first trip was with our neighbor, Dave Miller, another WW II veteran and former student at Texas A & M College (now University) and his son Benny, to an oxbow lake off of the Brazos River, south of Richmond, Texas. This was a very “private” lake being on a large State Prison Farm.
Another uncle of mine, A. C. Turner, Uncle Ace, had returned from the war and was back working for the Texas Prison System and had arranged for us to fish on this lake. He was Rehabilitation Director and, at that time, the Texas Prison System was self sufficient and profitable. Drugs, illegal immigration and our Federal Courts have that! Uncle Ace went on to become Warden of The Walls unit in Huntsville, then to the State Parole Board, rising to its President.

We drove to the lake, inflated the boat and then “took turns” fishing out of the life raft. Benny and I went first and learned quickly the art of paddling a life raft. Our first attempt resulted in an inglorious circle! Our fishing results were better, several small bass, which we put on a communal stringer and then headed to shore and turned the raft over to our Dads.

Left on the bank while our Dads were working on the bass, Benny and I caught some grasshoppers and went to bait fishing for bream and perch. Not much wind, a real nice afternoon and we noticed a snag drifting near our spot. It drifted up and stopped and quit drifting. Being 9 and 11 years old we thought nothing about it and kept fishing.

Our Dads were headed back our way with a couple of more bass on the communal stringer and Dave yelled to us, “What’s that in the water out from you?” Being young we answered, “Where?” My Dad said, “Boys, watch where I cast,” as he cast a wooden, Lucky 13 plug, toward us and across our “snag”.

He twitched his rod tip and reeled one turn at a time, “walking the dog” back over the “snag”. The water exploded and a big, it seemed five or six foot long, alligator, our “snag”, cleared the water in a twisting, mouth open, teeth showing jump, made a great splash as it returned and then took off, at top speed, pulling the life raft behind it.

My dad’s Calcutta rod was dangerously bent. He was yelling to high heaven because the “gator was stripping the line from his reel and his only means of trying to stop the ‘gator’s run, was to apply thumb pressure to the reel’s spool. Hence a blistered thumb!

The ‘gator jumped again, the plug pulled loose and came flying back toward my Dad and, a ducking Dave and settled on the water behind them. “Whoopee” exclaimed Dave, followed by a “damn” from my Dad, as both anglers paddled back toward us.
Laughingly, my Dad told us “ ‘gators like to eat little boys if they can catch one and this one was sizing both you all up for a dinner.” Silently we packed up the raft in its plywood box and we did not enjoy his attempt at humor!

In a picture box display, in the main hall of my ranch house, are all of my Dad’s old fishing plugs, including the tooth scarred, wooden, Lucky 13 that he “walked” over the ‘gator.

The end of March 1958 found me casting towards the bank with my trusty, yellow piggy boat, while cruising along the shoreline of a one-acre stock tank in Falls County, Texas. I was congratulating myself on my discovery and manufacture of Release 1, of an inner tube float, bass fishing system. Propulsion was by swim fins attached to each foot and with very little practice I could start and move along slowly and even stop and loiter in one spot for several casts.

The cast landed inches up on the bank; I eased the piggy boat into the water and started my retrieve. It hadn’t moved 2 or 3 feet and was smashed by a hungry bass. Clearing the water, not 10 feet away from me, I could see the droplets flying off as it tried to shake the hook loose. Lipping the bass, slipping it on the stringer and I had landed the first bass officially credited to my new float fishing system. Before dark four more were added and I was sold on this new way to fish!

My bill of materials for the float fishing system was strictly a single level one. One patched inner tube (with no leaks); 3, 24 inch long pieces of rope, and one 5/8 inch piece of plywood, cut with 2 leg holes, drilled to allow the ropes to pass through and rounded off to fit inside of the inner tube.

Drawbacks were a gusty wind and the cold water. We were already water skiing along the coast, but central Texas was just waking up to spring, the water was chilly and a wet suit would have been of more utility than my Wranglers.

Two more afternoon trips were equally successful. On one, I hooked a four, plus pounder and was pulled around the tank. That was a fun trip and I released the fish.

Word spread quickly around my family and my bass fishing friends. My niece’s boy friend invited me for a “demonstration” fishing trip to a special, stock tank on property his Dad managed, just outside of Halletsville. Making sure it was ‘gator free, I accepted.

Donning my flippers, I stepped into my inner tube and waded into the tank. Showing off for boy friend and his Dad, I moved forward with speed, stopped and loitered, backed up a little and let fly a cast along the edge of some moss. The strike on my yellow piggy boat was instantaneous and as I set the hook, my plywood seat broke and down I went, stopping my fall by catching both biceps on the tube.

Boy friend and his Dad were hooting and laughing, I was struggling with the fish and trying to keep myself in the tube. I was wishing the bass would throw the hook, but it didn’t, and it was a great struggle lipping it and getting me, the tube, my rod and reel and the bass to the shore, where I fumbled the fish on to the stringer.

Not being able to figure out why my well-crafted seat had broken, one look by boy friend’s Dad was all it took. He queried, “Jon, you didn’t use marine plywood? Your seat didn’t break it just came unglued! Haw-Haw!”

Version 2 of my bill of material included one 5/8 Inch piece of marine plywood and Release 2 of the product fixed the problem.