As the summer passes I’m really getting the feel of the little Whaler. I find a short cut from Jones Lake to upper West Galveston Bay and the fine fishing around Greens Cut, the wrecked shrimp boat, and North and South Deer Island.

Randy, my son, and I were heading out, under the railroad bridge, to chase the birds around Greens Cut. He said, “Dad, let me drive the boat.” “Why not,” I reply, adding, “We’ll take my shortcut. Be sure to cut real close to the stake that you will see shortly. This stake was the right side of a four foot cut, in a live oyster reef. We found out the width of the cut on this trip, At the then tide level, about twelve inches of water covered the reef.

We are skimming along close to thirty-five miles per hour and I tell Randy, “See the stake? Steer close to it and we will be OK,” and then we enjoy one of those moments of miscommunication, and CRUNCH! We hit the left edge of the reef, missing the cut. As the boat suddenly stops, I go flying over the bow, tuck quickly and cover my head with my arms, do a flip, and crash down, on my back, into the twelve inches of water covering the reef.

Randy is half in and half out of the Whaler. When we hit the reef, he had the presence of mind to pull back on the throttle, idling the engine, and it had no shear pin, so it should be OK. Randy gets all the way out of the boat saying “Gee Dad, I’m Sorry. We missed the cut!” I stand slowly, I’m not hurt bad, my shirt is shredded and my back is cut up. I tell Randy, “Don’t worry, I’m OK. Let’s lift up the front of the boat and make sure it’s not damaged.”

The boats fine, Whaler can really make ‘em, we still have our shrimp, there’s not much wind and the tide is coming in, so I say, “If you’ll wash off my back with salt water and clean out the cuts we’ll go ahead and fish.” Later that morning, while we were catching Speckled Trout, Randy says, “Dad you’re a tough old guy! I thought you were going to end our trip after my wreck.” I thought to myself, old, I’m not even 50.

Tom Banks, from Australia, recently posted a story on Outdoor Odyssey’s, Sept 3, Blog Carnival, and while proofing it, I found that his blog, Ultimate Fishing, was a natural for a link swap. He has some good information and fishing stories on it. Check it out, you’ll like it!

G’day, Mates!

My first trip to go Speckled Trout fishing out of Suwannee, Florida, provided me with a most unusual sight! At the time, mid 1970’s, Suwannee and the one bait camp and motel reminded me of Port O’Conner, Texas in the 1950’s when I went there several times with my Dad. Not many creature comforts, but marvelous Trout fishing. Suwannee had one up on Port O’Conner, the Suwannee bait camp has a pet Bass! Yes, Bass will live and do well in salt/fresh, brackish water.

On my first trip to Suwannee, walking out of the bait camp along a rickety pier to the guide’s boat, the proprietor said, “Sir, watch this and look down into the water right below us.” He picked up an old oar that was leaning against the side of the building and banged it three times on to the pier. Looking down I saw a big fish come floating to the surface, a huge Bass.

The proprietor then took a coffee can of dead shrimp and fish cleanings and dropped them beside the Bass, who promptly inhaled them. The Bass continued swimming around and he continued, saying, “We scooped her up in a long handled net this past spring and she weighed a little over 14 pounds. Ha, Ha, I think we’ll just grow us a new record here.”

I had kept my boat down there for the fall and winter fishing and in early March of 1979, prior to my move back to Texas, came down to Suwannee for one last fishing trip and to take my boat back to Atlanta. Walking in to the bait camp I exclaimed, “How’s everybody?” The proprietor smiled and said, “We’re all fine, but I got some bad news.”

Thoughts of a fish kill or a fishing ban flashed through my brain as he continued, “Some bastard snuck up the canal here Monday night two weeks ago and caught our Bass. I hope he chokes on the bones!”

About three weeks after my first trip to Suwannee, Florida, I get a call on Thursday night from the guide letting me know that the weather forecast is excellent for the coming weekend and, if I could, I should bring my boat down Saturday and plan on fishing in the afternoon since the tide was coming in then. Having nothing planned but “honey dos”, I told him that I would see him then.

Both kids, Randy, 12, and Suzanne, 8, loved to fish and my ex wife informed me she was going too, so a trip was on and we arrived in Suwannee at the only bait camp, showed the kids the “pet” Bass, bought some shrimp and checked with the proprietor about the status of the Manatees. No Manatees, so off we speed down the Suwannee River into the Gulf of Mexico.

We started fishing in 6 feet of beautiful, clear, green water and for the first 20 minutes didn’t have a hit, so I moved into 4 foot of water, but with much more grass on the bottom and, bingo, our first casts produced 2 nice Specks!

Kids are fun to fish with, wanting to closely check out each fish, touching the one or two big teeth in the Trout’s upper lip, and of course getting their fingers caught in the fish’s mouth, jerking back and finding the fish’s teeth firmly hold their fingers. Randy could bait up, cast and net fish. Suzanne was learning and now almost 30 years later both are accomplished “fisherpersons”.

Everyone caught fish and soon we had 30 nice Specks in the cooler. Since we were going to eat at the only restaurant in town, fresh caught Speckled Trout tonight on their menu, we headed in, cleaned and iced the fish down, cleaned the boat and made arrangements to store it in the very secure boat storage facility.

After cleaning up in our room in the only motel in town, we headed for the restaurant, which was extremely crowded. A 5 minute wait and in we go to be seated, and I see someone stand up, waving in our direction, the only fishing guide in town.

He is eating fish with his clients of the day and introduces me, as “This is the Texas guy I was telling you all about.” Continuing, “How did you do this afternoon?” And I replied, “We caught about 30 in 2 hours.” “See,” the Guide looks at his clients, “He ought to be guiding down here too! This fella’ can catch Specs!”

Sometimes a good day job can really interfere with your avocation