Norman Shelter had been after me to take him fishing to a new hotspot that my barber had shown me, the spot was called the tripod and was near where the San Barnard River and the Intercoastal Waterway, or Intercoastal, as we called it, crossed. The Brazos River flows into the Gulf at Freeport, while the San Barnard enters ten miles to the west. The tripod was a small cut off the Intercoastal, that led into an unnamed little bay with a gas well in the middle. The apparatus on the well was tripod shaped, hence the name.

Our fishing target was a reef on the west side of the cut leading into the little bay. The gas well wasn’t a problem, but once or twice a week an inspector came out and checked it and the fishing stopped for about a half hour until after he left. We would anchor in the middle of the cut, cast toward the mid point in the opposite bank and let our rigs drift to our left on the incoming tide. We fished about 18, inches deep and when your cork stopped drifting and appeared to be hung up, you set the hook and held on.

Saturdays and some afternoons when the tide was right, or we had been blown out of our regular bay or jetty spots, my Dad and I would head to the tripod and consistently caught fish. One trip I caught 2, flounder, both over 8 pounds, huge ones, and another trip we caught several 6 and 7 pound reds. The trout were never over 2 pounds and it’s funny, we never saw another boat at our spot. I often wondered why?

A beautiful spring morning found Norman, Tony Welsh, a neighbor of mine and I heading toward the tripod. We pulled up, anchored and cast our rigs out and, until the tide changed, enjoyed a morning of good fishing. We iced down over 20 flounder, 5 reds and 10 specs and the 88 quart, cooler was full when we loaded the boat on the trailer and began the, slightly over one hour, drive back to southwest Houston.

We were about to cross the railroad tracks at Post Oak and Highway 90A when I noticed the car was acting sluggish. Turning the corner, Norman glanced back toward the boat and trailer and told me, “Jon, looks like a bearing has gone out on the trailer!” Pulling over, sure enough, we had lost the trailer’s right wheel bearing. We were stuck!

Across the highway was a truck stop, so we “creeped” over and asked for the manager, (we had been well trained, always call at the top). Explaining our plight, I distinctly remember his reply, “What kind of fish are in the cooler?” “Flounder, specs and reds,” I replied. “How many flounder,” he asked? My reply of 20 sealed the deal. He told us “Boys, I’ll fix the bearing right now for the flounders.” Not a good deal for us, frankly highway robbery, but we got home OK and the following Monday saw me install bearing buddies on the trailer.

Several years later I made my last trip to the tripod and as we motored west on the Intercoastal, approximately 3 miles west of the San Bernard River, we started looking to our left for the channel leading to our old spot. Not there. We came about and began searching back toward the river and it still wasn’t there.

Motoring all the way to Carancuha Bay, five or six miles, still no channel. All we saw was an extra wide spot on the south side of the Intercoastal. We came about again and motored to the bait camp where the river and Intercoastal crossed. Asking the owner, “Where’s that little cut, that channel leading back to the gas rig, the tripod?” “Not there,” he answered. “A while back, that gas well blew up and rearranged everything. We call it the Blow Out Hole now. Good fishing in the winter”

Now I found out why we never saw another boat in our spot!

Taking the 2, plus hour drive from southwest Houston down to the coast, we, my dad and Dub Middleton and me, met my uncle, G.A. “Unkie” Pyland and his son George at the specified bait camp in Port O’Conner, Texas.  It was still dark and we’d have a 20, minute boat ride to our destination, a place Unkie called the fish trap.

With the tide coming in all morning, we cranked up our boats and headed down Matagorda Bay towards Pass Cavallo, the fish trap was located just north of the pass, with a small channel leading into a hundred acre lake, the trap.  Arriving, we anchored the boats, jumped into the water and started casting, our lures of choice were silver spoons with a treble hook, with a pink attractor attached to the hook.  Each of us was using a black reel, with a 7, foot, popping rod.

Bump, bump, “Fish on”, I yelled out, as the rod bent with the strike, soon, not using a net, I grabbed the small red, not big enough to keep, behind the gills, unhooked and released it.  First fish of the day, but soon we were all catching small reds and if we’d kept them all, we’d had a good mess!  The small reds finally quit hitting and we remarked that funny, no big reds and no specs either.

After almost 2 hours of this fun, Dad, Dub and I told Unkie and George that we were going to try our hand in Espiritu Santo Bay and see if any birds were working, knowing that early April was a little bit soon for bird action.  We pulled the anchor, and since Unkie and George were still fishing, we crept out of the fish trap and once in Matagorda Bay, headed north.  Rather then going all the way back to Port O’Conner, we took a short cut into Espiritu Santo, a small pass that led into the east end of the bay.

Not 2 miles into the bay, we saw a bunch of birds hovering over the water, a sign that something had driven the shrimp to the surface.  After changing to do nothing, slow sinking lures, we coasted up to within casting distance of the birds and Dub was the first to let fly and he immediately had a hard hit.  What was it, spec, gafftop cat or lady fish, but circling the boat the fish soon identified itself as a nice trout and when we netted it, a 3 pounder.

Dad and I cast out below the birds and both had hard strikes that proved to be identical fish to Dubs.  The birds would break up and 5 minutes later, here came the shrimp back up to the top, we could see them hopping about evading the specs below, but the birds would converge on the hapless shrimp and what the specs missed, the birds would get.

We stayed with this school of fish for almost 30 minutes and boxed a dozen then they quit.  For a while we stayed around, but we noticed the tide had changed and was going out, probably the reasons for the fish’s lockjaw.  No more bird schools that day and we headed home around noon.  It was a fun trip and we caught 12 nice specs, along with a lot of small reds.

The fish trap is no more because several years later a hurricane rearranged the coastal area around Pass Cavallo!

The spring had been unseasonably warm, Gulf currents had arrived early and raised the water temperatures to over 72 degrees and with the warm water came the pelagic species of fish—kingfish, Spanish mackerel and cobia (Ling). Since the past season I had been promising Suzanne, my daughter, and Mike, my son-in-law, an offshore fishing trip. Mike brought along one of his, and our, friends, Dick Reilley. The timing was good for all of us, so we picked a Friday in early April to try and get out and catch some big kings. Just out from the beachfront the big ones come in first to spawn in the shallow water and they were our targets for the day.

After last night’s big storm, heavy clouds hung low over the water, but 7 miles out there was no wind blowing as we rounded the end of the south jetty and headed for my favorite spot on the Gulf side of the rocks. Since the tide was going out, the water on the Gulf side was moving toward the beach and as we anchored, I noticed small fish hanging close to the rocks, a real good sign!

Our tackle for the day was 7, foot popping rods, black Ambassaduer reels loaded with 15, pound line and because of the kings and smaller mackerel, a 2, foot fine, wire leader with a circle hook, weighted with a “OO” buckshot. Our bait for the day was live shrimp and baiting up we cast our rigs out toward the rocks to drift with the current. Right away Dick got hung on a rock and had to break off and while he was re-rigging Mike had a big strike and was fast into a nice red fish. If the conditions are right this spot will always pay off!

The action was fast and furious, no kings, but specs and reds, along with several Spanish mackerel, very good eating when filleted with the blood line cut out and 2, big sheesphead, 4 pounders that are top table fare, when I heard a “Hmmpf” from Suzanne and saw her rod nearly bent double. Maybe this was the big king? The big fish moved down the rocks to our right, then out to sea, as Suz held her rod tip high and hung on. Stopping its run, she regained most of the line and as the fish wallowed around the boat, we identified it as a big red and soon we boated a very nice 28, incher that she had battled perfectly. For a day that was “iffy”, we now had nice mess of fish and our big cooler was close to one 1/2 full, so as the tide changed, we headed back to the yacht basin, 4 grubby, stinky, fisher persons with a box of fish to clean!

This particular day, we were the only boat that had gone out, so as we loaded the boat on to the trailer, we drew a nice crowd of onlookers who, when we got the cooler down and opened it, appropriately “oohed and aaahd” over our catch. Mike, Dick and I were kidding around, chewing tobacco and spitting, and cleaning the fish when a well to do appearing lady came up to Suz and asked her, “Did you catch some of these fish?” and Suz replied, “Yes Mam, I caught the big red.” The lady replied “Good for you!”

We finished cleaning the fish, iced them down, then as Dick and I were lifting the big cooler up to Mike, he leaned over to grab it and, by accident (?) belched. We paid no attention and just kept loading the heavy cooler. The well to do lady turned to Suz and asked her, “Young lady, just who are those men?” Suzanne replied, “The big guy over there with gray hair is my dad and the big guy in the boat is my brother-in-law and the other big guy is Dick, a friend.” “Well, they’re gross and ungentlemanly,” the well to do lady said as she turned and hurried off!

Suzanne has been fishing with me since she was eleven years old. She can bait her own hook, cast the bait out, land the fish with a net and take the hook out, all of this even though she is a former student at Texas A & M University.

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!”

March is a terribly unpredictable month for fishing along the upper Texas coast. Based on weather forecasts, a person could plan a trip two days away and when the day of the trip was reached, the wind could be blowing a gale, bucketfuls of rain, or it could be perfect. This particular day Carl Parkinson, a neighbor, friend and employee, and I had planned a trip to try and catch some big, spawning, black drum, not terribly good table fare, but great pullers! The day turned out OK, wind around 12 from the southeast, with 1 tide coming in all morning.

Having just purchased a used, 24, foot, boat with 2, 120 HP motors, this would be a good shakedown cruise for it. With no problems we launched the boat at the State ramp in Jones Lake, cruised down the channel until we intersected with the Intercoastal Waterway, under the Galveston Causeway and staying in the Intercoastal it passed through Pelican Island, we turned to the north side of the island and anchored up.

In the distance, north of us, we could see the end of the Texas City Dike, we baited up with a crab, attached the halves on to our hooks, cast out and waited for a drum to gobble them up. After a short wait, tap, tap, tap on my rig, setting the hook the drum took off stripping line from the reel. Stopping its run, the drum came in grudgingly, until I got it up to the boat, then it thrashed around until Carl grabbed the line and the fish’s tail, securing it. Smaller drum, under 5 or 6 pounds are quite tasty when filleted and fried, but this big fellow, 25 pounds or so, wouldn’t be that good, so Carl removed the hook and released the fish.

Rebaiting and casting back out, we sat for a good 30 minutes with nary a nibble. Suggesting that we move across the Houston Ship Channel to some 10 to 12 foot deep sand flats that I knew of, Carl took the anchor in, I cranked up to outboards, planed out the boat and we sped east, toward the ship channel. Thinking nothing of it, a huge tanker was heading up the channel too, but we’d just steer around it. We sped closer to the huge ship and gauging my right turn to steer behind the tanker, I turned the wheel and nothing happened!

We were really closing in on the big ship and my boat wasn’t responding and I yelled to Carl, “The steering is stuck, oh sXXX!” As I cut the engines back, we were still coasting right toward the tanker, but quick as a flash, Carl grabbed the fish knocker (billy club) out of the under gunnel storage and in the nick of time, whacked on the exposed mechanical steering equipment and, as a crash seemed imminent, the steering loosened, the wheel responded and we turned right, just behind the tanker!

In the past, Carl had been one of the first ocean racers in this part of the country and on several occasions he’d had mechanical steering problems that were solved with a good whack. Corrosion on the rod inside of the steering line turned out to be the problem, but that was too close for comfort and as we headed back into the launch ramp, I decided that I’d take the boat back to the dealer and replace the mechanical steering with hydraulic. This fixed the steering problem, but I didn’t want to ever again get into a loosing race with a big, tanker!

This year, 2011, Easter Sunday is very late falling on April 24th, but in 1978 Easter was very early, March 26th and that year my family and I took this opportunity to come back home to Houston for the holiday. Dub Middleton lived in West University across the street from my mother and I went over to see him, to see if I could talk him into a fishing trip on Saturday and after a lot of arm twisting, (haha), he finally agreed.

Our destination, in upper West Galveston Bay, was what we called the Triangle; Greens Cut on the north, South Deer Island on the east and The Wreck on the south. This area of the bay was studded with numerous oyster reefs, a hard sand bottom and was protected from the prevailing southeast wind. After buying a quart of live shrimp, we, Dub, Randy and I, launched the boat in Offats Bayou, sped out towards the bay, turned left towards Anderson Ways and, of all things, on the sand flats, a bird school was working over some, cornered shrimp, a sure sigh of speckled trout!

This was very surprising and very unusual, because the specs generally don’t start the birds working until mid May. Also, back in 1960, my first fishing trip taking the boat out by myself was to this very spot, where my cousin and I loaded the boat up with 2 to 3 pound specs, but since then, I’d never caught another fish in that spot.

Telling Dub to circle back around and come in on the tide side of the birds, we baited up our rigs. We were using standard popping rigs; 7 foot rods, black Ambassaduer reels loaded with 15 pound line, a popping cork trailed by a 3 foot leader, on to which was attached a small, number 8, treble hook.

This being the first bird school of the year, Dub came in a little close, breaking up the birds, but we cast out anyway. Rewarded with a big strike, I set the hook and the fight was on, then nothing, the hook pulled loose. We kept casting, with no results and 10 minutes later, started up the motor and headed on towards The Triangle. We sped past Anderson Ways, around Confederate Reef, over the old, Intercoastal Waterway and soon we saw The Wreck, cut the motor and cast out.

We couldn’t find the fish, or for some reason, the fish, specs and reds, weren’t biting, so we kept on drifting. After a while, my cork went under, I set the hook and was no longer in charge of the situation. A big fish, my first guess a bull red, was on the other end of the line heading for Greens Cut. The fish was running and taking out line at an alarming rate and I exclaimed, “Somebody start the motor and let’s chase this thing,” and the chase was on!

Down to a few turns on my reel, I could see the spool’s shaft and Dub finally started the engine, headed toward the fish, allowing me to reclaim some line. With the spool almost full, we neared the fish and my guess now was a big, shark, it took off again, but Dub almost kept up, keeping pressure on it. Now I was winning, the runs were shorter, the fish was avoiding a surface fight, staying around the bottom, changing my guess to a big ray, but frankly, I didn’t have any idea of what kind of fish I was fighting.

Everyone was excited to see what variety of denizen of the deep this was. The fish was heavy, but finally wrestling it to the surface, our question was answered, a huge jackfish, jack crevalle. Dub netted it, but we knew it was too big for our scale, a Fisherman’s Deliar, so we guessed at over 30 pounds, the biggest one I’d ever caught now or then. Removing the hook, we released the jack and as it swam away, voiced our surprise and raised some questions..

Having caught smaller ones along the Houston Ship Channel and the beachfront, what was a 30 pound jack doing way up in the bay, a good 15 miles from the deep water of the Gulf? Another surprise and question, what was this jack doing up in the bay in late March? Maybe this was why the specs and reds were off their feed?

In the early spring of 1963, O.H. Buck, (Buck), my father in law, and I took off around 3:00 PM for a night of fishing and camping out. Our destination was a 400, acre reservoir, just east of West Columbia, Texas, where Buck had a family membership. Back then it was called a reservoir because during the spring and summer, water was taken from it to irrigate the surrounding rice fields, but since then, the property has sold many times and is now called Tenneco Lake Number 1 and is probably used for plant cooling and employee recreation.

Not much setting up of camp was needed since we were sleeping in the pickup’s camper, only chairs and the propane stove were unpacked before we slid the 12 foot skiff off the camper and into the water. Electric motors were all that was allowed on the reservoir so off we went to catch the last hour and a half of fishing. Our rod and reels were still in the camper, but this trip wasn’t going to be the usual plug casting and reeling in, but jigging. This was brand new to me, but boy, did I get an introduction!

My first introduction was to the, so called, tackle, a 16 foot, Calcutta, cane pole, wrapped
with 60, pound test, braided fishing line. The wrap began about 3 feet from the butt end of the pole with a wrap every 6 inches and to hold the wrap in place, every 18 to 24 inches a half-hitch knot was tied in the line around the pole and a drop of glue had been put on the knot. For the last 2 feet of the pole, the wraps were no more than 2 inches apart, tied with a secure knot on the tip, but the line with the hooks attached hung down about 10 inches.

The first hook was attached about 8 inches below the tip. The hooks can be one of several sizes, but, to prevent straightening, must be steel, long shank type. Buck said that when he attached the first hook, he then clipped the line below the hook, then slipped another hook of the same size over the point of the first hook, slid it to the first hook’s curve, then crimped it on.

Before we started fishing, Buck attached two pork rinds, one spotted green the other white. He told me, as he attached the spotted green rind to both hooks, that this was the best color scheme. He then attached the white rind to the bottom hook.

Buck would be jigging and I would be driving the skiff and he told me to creep along the bank, keeping the skiff about 10 feet out. The long pole allowed him to jig the baits along the bank, along any fallen tree, around a stump, or any other obstruction. As we slowly moved along, Buck really worked the baits carefully.

He carried the rod butt along the bottom of his forearm, grasped the pole securely and gently tap, tap tapped, the rod tip on the surface. The tip made dimpled circles in the water, the pork rinds jumped and slid below the surface and not 50 yards from starting a bass smashed it. He didn’t set the hook, but just held on to the pole. Then he hand over handed the pole back until he jerked the bass, a 4 pounder, into the boat. He made it look so easy!

Bass aren’t the only fish that will hit the bait. Goggle eye perch, rock bass or one of many local names such as, warmouth bass, chinquapin, shellcracker, mason bream, tupelo bream, mongrel bream, yellow bream, stumpknocker or GI (Government Improved) bream will also strike viciously at the jigged bait. These smaller fish do fry up well and are most welcome on the stringer!

When Buck and I jigged it was usually around the edges of a pond or lake in water from 1 foot to 4. Don’t hesitate to fish over an area 2 or 3 times, because Buck believed that a bass would finally hit the bait out of frustration! Once, on a bet, he and I fished around the stumps and fallen timber on Lake Sam Rayburn’s south side in up to 20 feet of water and hammered the bass. He would jig around each stump, beside and under the fallen timber, sometimes just jigging out in the open water, but he pulled the fish up from the depths and, needless to say, he won the bet!

Now days, the hardest part of all may be finding the right Calcutta, cane pole, or even finding one!

Early spring means that the big, black drum, Pogonias cromis, 20 to 40 pounders, will be coming into the shallow water to spawn. Early spring also means that fisherman who’ve sat out the winter hunting or watching football and basketball launch their boats, or unlimber their bank fishing tackle to go after these early arrivals. These big drum aren’t spectacular fighters, aren’t particularly good table fare, but they sure pull hard and after a hard winter spent hunting (and working), they liven up things until the specs and reds get active.

The run of the big drum was heating up so Carl Parkinson, a neighbor and fishing friend, who lived 5 houses down from me in Bayou Vista, had picked this mid March, Saturday morning to try our luck with these bruisers. Luck was with us because the wind was light out of the southeast and the seas should be almost flat. Our destination was Fleenor Flats, between the Galveston Jetties so we launched my 22 foot, boat, chugged down the canals, opened it up in Jones Lake, sped under the causeway, through East Galveston Bay, through the harbor and out to the flats. Fleenor Flats is a sand bar around 13 feet deep that causes a tide rip, since the gulf currents come swirling between the jetties and the much deeper Houston Ship Channel, this provides a smorgasbord of bait fish for the finny predators.

For the 2 hours that we soaked our split crabs threaded on circle hooks, we were hoping to find the drum stacked up there awaiting a favorable tide before they moved inshore. What we found was slack water with minimum movement and no fish. Our tackle was medium weight rods and reels loaded with 30, pound line which should be sufficient for these bruisers.

Pulling up the anchor we cruised around the South Jetty looking for a tide line that we found about 9 miles out. With nothing better to do, we flipped our crab baited, rigs behind the tide line and waited. Our wait was short lived when I had a big strike and the fish took off making a long run. My guess was a jack crevalle, Caranx hippos, or jackfish, bruising fighters, but poor table fare. After a 20, minute fight with a lot of pulling, Carl reached down and lifted the jack up by its tail and removed the hook, guessing it was a 15-18 pounder, he slid it back into the water.

Another bait, another cast, another short wait and then I was jarred with another big hit! The fight was similar to the first one, a lot of runs and pulls and after about 20 minutes the jackfish finally tired and Carl tailed this one, probably 20-25 pounds, then the jacks moved on and we sat for another 30 minutes, before heading back toward the jetties.

Half way back in something, that looked like a good sized, fish, was floating belly up and pulling up to it we saw that it was a black drum, almost expired. Carl grabbed the fish, keeping it in the water, righted it and to resuscitate it, gently rocked it back and forth. Very soon Carl’s efforts paid off and the 30-35, pounder flopped around and then headed for safer climes. We felt good for saving this fish, probably exhausted from a long fight, but we could not figure our why the jackfish hit the split crab, slim pickins’ we guessed?

Catching a break in the usually rambunctious March weather, light wind and favorable seas, Norman Shelter and I launched my 18, foot, tri hull out of the marina in Freeport, Texas, made the short run out of the jetties and up the coast to our fishing spot. This was an unusual spot, less than 10 miles out in the Gulf, where remains of an old coral, or shell, reef still harbored fishable quantities of red snapper.

A friend had passed the location of this reef to me, but this was way before Loran and GPS, and we’d have to “dead reckon” our way to it. The reef was in less than 25 feet of water and our landmarks were, two oil rigs farther out in the Gulf and a big tower on shore. Of course, to specifically locate the reef, we had greased up a trusty window sash with 50 foot of line. When we arrived at the approximate location of the reef, we dropped the window sash down to the bottom and when we hauled it back up, if it came in with a mix of sand and shell on it, we could be reasonably sure that we were on the right spot.

Scrupulously following the directions, our first try for the reef was a success, the window sash came back with sand and shell on it so we anchored up. Our rigs were medium weight boat rods, light offshore reels spooled with 30 pound, line and double drop, bottom rigs, with a small weight. We baited up with dead shrimp, cast out our rigs and it wasn’t long before I felt the angry grab of a fish!

The fish was overmatched against my tackle, but fought gamely until Norman netted it and I deposited the 18, inch, gulf trout into the cooler. These are good table fish with firm flesh, unlike the sand trout that can get mushy if not cleaned quickly. By the time I had rebaited, Norman was fast into an unknown fish that turned out to be another 18, inch gulf trout. Snapper had been on our menu, but we’d take a mess of gulf trout too.

We boxed 4 more of the metallic looking, gulf trout, then we let out 25 more feet of anchor line, let our window sash down and were rewarded with more sand and shell, we were still on the structure. Casting out, before the bait had reached the bottom, Norman and I both had solid strikes and reeled in 2, 12 inch, red snapper. Into the cooler with them, we baited up, cast out and were rewarded with 2 more strikes and boxed 2 more snapper. We kept this up for 15 minutes and had boxed at least 20 snapper, when I had a big strike and the fish took off for Mexico!

This wasn’t a small snapper, but something with a lot of pull that turned out to be a good sized kingfish. Sorry to say when Norman tried to gaff it, he knocked the king off the hook and we didn’t land it. This was a very early kingfish, the bigger ones come in early to spawn and then move farther out into the Gulf.

We caught 2 more snapper and Norman had a nice fish on when, whoosh, up came a 4 foot, shark and robbed the fish off his line. My rod was bent with another fish, when the line went slack and I reeled in a snapper head, sans body, a victim of another shark. We rebaited, cast out and had 2 more strikes, good snapper that were cut off by the sharks and I said to Norman, “Time for us to go back in!”

We upped the anchor and headed back. This wasn’t a bad day, a box full of good eatin’ fish, we lost another nice one, but then the sharks showed up! Maybe we should have tried to catch one of them? Back then we wouldn’t eat a shark, but now, if properly prepared, bull and black tip sharks are quite tasty.

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, a 18, footer, down and we’d try and get in on the early run of king mackerel.

We 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 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, Ambasseduer 6000 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 Jerry’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 blood line. We cooked the fillets that night with crab boil and surprisingly they tasted like lobster. Jerry had never heard about balling kingfish so I showed him how and we ended up with 5 bags of kingfish balls.

We went to bed thinking that according to tomorrow’s weather forecast, Saturday would be a great day to fish, but, 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.