Category Archives: Fishing

The Falls Of The Brazos

During the mid 1950’s, summer found me in Falls County, Texas working for my Uncle, Shelton Gafford.  There he owned and leased thousands of acres of farm and ranch land, a dairy and some grain storage sheds that he leased from Billy Sol Estes, who was a famous crook/politician of the 40’s and 50s’ in Texas.

Each day, part of my job, if the Brazos River wasn’t “up”, was to cross it on a low water crossing at The Falls and take the short drive, 5 miles, to his Perry Creek place, check his cattle for screw worms, a terrible pestilence that hounded our State’s cattle industry until millions of sterile, male screw worm flies were released in the 1960’s.  This procedure, developed by Texas A&M saved our cattle industry and spawned the terrific deer herds that we now have across our State!

If untreated, screw worms would kill a grown Cow in 5 to 7 days and a calf in 2 or 3.  If the river was up, I had to drive into Marlin and around to Perry Creek, 20 miles.  I always carried my fishing tackle because there were 2 stock tanks on the Perry Creek place that were full of bass.

The river also offered some very good fishing.  One night we caught a mess of yellow cats trot lining and another time my dad and I waded out below the low water crossing, just hoping, something would be there.  We ended up with 20 nice white bass.  Below the crossing and the falls, all the way to the Gulf, there was no damn on the Brazos, and there still isn’t, so I guess, the whites came up as far as they could before spawning.

I visited The Falls Of The Brazos, State Park, last year.  The low water crossing is still visible, but I don’t think it’s in use anymore.

Not knowing it at the time, one of my relatives, a 3 G Uncle, Buck Barry, crossed the Brazos here over one hundred years before on a trip from Sulphur Springs to the new capital of the State, Austin.  Between the two towns that were over 100 miles apart, the one settler, and then the only survivor, at the falls, had just lived through a Comanche Indian raid losing everything, his slaves, cattle and women, to the Indians.

The Spring Run 1978

Winter was loosening its grip on the mid Georgia area, the dogwood trees were blooming, a sure sign of spring, and farther south, along the Florida coast, the fishing was warming up too! Stories of some fantastic catches had reached us all the way up in Atlanta and one of my friends, Jerry O’Neil, owned a condo in Destin, Florida and he invited me to bring my boat, and my ex-wife, down and we’d try and get in on the early run of king mackerel.

We, my ex and I, left Atlanta early in the morning and driving south we ran into spring just before we crossed under I-10 and everything really greened up the closer we got to Destin.  We arrived, unloaded the truck at the condo and then drove to the launch ramp.  There we launched the boat, bought some bait, cigar minnows, and cruised out under the bridge, into the Gulf of Mexico.  After about 2 miles, we put out 3 lines.  Our baits were colored jigs, because these fish had teeth they were attached to wire leaders with good sized, hooks, with a cigar minnow threaded on to the hook.  Our tackle was medium weight, rods, heavy duty red reels, reels, loaded with 20, pound line.

Trolling at 1,000 RPM’s, not over 30 minutes after we had started, simultaneously we had strikes.   Each of us grabbed a rod, set to enjoy the kings first blazing run, but as the king struck my exe’s bait, before it took off, it arced up out of the water.  Kings jump like this occasionally, their eyes being above their mid line, they lay in wait for prey, looking up, many feet below the surface, then attack the bait with force on an upward angle and their momentum carries them above the surface in spectacular leaps, but once they have the bait, off they go!

Both fish, 12 pounders, quickly succumbed to the rods pressure, we gaffed and boxed them, rebaited and resumed trolling.  Another strike, this time, no acrobatics, just a long run, then a couple of short ones, then into the box.  We caught 2 more kings all were smokers, not over 15 pounds and as the sun was going down, the wind, now cooler, started blowing a little harder.  Our jackets felt good as we picked up the lines and headed back in.

Not a bad haul for just under, 3 hours of fishing and once ashore, I cleaned the kings, filleting one and taking care to completely cut out the bloodline.  We cooked the fillets that night with crab boil and surprisingly they tasted like lobster.

We went to bed thinking that according to tomorrow’s weather forecast, Saturday would be a great day to fish, but, as usually happens, when we got up the next morning, we were greeted by winds howling over 20 and white caps stretching out to the horizon.  Unfavorable conditions for an 18, foot boat, our fishing day was cut short, so we headed back north, but, at least, we caught some fish.

Growing Up – First Trip Offshore 1952

During the summer between my sophomore and junior year in high school, 1952, one of my friends, Walter, invited me on a two day, one night fishing trip out into the Gulf of Mexico.  His dad was taking his boat out and I was asked to come along.  This was a “huge deal” for me, my dad thought it was a great idea, my mom worried that I’d be lost at sea, but my dad prevailed and off we went the following Friday morning to meet Walter and his dad at the Houston Yacht Club.

Formalities behind us, we loaded their forty-five foot Mathews, cruiser with provisions for the trip and chugged out into Galveston Bay.  The plan was to motor down the bay in the Houston Ship Channel and just past Texas City turn right at the Intercoastal Waterway, then head west to Freeport and anchor for the night in New River.  The next morning we’d head out into the Gulf, troll back to Galveston, then head up the Ship Channel and arrive back at the Yacht Club.  This was over a hundred mile trip, would take us two full days and for the time, 1952, a real adventure!

A little history about the New River, in 1929 New River was completed and is a channelized mouth for the Brazos River.  Over the years, commerce in the Freeport/Velasco area was damaged almost yearly by floods raging down the river, then the summer hurricanes would bring their flooding rain, so by 1929 the river was diverted to a new channel – New River, and the Port of Freeport has flourished since then, rising to sixteenth in tonnage for the U.S.

Just before nightfall, we pulled into the New River, anchored and prepared supper.  Walter and I put our lines out, baited with dead shrimp and began catching, hard heads, salt water catfish.  Not our main targets for the trip but these were big ones, two pounders and kept us busy ‘till bedtime.

Up with the sun, we headed down New River and entered the Gulf for our trip back.  As soon as we entered the Gulf we put out two lines, one with a red jig and one with a green one.  We were just out of sight of land, trolling along and I was sitting up on a cooler, dozing and ZZZZZ, the clicker on my reel let out a squawk as the fish pulled line off.  Grabbing my rod all I could do was hold on as the fish made its first run.  Soon the pressure of the rod and reel’s drag allowed me to get the fish up to the boat and Walter identified it as a kingfish, the first of the hundreds that I caught in my fishing life.

Before we iced the king, I admired it and stroked the shiny sides and Walter told me they were good to eat, especially when grilled.  We plowed on through the Gulf, more nodding and dozing, then another ZZZZZ, another reel let out a squawk, mine again.  Another long run and an unyielding fight all the way to the gaff, my second king, that proved to be the last one of the trip.

We continued eastward, soon on the horizon we saw the old light house at the end of Galveston’s South Jetty, shortly we turned into the Ship Channel and headed north back to the Yacht Club.  What I didn’t know then; what good navigation without Loran or no GPS, what dependable equipment, what a trip, what an exposure to offshore fishing, wow! And, me being only 15, wow!

When I got back home, my mom and dad admired the fish and with no freezer we really didn’t have a way to keep the second one, so we gave it to our neighbor, Dub.  The next night we had a small party in our back yard, steaks and the feature of the night, grilled kingfish.  Not knowing how to prepare kings, we filleted both sides of the fish, but we didn’t skin it, nor did we cut out the bloodline.  The fish was tasty, but when we touched the bloodline, whew, it was uneatable.  We correctly figured, that cleaning kings you should take off the skin, remove the bloodline, then grill the strips.  You live and learn!

Whatever Floats Your Boat

During the spring of 1994, Carl Parkinson and I had been out to the Galveston Jetties trying to catch some gulf trout, white trout or sand trout, Cynoscion arenarius, and after filling up our 88, quart cooler with the early arrivals, were cruising back in. We headed back through Galveston harbor, under the bridge to Pelican Island and followed the channel out to the Intercoastal Waterway, when we thought we’d see if any speckled trout were around Swan Lake.

Cutting across the bay, as we approached Swan Lake, we saw, what appeared to be a boat up close to the bank.  The closer we came to the boat, we saw a woman sitting in it and we saw that a man was pulling it with a rope.  Pulling up to the boat, we saw that the man was a friend of ours, Danny Bourgeois, not only a friend but he was one of my employees and one of Carl’s coworkers!

Speaking to Danny’s wife and almost shouting over the motor’s idling, I asked, “Danny, what in the world are you doing pulling the boat?”  His response was what we expected from someone from south Louisiana, “It broke down back along the Intercoastal, the float stuck closed, I couldn’t fix it and was pulling it back to the launch ramp,” and he’d already pulled the boat almost two miles!  This particular ramp was between the railroad bridge and the Galveston Causeway, over a mile away, as the crow pulled!

Offering Danny a motorized pull back to the ramp, he declined our offer and said, “It’s no problem me pulling the boat back because the water’s shallow, not over 3 feet deep and we don’t have anything else to do this afternoon.”  “Danny, do you want us to go on to the ramp and wait and help you load the boat,” I asked and “No thanks I can handle it,” he replied?

This story really happened, but you had to know Danny, if he couldn’t fix it, he wasn’t going to let the motor beat him, he’d just pull it back in, then fix it!  Pulling away, we weren’t surprised at his refusal of aid, anyway, one time a real smart guy said, “Whatever floats your boat!”

The Spring Run, 1978

Winter was loosening its grip on the mid Georgia area, the dogwood trees were blooming, a sure sign of spring, and farther south, along the Florida coast, the fishing was warming up too! Stories of some fantastic catches had reached us all the way up in Atlanta and one of my friends, Jerry O’Neil, owned a condo in Destin, Florida and he invited me to bring my boat, and my ex-wife, down and we’d try and get in on the early run of king mackerel.

We, my ex and I, left Atlanta early in the morning and driving south we ran into spring just before we crossed under I-10 and everything really greened up the closer we got to Destin.  We arrived, unloaded the truck at the condo and then drove to the launch ramp.  There we launched the boat, bought some bait, cigar minnows, and cruised out under the bridge, into the Gulf of Mexico.  After about 2 miles, we put out 3 lines.  Our baits were colored jigs, because these fish had teeth they were attached to wire leaders with good sized, hooks, with a cigar minnow threaded on to the hook.  Our tackle was medium weight, rods, heavy duty red reels, reels, loaded with 20, pound line.

Trolling at 1,000 RPM’s, not over 30 minutes after we had started, simultaneously we had strikes.   Each of us grabbed a rod, set to enjoy the kings first blazing run, but as the king struck my exe’s bait, before it took off, it arced up out of the water.  Kings jump like this occasionally, their eyes being above their mid line, they lay in wait for prey, looking up, many feet below the surface, then attack the bait with force on an upward angle and their momentum carries them above the surface in spectacular leaps, but once they have the bait, off they go!

Both fish, 12 pounders, quickly succumbed to the rods pressure, we gaffed and boxed them, rebaited and resumed trolling.  Another strike, this time, no acrobatics, just a long run, then a couple of short ones, then into the box.  We caught 2 more kings all were smokers, not over 15 pounds and as the sun was going down, the wind, now cooler, started blowing a little harder.  Our jackets felt good as we picked up the lines and headed back in.

Not a bad haul for just under, 3 hours of fishing and once ashore, I cleaned the kings, filleting one and taking care to completely cut out the bloodline.  We cooked the fillets that night with crab boil and surprisingly they tasted like lobster.

We went to bed thinking that according to tomorrow’s weather forecast, Saturday would be a great day to fish, but, as usually happens, when we got up the next morning, we were greeted by winds howling over 20 and white caps stretching out to the horizon.  Unfavorable conditions for an 18, foot boat, our fishing day was cut short, so we headed back north, but, at least, we caught some fish.

 

A Wall Hanger

My old neighborhood friend and fishing buddy from West University, Bill Priddy, and I both had jobs with a large computer company in Atlanta and had decided to go after a really big bass.  We believed that our best chance at one would be a “pay” lake and we choose Horseshoe Lakes, just outside of Tifton, Georgia, only miles away from where, years earlier, the world record, twenty-two pound large mouth bass had been caught, California excepted.

The dogwoods were blooming spreading their white glory over the hills and hollows, but winter still had its grips on Atlanta as we left on Friday afternoon, March 8, 1979. We spent the night in my camper beside Horseshoe Lake number 1, were up, and on the water before the sun on Saturday.

This place had ten lakes, all stocked with Florida strain largemouth bass.  We hadn’t been fishing ten minutes when, “Whamo”, Bill has a jarring strike on a yellow, Piggy Boat.  The fish took line and shook its head like a redfish and we couldn’t figure what Bill had tied into.  A roll by the boat told us, the high fin giving it away, a channel cat of at least ten pounds.  Not the ten-pound bass we were looking for but it would look real good in the skillet!

We fished the first lake hard with spinners, worms and rat-l-traps, but only had the catfish to show for it, so far, not worth the $5.00 fee.  We move on to the second lake, by picking up and carrying my twelve foot, Sears, aluminum boat and trolling motor over the levee.  A feature I had added to the little boat was three coats of rubberized paint applied to the insides making it nearly soundproof.

The second lake, almost fifty acres, was much like a rice field reservoir along the Texas coast.  A deep channel cut all around a square impoundment with about ten feet of shallow water along the sides before the channel dropped off into over six feet of water.  The channel, the only structure, was approximately thirty feet wide, sloping up to a large, shallow flat that covered the center of the lake.  On both lakes we had not noticed any bass on their spawning beds, but if not today, within the week.

We flipped our casts toward the center of the lake; me a six inch, motor oil colored, worm, rigged Texas style, and Bill, back to his trusty yellow, Piggy Boat, and drug the baits over the shallow water and across, or down, in my case, the drop-off.  We finally caught two, three pound, bass, and quickly put both of them back into the water to grow up.  Well, we may be onto something, casting toward the middle and working the baits back over the drop-off.

About five minutes after putting the last bass back, I had a jolting strike on my worm.  The fish didn’t gently tap-tap-tap, but picked the worm up and “headed south” at full speed.  I was using a Mitchell 300, Spinning Reel with ten-pound line and a fairly stiff, six and one half foot spinning rod.  I exclaimed to Bill, “I got a big hit Bill, I guess it’s another cat.”  I have fished for and hooked a big, blue marlin of over five hundred pounds, a one hundred and twenty pound Pacific sailfish, a sixty pound amberjack (hardest fighter) and a sixty plus pound, kingfish on light tackle, and in comparison, this fish jolted me just like the big ‘uns!

The fish took line and then came to the top and wallowed up, almost into the air and we saw the big mouth.  Good heavens, a big, big bass, and all I could do was hang on and hope the hook was set securely in its jaw.  Another wallow/jump, the fish was too big to get out of the water all the way, but we could see it more clearly, and it was a whopper!  Another short run and my line seemed to be hung up.  Guessing the bass had wrapped me around something, I turned on the electric motor and inched toward the point where my line entered the water, Bill saw a motion, a swirl, and the fish had wrapped the line around a snag of some kind.

All in one motion, I cut off the motor, told Bill to stick a paddle into the bottom to hold us, leaned over the side and stuck my arm down into the two and one half foot of cold, water.  With my rod held high in my other hand, I ran my hand down the line until feeling the snag.  I inched my hand around until I felt the bass, and hoping that I don’t hook myself, tried to lip the fish.  No luck.  I got a good hold of the snag, pulled it and the fish to the surface and then Bill slipped the net under the huge bass!

We didn’t have a scale, but estimated its weight at over ten pounds.  I told Bill, “I felt like I was harvesting rice, reaching down and bringing up the snag, moss and fish, all in one handful.  This one is going on the wall.”  This was years before you could get a plastic replica of your fish, so we put it on a stringer and kept fishing.

This is THE bass, a 12 pounder, on the hall’s wall near my 9 pound trout and my dad’s fishing lures.

We caught several more bass, but none even close to the big one, so we decided to find a scale and weigh the fish, then head back home.  We found the owner of the lakes who acted as proud as if he had caught the fish himself and his certified scale showed twelve pounds!  I couldn’t imagine that I had caught a twelve-pound bass.  More pictures were taken, congratulations accepted, the fish was packed in ice and we loaded the boat on top of the camper and headed back.

Back home it seemed like the whole neighborhood came over and the viewing turned into a party.  Keeping the fish on ice, on Monday, I took it to the best taxidermist in the Atlanta area in Duluth, Georgia and within a month, my fish was ready.   Today, it hangs in the hall of my ranch house, next to a picture box display of my Dad’s old fishing plugs and a replica mount of a nine, pound, speckled trout.  But that’s another story.

The Sears, twelve-foot aluminum boat is still providing yeoman service to my son, Randy.  He uses it to take his kids bass fishing.

Comedy Show

As a high schooler, my spare time, when not involved in athletics, hunting or studying (ugh) was spent fishing and most of the time this was around the south Galveston Jetty, either walking the slippery rocks or wading along the Gulf or channel side.                                                One Saturday afternoon in early October, Bobby Baldwin and I were wading along the channel side of the south jetty, casting into a small gut at the base of the rocks. Bobby had a backlash and as he was removing it, his Dixie Jet spoon with a yellow buck tail attached, floated to the sandy bottom.

Pictured is a Dixie Jet Spoon with a yellow buck tail. Getting the snarl out Bobby began retrieving the excess line and when his line came tight, he grumbled, “I must be snagged on the rocks,” just as his line headed east for deep water and he was into a nice fish, what kind, we didn’t know.                                                                                                            After a short, spirited fight, a big Flounder, 2 or 3 pounds, was on the surface. Of course we didn’t have a landing net. That would have been too easy! So Bobby tried to grab the Flounder like a Spec, across his back. It was more like pinching the fish since a Flounder doesn’t have the width or “grabbing” surface that a Speck has. When grabbed, the Fish flopped away, the hook came loose and the fish headed for the bottom.                                                             Sensing something, we cast our spoons toward the rocks, let them settle to the bottom, slowly retrieved them and for the next hour had some terrific fishing, not catching, but fishing! Without a net trying to grab one was next to impossible. We tried hugging them to our chest and they just squirted up, away from us. Trying to use both hands proved fruitless. Anyway we had fun hooking them and trying to “capture” one. We probably hooked 25 or 30 and landed zero!                                                                                                             The tide changed and the fish quit hitting and as we were wading out a man fishing from the rocks yelled at us, “Boys, that was a great show, and it was free!” Being well brought up and taught to respect our elders, we said nothing and walked back to our car.

The Quarantine Station

In the 1960’s, one of the best places to catch speckled trout, wading or from a boat, was around the tip of Pelican Island, known then as the Galveston Quarantine Station, now known as Seawolf Park. The park’s development, now housing a WWII submarine, “Seawolf” and a destroyer escort, caused the complete remaking of the end of Pelican Island, but, and a big but, the huge granite stones that lined the tip of the island and extended out fifty or more yards under the water, still remain. And, this spot, during the hot summer months, on an incoming tide, fishing for trout around the point, could be fabulous!

The first station was built in 1839, but hurricanes and continued yellow fever outbreaks caused it to be moved north, across the harbor, to Pelican Island in 1892, but the great storm of 1900 completely destroyed the buildings. In 1902 the State of Texas built its last station on the southeastern tip of Pelican Island and in 1919 merged with Federal, port operations. During its thirty-five years of operation, the Pelican Island Federal Quarantine Station that closed in 1950 inspected over 30,000 ships that brought an estimated 750,000 legal, immigrants to Texas!

During the late summer of 1966, the first fishing trip out in my new, second boat was a memorable one. We, Gary Anderson, now deceased and Vic Hayes, now lost to me, headed out to the Quarantine Station for a go at some specs. Our tackle was basic stuff, direct drive reels, six and a half foot, popping rods, and something a little different, slip corks above our bait of choice, a live shrimp. The slip cork was easy to rig, you just tied a knot in you line at the depth you wanted to fish and the cork, complete with a hole running the length of the stem, when cast out would slip up the line until it met the knot, and there you were, in our case fishing at a depth of nine or ten feet. The swivel that the leader, hook and shrimp were secured to, prevented the cork from slipping down on to the shrimp.

My new, second boat had a feature that was way ahead of its time, a live bait well, but you had to be careful that when moving out to your fishing spot, or changing, spots, a plug was applied to the drains. If this wasn’t done, dead shrimp was the bait of choice for the day! We remembered on this trip.

We launched the boat at Pleasure Island Fish and Bait, motored under both sides of the Galveston Causeway, through upper west bay, passed under the Pelican Island Bridge, through the harbor with its ships from many countries and finally to the old Quarantine Station, where we anchored out from the rocks along the shore. Our first casts were met with solid strikes and then the fun began, three big guys trying to land three good specs, out of a sixteen, foot boat. Having caught a lot of good fish on the first cast, but never three, this was a very unusual happening. Succeeding, we admired the three fish, all four pounders. The tide stopped running in and the fishing shut down, but we ended up with eighteen, good ones, two to four pounds.

On the way back in, passing through Galveston Harbor, it dawned on me that on calm days, this boat would be great for running around the end of the jetties and fishing on the Gulf sides, then it dawned on me that three years ago, I had already been shown a great place out there! Over the next forty years, I would grow from a “jetty novice” to a “jetty pro”, but on those “good days” we’d always stop for a few casts around The Quarantine Station!

Scouting For Birds

On a fall morning, just at first light, I lowered the 22 footer into the canal behind our Bayou Vista home, headed down it and chugged, speed limit 5 MPH in the canals, into Highlands Bayou.  Opening up the big, outboard I skimmed the back way into the Intercoastal Waterway.  This was the same track Randy and I took several years earlier when he collided with a live, oyster reef and I did a flip.

Having a 11:00 AM meeting with customers, it would be a short trip this morning, but hopefully a productive one.  My destination, with the tide coming in and a light southeast wind, was the sand flats and reefs that ran from Green’s Cut up to South Deer Island.  The target was to find sea gulls (birds) working over feeding specks, the specks driving shrimp toward the surface and the birds gobbling up the shrimp the fish missed.  Classic food chain stuff!

Armed with a 7-1/2 foot, popping, rod, 12 pound line spooled on a green reel, rigged with a popping cork over a live shrimp hooked through its horn with a small, treble hook, I was ready for action. The action wasn’t long in coming. Of all things, I noticed several shrimp hopping out of the water and casting right in front of them, bam a big strike.

The fish took off peeling line from the reel, not the circling fight of a 3 or 4 pound trout, not the weight of a big red, then the fish, a skipjack or ladyfish, (Bodianus rufus) cleared the water.  They’re real hard fighters, jump a lot, but aren’t good table fare.  Many times they will be feeding on shrimp, driving them to the surface where the ever hungry, birds will congregate over them.  Landing the skipjack, I released it and continued my scouting for birds.

Two hundred yards away, several birds were sitting on the water, this is a likely sign of a school of fish that has that has cleaned up the shrimp in one area, or of one or two big fish randomly feeding.  Pulling up to within 50 yards of the birds, the light wind and incoming tide soon pushed me within casting distance.  Letting fly, when the cork and shrimp hit the water, it was one of those rare times when the cork kept going down, almost jerking the rod out of my hand.  This was a good one!

Several trips around the boat, I slid the net under a 4 pound speck!  Thinking to myself, I’ll keep this one for Layla’s and my supper tonight, then my 11:00 AM meeting flashed into my mind and by the time I motored back, cleaned the fish, hosed out the boat, showered and drove the 45 minutes to my meeting, I’d better be scooting.

My salesman and I made the meeting on time and closed a big deal.  Mixing business and pleasure was neat and these quick fishing trips were a big advantage of living right on the water!

Scouting For Doves

Since dove season opened up in two more Saturdays, Bill Priddy and I had gone up to our McCulloch County hunting lease to check out the prospects.  A lot of birds were flying around, prospects looked good and we even took along our fishing rods.  Our objectives this early morning were to see how many doves came into water in the big, two acre, stock tank along Highway 190 and to see if we could catch some bass out of the tank where we hadn’t fished before.

There was a heavy growth of mesquite trees around the perimeter of the stock tank meaning it was an old one, but neither we, nor the rancher, knew if it had ever been stocked before.  Bill’s first cast put all of this behind us he was using a silver Rebel, a small plug with a suggestive, wiggle that the fish hit almost as soon as it hit the water.  The question about stocking was answered!  After a spirited battle, Bill slid the almost three, pound, bass on to the sandy, bank.  Unhooking it, we admired his catch as he released it, sliding it back into the water.

In the next fifteen minutes, using my trusty Piggy Boat, pictured below, I hadn’t had a strike, while Bill had one more.  Knawing doubt crept into my mind, should I change to a Rebel?

At the same time, in my peripheral vision, I noticed movement to my left.  Turning toward the movement, along came this brightly colored snake, a big one, almost five foot long, dark, red bands, with black, yellow and black rings.  First thing that came to my mind was the old saying “Red and yellow kills a fellow. Red and black is safe for Jack.” Letting it slide on past, I thought it was some kind of a king snake, but later after consulting some “herp” books I determined it was a Mexican milk snake(Lampropeltis triangulum annulata). I dug this picture up from Wikipedia.

Piggy Boats, “safety pin” spinners, are great for stock tanks and small lakes, over the years I’ve had super luck using them, so, I thought, No changing for me.  More casts, no hits, as Bill plugged away, out scoring me with his Rebel.  Casting down, parallel to the bank, about two feet out from the shore, my Piggy Boat stopped.  These plugs, with the hooks installed properly, are virtually weedless and thinking I was fouled on some unseen, underwater obstruction, pulled on the object until the reel clicked as the drag paid out, but this wasn’t a “foul up”, it was a fish!

The fish headed away from the shore for deep water, taking line, more like a redfish, then it came to the surface clearing the water and I saw it was a big, big bass.  More runs, more jumps, the splashes attracting Bill as he walked over to me, but I was winning this “fight” and soon I slipped the big, bass up onto the bank.  Lipping it, unhooking the plug from the corner of its mouth, I held it up for us to admire.  He had a Deliar in his pocket and we weighed the bass, eight pounds, twelve ounces, not a twelve pounder, my personal best, Bill was with me when I caught that one too, see my August 6, 2007 post, [“A Really Big Bass”], but still, this one was a nice one too!

Keeping on fishing, we didn’t notice any doves coming into this tank and as the morning heated up, still no doves, the bass stopping too.  It turned out, the doves weren’t watering at this tank, but we found two more that afternoon that they were using and had wonderful shooting, two weeks later.

Continuing to fish in this tank and catching some nice ones, it appears that we answered the question though, that the tank had been stocked once before!