Quota achievement with my company was rewarded each year with an event at a very fashionable location and this quota year’s was in Miami Beach.  Ample free time allowed us to choose from several prepaid options, offshore fishing, sightseeing, golf, tennis and, of course, I picked fishing, however there was one drawback.

High pressure was dominating the area causing the wind to really be blowing in from the ocean, 30steady gusting to 40.  This, in turn, built up the normally moderate seas to 8 to 10 feet and most charter Captains were reluctant to even venture out, citing boat safety.  One Captain finally agreed to take his boat out, but he said to us, “If anyone gets seasick, don’t blame me”.

The 4 of us on the charter loaded up our gear on the, 36 footer and the Captain took the boat down the channel, turned left (to port) and headed toward the ocean.  Before we cleared the jetties the seas were already building and once we cleared them, the seas were almost monstrous.  Up, down, the boat was shuddering, we were already wet from the wind and spray and, frankly, I was concerned for our safety and how the Captain was going to come about and head back in.

We hadn’t even covered a mile, a mile of a lot of ups and downs, when the first case of seasickness hit us.  A female salesman from Chicago rushed to the side, then a salesman from Oklahoma City followed suit, but both of them, even though they were sick, soldiered on.  Both my friend from Houston and I, being experienced boaters, were starting to get a little “green” feeling, even the mate was turning pale and the Captain laughed and looked down at all of us and said, “You all asked for it!”

The Mate said to me, “We’re less than 2 miles out and I hate to think about putting the lines out and I’m even getting sick.”  Hearing that, I climbed up to the upper cockpit and sat down beside the Captain, leaned over and said, “Calf rope, we’ve had enough!  Take us back in.”  The Captain replied, “Me Too”, skillfully topped a wave, cut the wheel to the right, powered up, slid into the trough, and climbed up the backside of the next wave!  My earlier worries were unfounded.

At a faster clip, we rode the waves back in, cleared the jetties, picked up speed and turned to starboard (right) back up the channel to the marina.  With the seas smoothing out and our boat picking up speed, everyone was feeling better.  By the time we docked the boat and the saleslady from Chicago and the salesman from Ok City, touched the dock, they we’re miraculously healed!  As we got out of the boat, both of the guy’s from Houston, and all of us, of us felt much better too!

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!

Sometimes it seemed to me that there were too many ways to fish for speckled trout. One mid winter night back in the late 50’s, my Dad and I were heading down to the mouth of the Colorado River to meet a neighbor, Dub Middleton, and expose me to another way to catch Mr. Spec, fishing under the lights.   We were headed to a nondescript, bait camp, near Matagorda, Texas, close to where the Colorado River empties into the Gulf of Mexico to fish for specs at night under some bright, flood lights.    This is the same Colorado that is in my post of May 11, 2009, [“The Salt Water Barrier”].

The principle was that the reflection of the lights on the water drew small fish and shrimp in to feed on the minute sea life and the abundance of small bait drew the larger predators, the trout. The action can be fast and furious, and finally, it was!

Starting about 8:30 PM, the three of us beat the water to a froth and to show for the effort, had only caught and released 4 small ones. At that point, Dub and I choose to take a nap on the couches inside the bait camp and two hours later, my Dad rushed in and woke both of us exclaiming, “Get up quick and come see all the fish!”

All the fish was right. The tide was beginning to come in and with it, bringing in stained, almost sandy, water, and in the reflection of the large lights, the water was dimpled by hundreds of specs slashing through the thousands of bait fish that were carried in by the tide!

Savoring the spectacle for maybe 5 seconds, our primal urges kicked in, and we began casting into the melee. Using a Tony Acetta #5, silver spoon, with a yellow buck tail attached, every one of my casts resulted in a hard hit and a spirited fight and resulted in a 1-1/2 to 2 pound trout flopping on the dock.

Left is my old Tony Acetta, #5, silver spoon, with the original, yellow, buck tail. This spoon is lighter than a Dixie Jet, and worked slow to medium, has a better flash. It was a perfect imitation of the bail fish the specs were feeding on. Over the years, the hook has been replaced several times, but his spoon is over 50 years old and has been used countless times, just be sure and wash them thoroughly in fresh water, and they will last a long time.

This action continued for about 30 minutes. Then, the tide changed heading back out toward the Gulf and with the change of the water movement, the bait and predator fish followed. As hot as the action was, it was all over now. Nothing remained except for us to ice down the fish, collect our tackle, bid adieu to the camp operator and start our 2 hour drive, back to West University.

At the time, my family didn’t have a freezer, so all of our friends and relatives enjoyed the fish we happily gave to them.

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. See my June 18, 2009 post, “[A Close Call]”.

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 that ran from Green’s Cut up to South Deer Island. The target was to find sea gulls (birds) working over feeding specs, the specs 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 Shimano Bantam Curado reel, pictured below, 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 spec! 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 motor back, clean the fish, hose out the boat, shower and drive 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!

For six years my hunting lease near Brady, Texas, not only provided excellent deer hunting, but also offered equally excellent froggin’, fishing and during the winter months was covered up with all varieties of ducks. In 1990, during the last weekend before deer season opened, my boys and I took the four, plus, hour trip up from Houston to load our feeders, haul up some of our gear and maybe have a go at some frogs and bass.

After we topped off the feeders, the boys decided to go froggin’ in some stock tanks on the backside of the ranch. Opting for bass, I drove up along side of Hwy. 190 and with my spinning rod and trusty Piggy Boat spinner bait, climbed out of my Suburban, went through the fence, walked over the tank damn and began casting out into the two acre tank. Years earlier, before dove season, Bill Priddy and I had scouted out this tank and enjoyed some good fishing, but no doves. The story about our first try at bass fishing in the big tank was my post “[Scouting For Doves]” on August 18, 2010.

Catching and throwing back several two pounders, I worked my way around the tank and along the shore, not fifty feet in front of me, on its side, was a big fish. Walking up to it, it turned out to be a bass, a big one, its gills were barely moving and made no move to escape to deeper water.

Never having seen this before and putting my rod down, I knelt beside the fish. The fish made no effort to escape my grasp as I turned it over. There was no sign of injury on either side, so I edged out into the water and tried to resuscitate the bass by moving it forward, forcing water over its gills. No luck with that try, so I replaced it on its side stepped out of the water and the bass had stopped moving its gills! It was gone and loosing heart for fishing, I left the bass on the edge of the water. The next morning, no bass, I bet it fed some turtles?

If predators don’t get ‘em, bass have the ability to live a long time, 16-20 years. My best guess was that central Texas’ hot weather and low oxygen content of the water could have combined to kill it. For sure, extreme cold didn’t cause this one’s death.

I’ve always wondered if this was the big bass that I had caught several years before?

In 1960 the mourning dove season had just opened in Falls County, Texas, and my Dad and I had enjoyed some fine shooting! My Uncle Shelly, Shelton Gafford, had directed us to a couple of stock tanks where doves were watering and we were rewarded with some good action. .

Our mornings were free, because back then, in Texas, dove hunting was only allowed after noon. Uncle Shelly told us about another place where we could fish, but no guns or hunting were allowed by the rancher. No problem with us! He told us to take Hwy. 7, east out of Marlin, cross the Big Creek bridge, and turn right at the second “gap”, or wire gate in the fence, and follow the road to the stock tank.

Following the instructions, the second gap was almost to the road to Blue Ridge and ignoring the “Posted, No Hunting” sign, opened it and followed the dirt road until it came to an old, no longer in use, rock quarry. Not a stock tank, but looking into the very, clear water, it was easy to see bass milling around, plus several large bream beds. We figured this must be the place, got out our tackle and quickly started fishing.

Keeping the sun in our face, we stood several feet away from the water and whipped our Piggy Boat, spinner baits toward the fish. Immediately, we were both rewarded with two sharp strikes and soon landed two scrappy, 12 inch, bass. They were unusual looking little fish with large mouths and small bodies. We guessed, correctly, they were stunted and probably undernourished.

We kept on casting and catching. We added several, good sized, goggle eye perch. These fish looked somewhat like a bream, but slimmer, with bigger mouths and their eyes protruded from their heads. They were good fighters on light tackle and very tasty when fried!

We returned all of the small ones, but ended up with 15 keepers, pictured. We iced them down and retraced our route off of the property and headed back to Shelton’s ranch for lunch.

Lunch was the big meal of the day and as we loaded up, we reviewed our morning trip with him. He smiled and shook his head and asked, “You went right through the “Posted, No Hunting” sign? Did they catch both of you all?” “Who’s they?” my Dad answered. He replied, “Mr. so-in-so or his Foreman. They have some expensive bulls on the place, besides there’s a lot of quail and they don’t allow anyone but family out there!” Answering him, I said, “Uncle Shelly, we didn’t see a soul, or any bulls or quail, all morning!” He just smiled and shook his head.

As he got up and headed into his den, he looked back, smiled and said to both of us, “Turn left at the second gap!”

August is probably the hottest month along the upper Texas coast with the water in the shallow bays, East and West Galveston Bay and Christmas Bay, heating up to the mid eighties causing the big trout to seek cooler water. The cooler water we were heading out to this mid August morning in 1968 was along the Houston Ship Channel. The channel was begun in 1875 and not really completed until 1914. In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s it was widened to its present size of over five hundred feet, with a depth of forty-five.

The weather forecast was a good one, light winds, tide coming in, with scattered thunder storms, in the afternoon. Our plan was to finish up by lunch, so we didn’t anticipate any bad weather or problems.

In my seventeen foot, deep vee pictured, we, my Dad and Uncle, Alvin Pyland, better known as Unkie, launched at the bait camp at San Leon and made the short run out to the ship channel. We went about two hundred yards on the Smith’s Point side of the ship channel and started our drift. In the years before the ship channel, at low tides, cattlemen would drive their herds across the five, plus mile, wide bay, using the reef that extended from Eagle Point to Smith’s Point, but the channel changed all of that!

Our tackle was six and a half foot popping rods, red, Ambassaduer reels filled with fifteen pound, mono line. We used a popping cork with a three-foot, leader, a light weight and a small treble hook. Our bait was live shrimp. We’d cast out, pop the cork, reel up the slack, repeat the process until we either had a strike or we retrieved the rig back to the boat, then, cast back out and repeat the process.
Unkie and my Dad cast out and hadn’t made one or two “pops” when they had big strikes, both fish were good ones, taking line and circling the boat, a sure sign of a big trout! Netting Unkies fish first, a real nice five pounder, my Dad’s fish put on a show around the boat for us and we could see that is was a little bigger than Unkies.

Finally I cast out, popped the cork once and “bam”, had a big strike. A twenty-yard, first run, highlighted this fight, along with two circles of the boat, with a lot of wallows on top before my Dad slipped the net under the spec, a twin of his.

We were probably fifteen miles up from the Galveston Jetties, the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel and in the distance, south of us, the morning’s first big tanker was heading our way. My Dad said, “Boy, you’ve never seen the wake these big ships throw up, have you?” “What wakes?” was my answer. Unkie chimed in, “Six or seven footers, that’s what and we’d better get everything in the boat squared away!” This got my attention quick. We quit fishing and knowing that if you’re in heavy seas, you head into them and don’t get caught broad side, I started the engine and here the came the wake.

Looking at the wake, it came toward us, obliquely, in a long line, soon it was only fifty foot from us, then, here it was! The deep vee in my boat’s hull cut smoothly through the seven foot, wake and rode up and down it. It would have swamped us if we’d been broadside to it!

Going back to catching specs, before the tide changed we put a dozen more five to six pounders into the cooler. We experienced three more big wakes, got back to the launch ramp before noon, filleted the fish and missed the forecasted thunder storms.