Fishing

El Shrimp Bucket

Being a good Texas boy, my only exposure to Mexico had been to the sleezy border towns and now, in 1971, to see the budding metropolis of Mazatlan, its traffic, 500,000 inhabitants, beautiful harbor and recent awakening to Gringo tourists, was a real eye opener.

My first trip’s accommodations were at the Playa Mazatlan, the “primo” spot in town. Right on the beach, clean rooms, but no air conditioning and once you got past the night sounds of Mexico, music, horns, laughter and the roaring surf, you slept like a log.

Sleeping in the first morning “south of the border”, getting up and renting a “Yeep”, a Volkswagen Monster, we headed south from the Playa Mazatlan to the harbor to set up a fishing trip. On the way to the harbor, on the left, as we rounded a long curve, there, on the corner of the first floor of a multi story building, was “El shrimp Bucket”. “I’ve got to stop there,” I shouted as I did a “uwey” and parked right in front.

There was a big patio inside the building, like the atriums we have now in our prime office spaces, and to the left was “El Shrimp Bucket”. Little did I know that the patio was part of the restaurant, but 12 years later I would witness a very strange display in that very patio, which is, as they say, another story.

Entering and picking a booth with an ocean view, I checked the menu. A bucket of shrimp for $4.95US and since it was 10:45 AM, why not have lunch. Lunch was served and mine was a full bucket of fried shrimp, not as good as Christie’s in Houston, but probably the second best. Fried onion rings and Guacamole was served separately, and washed down with Margaritas, this was a feast!

As we were leaving, I noticed a picture of John Wayne hanging over the door and he had signed the picture, as best I remember, “Best shrimp ever! Duke”.

El Shrimp Bucket became my headquarters in Mazatlan, but I never saw “Duke” there.

Fishing

Mazatlan

During the summer of 1971, all of our new friends in Phoenix were excited about Mazatlan, Mexico. At the time a quaint old town (now over 1,000,000 inhabitants) located on the mainland directly across the mouth El Golfo from Cabo San Lucas. Their excitement was because you could catch the Ferrocarril Del Norte (Iron Horse Of The North), ie Train, in Nogales, Mexico, right across the border from Nogales, Arizona. Then a 12 hour, plus or minus, overnight trip deposited the travellers in Mazatlan. Shopping and partying were the “sports” of most, but for me it was the fishing.

At the time, the only charter service was Bill Heimpel Star Fleet, or Flota Mazatlan. They had 26 to 32 foot cabin boats as shown in the background of the photograph. The boats were seaworthy and reliable, the Captains put you on the fish, with only one drawback, you had to keep all fish caught. Those not claimed, including the Sailfish, were given or sold to the locals. My last visit in 1983 was almost all catch and release.

My first trip out with Flota Mazatlan resulted in probably 15 Sails raised, 7 landed and 5 returned to the dock. The Picture shows two of them. I have caught Sails, Dolphin (not Flipper), White Marlin and raised a large Blue Marlin and lost it. I was on a boat that landed a 150 pound Blue. I made 8 trips down and always wanted to try the “small fishing”, but the excellent fare offshore and the fantastic hunting available lured me away.

More to come on Mazatlan!

Fishing

Rocky Point – Saint John’s Bay

On one excursion to Rocky Point, several of the locals asked me to accompany them to “The Cut”, a two hundred foot wide, cut and channel leading from El Golfo into a small bay, St John’s Bay. The trip was ten miles down the beach, not hard packed sand like along the Texas coast, but fine volcanic sand, which refused to pack. It is a ten mile trip from Hell, four wheel drive all the way. Tires deflated to eight, yes eight pounds each! Skeletons of disabled trucks littered the beach. If you broke down, chances were the truck just stayed, rusted out and sank into the sand.

But once at the cut, when the tide started moving, casting a Mr. Champ spoon with a small sardinero, hooked through the mouth, and jigged slowly along the bottom, the action was terrific! There I caught my first and only Bonefish along with several nice Snook. We loaded up on two to three pound, Corvina, a fish resembling our Gulf Coast White Trout, but this Trout grows to a size of up to fifty pounds!

It is a very enjoyable, exciting experience to make a suspense filled trip to a remote fishing spot, hammer the fish and then come back out, in the dark, engines roaring, sand flying and finally making it back to civilization in one piece.

I made a total of 4 trips to the cut!

Wow!

Fishing

Rocky Point

By the spring of 1972, I had found a new salt water fishing paradise, “South of the Border, Down Mexico Way”. The upper end of El Golfo, the Gulf of California, is the final destination of the western Colorado River. The same river that roars through the Grand Canyon, meekly trickles into the top end of El Golfo at San Felipe, Mexico. Sixty miles southeast of San Felipe is Puerto Penasco (a tilde should be over the “N”), or Rocky Point as the local Arizonans call it.

Yes, local Arizonans. At the time, around 200 families had established an American colony there centered around fishing and relaxing. The beach houses were minimum standard, but sufficient for occasional use by their lessors. At the time, Gringos couldn’t own property in Mexico. The two best facilities at Rocky Point were the boat storage area, patrolled by the local police and fenced with concertina wire around the top, and the boat launching equipment.

My boat, at the time, was an eighteen foot, Falcon Skip Jack, tri hull, with two, sixty horsepower Johnson outboards and two internal, twenty four gallon gas tanks. Loaded out it would cruise at twenty-five miles per hour and had a range of fifty miles. We caught some very nice fish, Sea Bass, Grouper, Corvina, Snook, Bonefish and Queen Trigger Fish. I won a category of a tournament there in 1973 with a ten pound Trigger Fish. We once saw and came within twenty feet of a fifty foot whale!

An unusual feature of Rocky Point is the extreme tidal fluctuations caused by its location at the top of El Golfo, which is several hundred miles long and for a large body of water, very narrow, fifty to a hundred miles wide. Tidal pressure going in and out causes wide fluctuations at Rocky Point. I was told the Bay of Fundy, in Nova Scotia, is the only spot in the world with greater tidal fluctuation.

More coming up on Rocky Point.

Hill Country Happenings

Law West Of The Pecos

You have met my Great Uncle, Lee Wallace, and read some of his humorous stories. Recently, I enjoyed a family reunion with the fine family of his wife, Winnie. Lee had no children and his estate was left to Winnie and her son George. George, a WW II veteran, has passed away, but his wife, Virginia Hearne, along with their 3 children and spouses and 6 Grand Children attended the event. It was held “way up” the Guadalupe River, in the heart of our state’s beautiful, hill country at Lee and Winnie’s Lodge.

Virginia had my attention telling me some stories about Lee, when someone mentioned, how about his trip to Pecos, Texas? Never missing a beat, she passed on to me the following story about Lee’s younger days.

Here’s a picture of Lee Wallace (circa 1900) in his buggy. I’m sure the following trip was made with a larger wagon and a team of horses.

Around the turn of the 20th Century, Lee, County Attorney of Kerr County, Texas and another lawyer, decided they would go and visit one of Lee’s friends in Langtry, Texas, probably a 150 to 200 mile trip. Remember, no interstates and very few cars then and their chosen mode of transportation was a team of horses, pulling their wagon.
A car trip from Kerrville to Langtry, even with our modern highways, is not easy today and in the early 1900’s, had to be a nightmare. To bolster their courage, along with their pistols, they took 2 cases of whiskey, one for their trip and one for Lee’s friend. Wouldn’t you know it, their wagon broke an axle near Rockspring, Texas, and their 3 to 4 day trip turned into a week.

They finally arrived in Langtry, with the whiskey gone, and no “gift” for Lee’s friend. However, his friend’s court was in session, the bar was closed, and they witnessed the strange brand of justice practiced by Judge Roy Bean!

The complaint was by an Anglo rancher that one of his horses was stolen. Judge Bean brought out a Mexican man that was already in jail and said he must have done it. The jury found Mexican guilty and Judge Bean sent him back to jail for a longer term or a hanging (Lee never said). With the swift sentence, the bar quickly opened and warm greetings were exchanged.

After several days, with Lee’s visit and business completed, he and his fellow traveler loaded up for home. To bolster their courage for the grueling trip, Judge Bean presented them with two more cases of whiskey. Four days later, minus the whiskey, they arrived safely in Kerrville.

Back then, you had to be careful of the water you drank!

Hunting

A Really Big Axis Ram

At Warren Blesh’s, RRR Ranch, www.3rtrophyranch.com , just at dusk this past week, a hunter from Colorado, with his .243, knocked down this huge Axis Ram. The Axis Deer, axis axis, field dressed over 275 pounds and had a horn length of 30 inches. In Texas, exotic game can be hunted throughout the year and aren’t regulated by the State.

Earlier in the afternoon, the hunter had shot a couple of young Axis does and Warren told me, “The Axis were eating him out of house and home and needed thinning out”. Warren owns and runs the ranch in Mills County, Texas, a few miles south of Goldthwaite. He added “I have seen a couple of world class, 40 inchers, back in the cedars, beautiful, big animals!”

Hunting

Arizona Ducks

In Arizona, Jack Shindler, another Texas boy and I, enjoyed many years of excellent hunting and fishing together. Our search for Quail, arrow heads, Indian artifacts and Bass, led us over the entire state from the beauty of the Mogillion Rim to the starkness of the Sonoran Desert and it also led us to find some, surprise, Ducks.

We found the Ducks by accident, on the McDowell Indian Reservation, not twenty miles from our homes in Paradise Valley. For $5.00 we purchased hunting permits for the several thousand acres of the Reservation. The Verde River bisected the Reservation and we were looking for Quail one afternoon on the flats besides the River, when ahead of us our Brittanys, Candy and Rooster, flushed several Green Head Mallards out of the water. The Ducks flew right over us, and us without Duck Stamps, held our fire.

The Duck Stamp situation was remedied and two days later my bird dog an I are back along the Verde and up come the Ducks, but about sixty yards away and too far to shoot. I notice they jumped from the slack water behind a small island and my mind started clicking. What if I came out here early in the morning and put the decoys out right where the Ducks jumped up? Not a bad idea. Bring my waders, slip in, put out the decoys, make me a quick blind, unlimber my Duck call and I’m in business.

My hunt ended at sundown and starting the two mile drive out, most of it in four wheel drive low, I finally reached the main road (crushed granite) on the reservation. Stopping to put the truck back into two wheel drive for the drive home, I couldn’t get the truck out of four wheel low. I tried rocking it forward and backwards and moving the shift lever. I tried driving slowly and forcing it out of low gear, nothing would work and I couldn’t drive it the twenty odd miles back on a hard top road in four wheel low. I was stuck so I creeped up to the Blue Moon Inn, the local Indian beer joint, and made a call (no cell phones then) for Jack to come and get me.

All ended well. The next day I rented a trailer and “coaxed” some of my salesmen to assist me in recovering my truck. The repair job was minor, a worn shift lever and the
next Saturday morning, daylight found Jack and I on the small island in the Verde River.

He is on the west side and me on the east, about seventy-five yards apart. The twelve plastic decoys are bouncing slowly in the current in front of me, when I hear a Bam, followed by a splash. Jack shot something as I become alert and see him wade out into the main current and pick up a Canadian Goose, a real bonus. He yells at me, “It came in real low, just one.”

As I turn back around, without any warning, two Mallards are hovering over the decoys and raising up, Bam, Bam, splash, splash, my new 20 gauge Beretta, over and under, worked just fine! During the summer of 1971, my trusty 12 gauge pump that I had shot for over twenty years, along with all of my other guns, a new TV, that I won in a sales manager’s contest and my brand new Buick Electra 225, had been stolen while we were out of town. The car was found undamaged the next week but nothing else was ever recovered.

Retrieving one of the Ducks proved to be a challenge. It had fallen on the edge of the current and had drifted down the River getting stuck in a pile of debris. Picking up one Duck and pitching it toward my makeshift blind, I begin wading down the shallow river for the other one. The water isn’t knee deep, but I can feel the cold and the rocks are really slick and me with no “Moses Stick” for balance only my new, over and under.

Balancing as best I can and sliding my wader boots over the rocks, looking up, coming around the bend of the river right at me, are three Mallards. Up comes my gun and down I go, into the shallow water, butt first and the cold water rushes into the back of my waders and I utter some unprintable words! I bounce up quickly, the water pooling in my waders around each foot, but it is too late for a shot. I wonder what scared the Ducks off.

Hearing Jack laughing in the distance, I utter some more unprintables in his direction and let him know I’m ready to go home (and get some dry clothes).

The thieves who broke into my house and stole my stuff were finally caught in 1974, after they had opened a used furniture store on Indian School Road in east Phoenix. They had just committed another robbery, a TV and some guns, and, of all things, the latest victim shows up in their used furniture store looking for a used TV. Spotting one just like his stolen one, he looked a little closer and saw his Social Security number that he had engraved on the back. He left the store without a purchase, went to the Police and thus ended the careers of a vicious gang of thieves. My guns went to Mexico and someone in the Phoenix area got a real good Sony TV.

In 2003, while playing in a National Championship Senior Softball tournament in Phoenix, I had the opportunity to visit the McDowell Indian Reservation again. I took the old stagecoach route over Reata Pass and down the east side of the McDowell mountains. In places the old road comes within a stones throw of the Verde River reasonably close to our Duck spot. The Reservation now is very clean, with many new houses and I’m sure they don’t allow hunting, especially since they have a thriving Casino!

Fishing

Roughing It

During the summer of 1973, Jack Schlindler and I, and our families, were invited to spend a weekend at a 100 acre private lake in Central Arizona, just below Thumb Butte. We hitched his original Skeeter Bass Boat with a 55 HP motor, our tackle and our water skis, yes water skis, on to my 1973 Dodge Power Wagon and eagerly accepted the invitation.

North on Interstate 17, left at Bumble Bee, on through Prescott, until just below ThumbButte and, as it was getting dark, we arrived at our destination, a beautiful man made lake with sumptuous accommodations. Putting the boat into the water, we had just enough time for a quick “fish” in the lake. Several casts later, each of us had a nice Bass up to the boat, each fish falling for a yellow Piggy Boat. I had brought an ample supply of them from Texas.
Our accommodations were wonderful, but the hit of the evening were the rib eye steaks cooked outside over mesquite coals, potatoes wrapped in foil and cooked in the coals and fresh, home grown tomatoes, yummm!

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For Jack and I it was early to bed, with visions of fat Bass in our heads.

We’re up early and on the water before the sun came up. We head across the lake to a vertical cliff that formed the south side of the lake and pull up within casting distance and let fly with two yellow, Piggy Boats, smack, into the rocks. Both baits flutter down the steep sides and both of us are rewarded with solid strikes and our day’s aerial circus begins.

Mixed in with our catch that morning were some nice sized Blue Gills. I think they are as good to eat as White Perch. When I eat Blue Gills I always think of my Uncle, A.J. Peters, smiling, while he was eating one and saying, “Fry them up real crisp and eat bones and all!”

After a couple of quick sandwiches, Jack and I, and our kids, hit the water and his original Skeeter, flat bottomed, Bass boat with a 55hp Johnson, does yeoman service as a “ski boat”. We ski for several hours and the kids want to continue their exploring so off they go with a mandatory “Be careful!”, from us.

We had caught so many fish that morning, Jack and I decided to only fish the last 30 minutes before dark and repeating the process, cast on to the rocks and let the Piggy Boat flutter down and wait for a strike. We added another mess of Bass and Blue Gills to our Igloo cooler and “had” to hurry back and get the grease hot and start frying up some fresh caught fish.

This roughing it is tough!

Fishing

We Ate the State Record

In January of 1971, I was promoted to Phoenix, Arizona to be Sales Manager in charge of all new business. The first months were spent missing the Gulf Coast, then a one month bout of Aisian Flu and then, whatever else time I had getting into my new job.

Shortly after the Asian Flu, I met Jack Schlindler and he became my hunting and fishing companion for the next fifteen years.,

Jack was from East Texas, and grew up hunting and fishing in Texas’ great piney woods. He was also a Mechanical Engineering graduate from Texas A & M College (now University). Jack hung the dubious nickname of “Beechnut”, or “Beech”, on me because I chewed Beechnut Chewing Tobacco.

We had many adventures, some spine tingling, like when I slipped and fell/slid fifty feet down a two hundred foot canyon wall at the Black River. As I was sliding down, something inside told me to flatten out and spread my arms and legs to slow my fall. This saved my life! By lying flat and “scroochin” up inches at a time I finally got to where Jack could reach me and pull me up and out of my fix.

Some were funny, like the time when we were chasing a large covey of Gambel quail, on the slopes of Sombrero Peak, in the Tonto Basin and I climbed over a six-foot, barbed wire fence and “caught “ myself and was hanging upside down for what seemed like an eternity until Jack came up and said, “Beech”, you hung up.” After we had a good laugh, he got me down OK.

Or the thrill of training my own Brittany Spaniel pup, Beechnut’s Rooster Cogburn, or “Rooster”, as he was affectionately known, and watching him get his first point on a covey of wild Gambel Quail and shooting two out of the covey for him. And overall, some of the best White wing and Morning Dove shooting, and some of the best Gambel and Mearns Quail hunting on this planet!

Since we were both fishermen, our first adventures were several trips to Lake Pleasant, at the time a twenty-minute trip up Interstate Seventeen, north of Phoenix. Now the town has almost surrounded the lake.

At that particular time, the spring of 1972, Jack had an original Skeeter Bass Boat with a fifty-five horsepower Johnson, three cylinder, outboard engine. It was an early model of the Skeeter with a flat bottom and, of all things, stick steering, not a steering wheel. If I remember right you pushed the stick forward to go to the port (left) side and pulled back to go to the starboard (right) side. But, it served our purposes.

We would put in at the State launch ramp at the lake and head straight for the dam and try to fish inside the restraining cables. . The dam had a watchman, or “Troll” as we called him. We never met him but ALMOST became friends with him, because he ran us off from inside the restraining cables so many times. He must not have been a fisherman. Until the “Troll” would run us off, we would cast up on the dam and bounce our special multiple jigs back down its 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 the state with the Turkeys and Arizona created a great fishery for White Bass at Lake Pleasant.

This particular trip was on a beautiful desert morning, clear, no wind, and for a while we were the only ones fishing around the dam. I asked, “Do you see the ‘Troll’,” “No Troll’ in sight,” Jack 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 into the boat, the biggest White Bass ever, maybe. We estimated it was seven pounds or more. What a fish. Onto the stringer it went, and back to casting.

Catching one more fish, much smaller, out comes the “Troll”. “You boys get behind the restraining line, OK.” His first warning was 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”. It was time to leave, so we started up and headed out into the lake and noticed a fisherman in a boat right up to the restraining line laughing at our encounter with the “Troll”. He says, “I saw you caught a nice one, let me see it.” We showed him and said we thought it would weigh seven pounds or more. “Real nice,” he said as we motored off. We took both White Bass home and ate them.

Several months later I get a call from Jack and he says, “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 a local outdoor writer for the Arizona Republic, and of all things, he wrote and was published in “Sports Afield” an article about the White Bass fishing in Lake Pleasant, and most embarrassing, about two 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 ate it.

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

Random Thoughts

Uncle Tom And Aunt Betty

During my life I have met many people, and recently, after a several hour visit with a WW II American flyer that was shot down and spent 18 months in a German prison camp, I started thinking back to some of the people that really stand out in my memory.

I have met a former President of The United States, a past Secretary of State, numerous other politicians, a Medal Of Honor winner, a Jewish man who was held in Dachau by the Germans who had his prisoner number tattooed on his right forearm, a victim of the Batan Death March who was a Japanese POW for three years and not met, but watched, numerous German Afrika Corps Troopers behind the wire at an American POW camp in Temple, Texas.

When I was four years old going on five, my Dad made sure that I spent a lot of time with his family on their farm outside of Marlin, Falls County, Texas. At that time, prior to WW II, rural farmers and ranchers in Texas did not have electricity, propane or butane. The Rural Electrification Agency didn’t arrive in Falls County until after the war.

Looking back I remember helping my Dad, draw water from the hand dug well and haul it the 200 yards to the house and chop fire wood for Grandma Bryan’s cook stove. If the pieces were too big Grandma would send us both back out to re-split the wood. “John H. and Jon, you know that those pieces are too big. Get yourselves back outside and do it right”, she would order! But, the cobblers, fresh bread and rolls couldn’t be duplicated now. She was a magician with her wood stove!

I remember filling the lanterns with coal oil. I remember the outside toilet, a two holer and the Sears catalog, and checking for Black Widows before you sat down. When you finished you had to drop a hand shovel full of lime through the hole on to the “pile”. A thankless job was cleaning out the outhouse!

What really sticks out now in my memory was meeting two very remarkable people. Uncle Tom and Aunt Betty, Tom and Betty Norwood, who owned a farm across Rock Dam road from my Grandma Bryan. Both had graduated from college, both were retired teachers. Uncle Tom was in his 90’s, tall, straight as a ramrod, silver hair and still farming. His watermelon patch is another story for later. Aunt Betty, short and smiling,a master quilt maker and helped my Grandma around her house. When I was visiting, Aunt Betty immediately took me over. She made sure I had plenty of cookies and lemonade, guarded over me like a mother Hen and made me feel that I was “special”.

Tom Norwood was a former slave! Betty Norwood was a child of former slaves! They were great people and had risen from nothing to property owners and respected members of the community. Some of my most cherished memories are of those two special people!

Bits and Pieces from Jon H Bryan…