In March of 1970, my company sent me to their plant in Boca Raton, Florida to work with the developers of a new product for small business. The product turned out to be a hit, but while over there, I let it be known that a fishing trip would suit my fancy. It wasn’t 2 days until I met up with Jerry Rodgers, who owned a 32, foot offshore, fishing boat and arrangements were made for me to take an afternoon off and accompany him on a fishing trip.

He kept his boat covered in a marina two miles away form Jupiter Inlet and leaving work, we drove the 40 odd miles up to his marina, stopping along the way and picking up food and drink. His tackle was onboard and we’d be using a medium action rod, with a gold reel spooled with 30 pound line, good equipment! We’d be using sardines, sardeneros where I came from, with a weight and fish off, or near, the bottom.

We loafed up the Intercoastal Waterway until we turned into the inlet and taking another turn we proceeded on out into the ocean. Our goal was a wreck that Jerry knew of, five miles out, on the west wall of the Gulf Stream. This area was under serious attack in WWII from German U-boats. Maybe this was one of old ships? Jerry quickly found the wreck, we baited up and let our lines down until they touched the bottom, or something else, then reeled up a couple of turns and waited.

Our wait wasn’t long when I had a rod bending strike, my drag was set too loose, the fish ran and cut me off on the wreck I guessed. Jerry then had a rod bender, he set the hook and with his drag a little tighter almost horsed the 15 pound amberjack to the surface. Gaffing it, I swung it into the cooler, then tightened my drag, “rerigged” and let my bait down.

Another big strike and I could feel the power of the fish! This one was bigger and really pulled, but my tighter drag and the rod’s pressure finally forced the 20 pound amberjack to the surface, where Jerry gaffed and boxed it. This was my first try at catching amberjack and they really pulled hard. Thinking that if I could tie a kingfish tail to tail with one of these bruisers the amberjack would drown the king!

We caught several more 15-20 pound, amberjack, then I had the idea to simply take the weight off of the sardine and drift it with the current. This was a winning strategy and not 10 minutes had passed when I had a big strike, the fish, a barracuda, ran and fought on the surface, finally throwing the hook. Jerry, who was watching with interest, said, “There’s a lot of those on the wreck out here, but we don’t keep barracuda, so it’s good he threw the hook.” On that note, we upped the anchor and started trolling.

We had caught a couple of small kings, or smokers as the locals called them, but they were really no match for the mid weight tackle, but we trolled on anyway. Not using the outriggers, we were surprised when a lightning bolt, a sailfish, smacked one of the lines. Grabbing the rod, I tried to set the hook, the sail jumped, the hook went sailing and I reeled in a slack line.

Time to go in, so as Jerry piloted the boat, I filleted the amberjacks. When I got to the kings, I volunteered to “ball” them. Jerry didn’t know anything about “balling” so I explained; in the sides of the kingfish, from top to bottom, cut one inch slices all the way down the fish, starting at the first slice near the gills run your index and middle fingers into the slice and push the meat out and upward. This pushes the meat out and leaves the bloodline, that tastes yucky, along the skin. Move to the next slice and continue pushing out the meat and by the time you finish that side you have a pile of kingfish balls. Flip the fish over and repeat the process. Kingfish balls are best fried, but also can be grilled or boiled. Eliminating the bloodline vastly improves the flavor of the kings.

We docked and cleaned up the boat, then he returned me to my hotel and thanking Jerry for the hospitality, he told me that he and his wife would try the kings that night. He came by the next day and told me that last nights fried kingfish balls were much better than smoking them and that he would start “balling” all the kings that he caught.

Returning to Houston, overall it was a good trip, the product was successfully launched and I even caught some fish. Talk about mixing business and pleasure!

Along the upper Texas coast, late winter with its wind and cold fronts is the most difficult time to catch speckled trout. If you wade a combination of mud and shell flats that hold the sun’s warmth are probably the best since the big sows like to loaf around the warmer water. Wading in this stuff is tough going, bordering on hard, but a slow sinking mullet imitation plug is hard to beat!

Next best is free shrimping a live shrimp over hard shell in deeper water, 10 –15 feet. At low tide, in the many creeks and rivers along the coast, oyster reefs can be found and appropriately marked. All it takes is a little scouting. This particular trip, friends passed on to us just where to locate the reef.

They had told us that on an incoming tide some real nice speckled trout were being caught in Caney Creek, so the next day we, my dad, “Unkie”, Alvin Pyland, my uncle and I arranged to be off from work. The next morning, bright and almost cold, found us, heading toward Sargent, Texas, the kickoff point for Caney Creek. Arriving at our destination with the tide slack, we hooked Unkie’s 7.5 HP motor on to a rental 14 foot, skiff and putted up the creek, looking for the tell tale signs of the fence.

Our instructions from the bait camp were to motor about one mile up the creek, then look for a barb wire fence angling down from the east bank into the water. The reef would be directly across the creek from the fence with a few oyster shells scattered along the bank. The reef in question was about 40 yards long and stopped in the middle of the creek. Our tackle for this trip was 6-1/2 foot popping rods, red, Ambasseduer reels, loaded with 15 pound mono and small treble hooks tied 6 inches below a crimped on, 00 buckshot.

According to the tide charts the current would start moving in soon, we found the fence in question and anchored within casting distance of the reef. Just like clockwork the tide started in and not 15 minutes later my dad had a soft strike, not a bone jarring strike of a summer, yellow mouth, spec, but more of a tap, tap. Setting the hook, the spec responded with a deep, surging fight. Soon, Unkie slipped the net under the 3, pounder, the first trout on our stringer.

Unkie was next and his spec took out line, zzzp, zzzp and put up a grudging battle and soon Dad netted the fish. This one, the second and a nice fish, was about a pound bigger that my dads. Then it was my turn to catch one and we added the 3, pounder to the stringer. All told we had 5 nice specs for about 2 hours fishing. This sure beat wading in the mud!

The winter had been and still remained yucky, clouds, wind, rain and the weekly northers, that seemed to always hit on Friday night and with our work, it cut our fishing down considerably. Easter and the warm currents in the Gulf couldn’t get here soon enough for my fishing friends and me, but as we moaned our fate, an opportunity showed itself!

In 1984 the savings and loan (S&L) industry was rolling, particularly the companies around Houston. We were all likely prospects to buy beachfront property either for personal use, or investment and did this one S&L have some prime stuff! Not only did they have properties, but also a 45, foot, cruiser complete with Captain and crew, docked in Cozumel and they invited us on a weekend, all paid, fishing excursion and we gobbled up the chance!

Friday of the first weekend in March we boarded and Aero Mexico flight to Cozumel that arrived in time for supper and the next morning, as the sun was rising, we loaded up on the 45 footer and headed out into the Yucatan Channel. The channel, or the Straits of Yucatan, runs between the island and the mainland and is the boundary between the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

White marlin, our quarry for the day, were just showing up south of Cozumel so we headed down, at speed, to almost Belize before we came about and began trolling back up the channel. We had four lines attached to our outriggers, with one teaser drug off of the transom. Our bait was ballyhoo, skipped on the surface at a nice clip and our gold reels and medium weight rods were loaded with 50, pound mono.

Next thing we knew, a white was beating the teaser to a frazzle with his spear! It was a beautiful sight, the marlin was “turned on” with a myriad of neon colors and whopping the teaser, when, pop, an outrigger snapped and the mate grabbed the rig, set the hook and handed it to me and I promptly refused! We thought we had made it clear to the Captain that we were going to set the hook and fight the fish. Reluctantly one of my friends fought the fish, brought it in, tagged and released it.

Procedures refined, a short time later, another white attacked the teaser, but this time there was no resulting strike, so I asked the Captain if I could troll a surface plug in place of the teaser. He growled a yes, the mate set me up and within thirty minutes, up came a white, appropriately “turned on” and struck my plug. Not only struck it, but almost jerked the rod and reel from my hands. Not having to worry about setting the hook, I held on as the white took off and the other lines were taken in.

Run, run, jump, tail walk, jump some more, run some more, until the white was exhausted and I brought it in, we tagged and released it. More trolling and next, another pop as an outrigger released. A friend grabbed it, applied pressure setting the hook and waited, as the line peeled off the reel, for the jump, but one never came. Was the marlin hooked deep? Could it be another species? Ten minutes later, our questions were answered as a stripped, silvery blue, fish, a wahoo, flashed by, saw the boat and took off on another long run. Wahoo are one of the fastest fish in the ocean as this ones line, peeling runs would attest. The wahoo, fine table food, was finally subdued, gaffed and put in the cooler, for a tasty meal that night.

As we were trolling we marveled at the Mayan watchtowers spaced atop the bluffs overlooking the beaches. These all had to be at least 6-700 years old and what were they watching for, the Spaniards, I guess? Another pop from the outrigger, another white, another fine fight and we tagged and released it. This was a pretty good day, 3, white marlin. 1 wahoo, good fishing and we were never out of sight of land!

Of course no pictures were taken, only mind pictures, but Saturday night was a night of good food, hard partying and, no, we didn’t answer the call for a half days fishing. We caught the afternoon Aero Mex flight back to “civilization”, Houston, but, a sad note, when the S&L’s crashed, another casualty was the 45 footer!