My second fishing trip was into Trinity Bay, near Baytown, see “[Trinity Bay – A Bigger Pull On The Line]” and almost fifty years later, after catching some really big fish during the intervening years, I enjoyed what must have been the biggest pull yet!

Several times Bob Baugh and I took a course of around two hundred degrees out of the Freeport Jetties, to a block of oil rigs, sixty-five miles out into the Gulf of Mexico. Our objective was the abundant, at the time, hoard of large amberjack that lived around these rigs.

We were heading out in his twenty-three foot Formula that packed two, hundred and sixty-five, horsepower I/O’s. He’d rebuilt this boat, it was very sea worthy, had a real deep, vee and we’d been in some rough stuff and made it out just fine! Several times we’d been out over a hundred miles in it, without a hiccup, but today’s trip was only sixty-five.

We stopped at the first rig in the field, tied up to it, baited our fishing, rigs, with squid and cut mullet and let our lines down a hundred feet to the bottom. That day we were using heavy, six foot boat rods, Penn Senator reels packed with eighty pound line, heavy wire leaders along with a stainless steel, hook, heavy rigs for the heavy work we hoped we would encounter. For the time, we also had, high, tech (ha-ha), rod holders that we had strapped on.

As I was fitting the rod butt into my holder, my bait hadn’t completely settled on the bottom when I had a big hit! The fish picked up the bait running and ran right back into the rig structure, cutting me off. Bob was a little quicker and got his fish’s head up and started tugging it toward the surface. His tugs were futile as the fish, probably a big grouper or amberjack, dove back into the rig and cut him off too!

Reeling up our slack lines, we decided we’d tighten the drags almost all the way down and try to strong arm them up. Same story as our baits hit the bottom, strikes right away, but this time there was no give in our lines. Talk about a fight, both fish pulled, pulled and pulled some more. Even with our high tech rod holders, neither one of us, both stout fellows, could raise our rods off of the boat’s gunnels, but finally the fish began tiring. After a ten minute, tug-of-war, keeping my line tight, I put a flying gaff into Bob’s big, amberjack, we guessed a fifty pounder.

Still fighting my fish, a twin to Bob’s, we were fiddling around getting his amberjack aboard and into the cooler. Mine got its second wind and down it went. Stopping the run short of the rig, I manhandled it back to the surface and the flying gaff, applied by Bob, calmed it down. Whew, these two big, amberjacks almost filled up our big, cooler and almost wore us both out!

Letting our lines down again toward the bottom, Bob had a big hit about half way down. Setting the hook, down the fish bored, but he stopped it short and began the battle to get it to the surface. My bait was on the bottom, still untouched and loosening my drag, I set my rod in the through gunnel, holder and got the flying gaff ready.

Leaning over preparing to gaff Bob’s big ‘un, in the water below it was another monster, amberjack, half again as big. It was lazily coming to the surface. Looking into the water, we couldn’t believe it, but here came ten or fifteen more of the bruisers up to the top, where they just lolled around until the disturbance of getting Bob’s fish aboard spooked the school and they flushed. They went down much faster than they had floated up.

We crammed the last amberjack, a thirty pounder, into the cooler and kept fishing, but the amberjacks had developed a severe case of lockjaw! We did add a couple of red snappers to our bag, but up came a storm and chased us on in.

The school of huge amberjacks coming to the surface was a once in a lifetime deal! I’ve heard of snapper schools coming up and turning the surface red, but I’ve not seen that either. Our cooler was full of big fish and all the way in we wondered what we’d done if we had hooked one of the real big ‘uns.

We got lucky on this shrimp boat and snapped this picture just as it was pulling in its net. Birds can be seen working the spill as the net comes up.

We were lucky because the crew would start culling the catch as soon as the net was dumped. The culling and throwing of the by-catch overboard would jump start the food chain and the predators should gather around eagerly gobbling everything up.

Just as dawn was breaking on this late June morning in 1986, we, Bob Baugh, Charley King and I had cleared the Freeport Jetties and headed out on a hundred and ninety degree course, looking for anchored, shrimp boats. We were lucky to find our first one just pulling in the net and circled it until the crew started culling.

Pulling up beside the boat and starting our drift, we put out our lines. Our rigs were six and a half foot, medium action rods, reels loaded with thirty pound, line, a three foot steel leader and a sharp, single hook. Our first drift wasn’t productive so after two hundred yards we pulled back up alongside the shrimper and started another drift.

We were watching the chum floating, some was sinking, when we saw the flash of a predator fish, probably a kingfish. Just after this, Charley’s line took a big hit. He set the hook, the fish took off peeling thirty yards of line off of the reel and all he could do was hold on. Relenting to the rod’s pressure the fish soon came to gaff and we saw it was a small, barracuda, Sphyraena. Here Charley is holding it up for a picture and the fish’s distinctive markings are easy to see. Since barracudas aren’t good to eat, we threw it back.

Soon Bob and I were both hooked up with bigger fish and after spirited fights, we gaffed and boxed them, almost identical fifteen pound, kingfish, or king mackerel, Scomberomorus cavalla. We caught eleven all told, ten kings and the one barracuda and the action was hot and heavy until the crew stopped culling. Then, like a light switch that’s turned off, the fish quit hitting.

We kept looking for another hour, then ran over to a production, oil rig and tied off to it, hoping to hook up with a snapper or amberjack. No luck this time, just small ones, and since we had a good mess of fish we decided to beat the heat and head back in.

Overall, a good fishing trip and a lucky fishing trip!

Layla and I had taken a long weekend in late June at our beach house in Bayou Vista and Monday morning turned out to be “one of those days”. The tide was coming in all morning, light wind out of the southeast and all of “the weekenders” had gone home.

Since the conditions were picture perfect, we were going to fish around the wreck in West Galveston Bay. I’d always had a soft spot in my heart for the wrecked, shrimp boat that lay less than a hundred yards off of the old Intercoastal Waterway channel. One problem! The last big, low pressure, system that had come this way had knocked down the exhaust pipe of the boat and there wasn’t anyway to find the old wreck.

Being sure that I could find the general area, we headed out the “back way” to West Bay. Two years before, Randy and I headed out this very same way and he had run my Whaler into the reef beside the small cut, “unhorsing me”, see [“A Close Call”]. But, the big twenty-two footer had no problem, gliding close to the marker, flying across the Intercoastal and heading on into the bay. Just think, this boat would run flat out in twelve inches of water! Here’s a picture of it in the sling at our beach house.

Finding the general area of “the wreck” we both cast out. Layla was using a spinning outfit with eight pound; line, popping cork, three foot, leader, topped off with a nice, live shrimp. By the way, she never learned how to successfully attach the shrimp to the hook, but I gladly did this chore. My outfit was the same, but I had a seven and a half foot popping rod that hurled my shrimp out as far as her spinning rig.

Working and popping the corks, mine went under first and I was rewarded with a real, pole bender! The trout made one good run, then wallowed on the top of the water, came into the boat, then the fun started! The trout made me do the “West Bay Shuffle” around the boat twice, before the combination of the long fight and the rod’s pressure, had it laying on the top. Layla netted it and we both admired the six pounder, before I released it.

Layla caught two nice eating size specs that we boxed for today’s lunch and noticing that we’d drifted out of the catching zone, I doubled back, swinging wide, and started the drift pattern again. Again, my first cast was met with another hard strike and same song, second verse. This spec was a twin to my first one, another six pounder that we released. We both caught some eating size specs that we put into the cooler and decided that we’d call it a day and head back in.

Getting back, as Layla washed out the boat, I filleted the fish. We put one freezer bag up for future use and took two nice fillets up into the house and fried them up. Taking two pieces of white bread, adding some tartar sauce, then slapping on the fried fish, yum-yum! Adding some ice tea, this made a meal fit for a king and a perfect ending to our long weekend!

When WWII ended, my Grandma Bryan lived in Marlin, Texas, three miles out on Rock Damn Road. She owned acreage and the house was set back from the road and when you turned into the drive, it crossed over a large embankment making a natural damn that most of the time, except for periods of extreme drought, held water. This water also held plenty of crawdads!

We, my cousins and neighbor boys, would spend our time “fishing” for these crawdads. Through trial and error, we found out that if a piece of bacon from Grandma’s smoke house was securely tied to a piece of kite line, the crawdads would tenaciously hold on to the bacon even while they were lifted from the water. Then we would drop them into a net, separate them from the bacon and drop them into a glass dish.

We never could get Grandma or our Mothers to fry up our catch so, dedicatedly, after the dish had several crawdads in it, we practiced catch and release. We determined that if we caught all of ‘em, we couldn’t spend our time fishing for them

Once, to my surprise, I tried to grab a larger, one behind his pinchers, but it was quicker than me and inflicted a painful pinch to my finger. Another time we caught, what I now would call, an Opelousas Red. Maybe not a real Red, but this one was much larger than the others and very, very aggressive, not wanting to yield its bacon to our prying fingers. It would rare up on its tail and wave its claws menacingly at us, then attack when we tried to grab the bacon. We used a broom to shoo it back into the water and then quickly moved to another location around the pond.

A great drought hit our State in the late 40’s, the crawdad pond went dry for several years and they moved out and never took up residence there again. Last year, on one of my morning walks, what did I come across but a crawdad crossing the County Road. This one was a big ‘un an years before, having learned a painful lesson well, I gave Mr. Crawdad a wide berth.

Late June isn’t the best of times for fishing in Baffin Bay, south-southwest of Corpus Christi, but, in 2005, my cousin, George Pyland, and I had decided on making one last fishing expedition (before we got too old). Before day break when we launched his boat on the upper end of Padre Island the wind was howling out of the south and the forecast was for it to howl even more during the day. Not a very good sign since we faced a long ride across open water both going and coming.

Surviving the long ride, on the way we had decided to start fishing on a reef around the mouth of Baffin Bay, we pulled up, just off of the Intercoastal Waterway and anchored on the reef’s south side. With the high wind, the water was cloudy, but we still had high hopes for a successful trip.

We were using standard popping cork outfits; seven and a half foot, medium action, graphite rods, Shimano reels loaded with twelve pound line, a small, popping cork, three feet of ten pound leader, anchored by a small treble hook. Our bait for the day was live shrimp hooked under the horn, which is my favorite bait for specs.

We cast our rigs out, popped the cork once and, on cue, both corks went under, two hard strikes! Both fish took off for parts unknown, wallowed on the top like all good specs are prone to do, then relenting to the pressure of the rod and reel’s drag, came in toward the boat to continue their fight. After a trip around the boat doing the “West Bay Shuffle”, I netted both trout, two and a half pounders!

For some reason, for the next fifteen minutes, our casts were met with no strikes. Then the action picked up and we started catching trout. The action was steady and as soon as the water stopped moving on the tide change, we had our limit, twenty of ‘em. Except for the first two we caught, all the fish were all one and a half to two pounds, a good mess of specs! We had planned to go on into Baffin Bay, now since we couldn’t fish there, we opted to take the long ride back.

After our long bumpy, ride back to the launch ramp I filleted the fish. Then, we shook hands, hugged, climbed into our trucks and headed home. All the way back home I thought to myself, I’m not too old to try this again! Anyway, we almost made it into Baffin Bay.

In Church this past Sunday I sat beside Roy Varley and his wife, Linda. Roy is a former business executive and both of them had some comments about my book, “[The End Of The Line]”. Roy said, “When I got the book I finished it in two sessions and I liked it!” Then he added, “When are you going to write one about your quail hunting?” At this, Linda, chimed in, “I read it too and I liked it!”

More good news! On Monday, June 7, I took the book to Hastings Book Store in Brownwood and they stepped up for five copies. This isn’t much for a Tom Clancey or James Lee Burke, but it’s a start for me since Hastings is a state wide book store. It would be neat if they took it State wide!

We always tried not to take ciceros, beginners, out offshore fishing with us. Several times we relented and each of these times we were burned. This trip was one of those.

The summer of 1982 was one for the books. Very nice weather, so nice you could plan an offshore trip for the next weekend and, sure enough, the weather would turn out to be nice! Early Monday in mid June, we’d planned to take off from work on Friday afternoon and fish around the oil rigs east of Galveston. These rigs, near the Heald Banks, had been consistent fish producers for us for several weeks.

The fishermen, Dewey Stringer, Max, Clem and I, reported for duty at Dewey’s boat sling at the Galveston Yacht Basin. Clem, a business associate of ours, was a cicero and had never been offshore fishing before. We figured that the three of us could help (control) him and make this baptism successful.

Passing the first rig, seven miles out from the end of the North Jetty, we circled the rig but the water didn’t look right, we didn’t see any signs of bait or fish activity, so we motored on. The next rig, over ten miles out, we pulled up close to it on the down current side and let out three lines. We were using six and a half foot, popping rods, black Ambassaduer reels packed with fifteen pound, monofilament, along with a three foot, steel leader and two hooks with the eye on one threaded through the other, a fish getter! Attached to the hooks was a six inch, frozen, cigar minnow that we’d purchased at the Yacht Basin. The frozen bait gave us the weight needed for short casts, they quickly thawed out and became excellent baits for king mackerel (kingfish) or cobia.

Drifting away from the rig, we had two solid strikes. Clem picked up one rod and was welcomed to catching a kingfish. His fish ran and took out line for a good fifty yards, made another shorter run, and with more instruction, Clem brought the fish up to be gaffed. We gaffed it, flopped it into the cooler and his only remark was, “It sure pulled hard!”

Max boated the other king, a nice one over thirty pounds, we rebaited, resumed our drift and soon had another strike. Clem grabbed this rod too and held on! Another long run, two shorter ones, gaffing the king and flopping it in the box, Clem, under his breath said, “This could be like work!”

Here’s Max’s big king and the rigging we were using.

No more strikes so we headed on out. After about twenty miles we pulled up to a working rig and tied up to it. Soon, the cook came out, started up a conversation with us and told of some nice tarpon and cobia that he’d seen lolling around the rig. This got our attention and we put out four lines.

Strike, strike, and thinking that it might be a tarpon, Dewey and I picked up the rods, but the long runs identified the fish as kings. Another strike and Clem picked up the rod, the line started out and a six foot, tarpon cleared the water. Dewey and I were working our fish toward the boat. Clem yelled, “How do I fight this thing?” Max was up talking with the cook as the tarpon cleared the water again and headed south. One more jump and it was all over as the hook came sailing back toward us.

Prior to the late 1990’s tarpon were extremely rare in the northern Gulf, but we told Clem not to worry; we’d all lost tarpon, that they’re very hard to hook, have tough mouths and their aerobatics make them difficult to land. We didn’t tell him that the first thing he should have done when one hits a bait was to really sock the hook to it, then give the fish some slack when it jumped and then hold on!

We were very slow learners about taking ciceros out with us!

All the way down to our wade fishing spot in Trinity bay, the radio had been blaring with the strains of Elvis’ new song, “Don’t Be Cruel”. This latest release, of the very talented newcomer from Mississippi, seemed to be on every station and was and destined to be one of his hallmarks.

Somehow, through all the music, we, my Dad and I, finally arrived at our spot beside Crawley’s Bait Camp. Going down to the water, we walked through the yard of the bay house beside Crawley’s. In this same house, fourteen years earlier, my Brother, Harvey, told us that he was going into the Navy and I first experienced the tug of a speckled trout, in “[Trinity Bay – A Bigger Pull]”.

We walked out beside the, now, rickety, old pier, past its end and finally reaching the edge of Beazley’s Reef began casting out. Our rigs were pretty much standard, six foot, fiber glass, popping rods, direct drive reels and fifteen pound braided line. At the end of the line we attached popping corks, a three foot, leader and a small treble hook on the end of the leader. For bait we were using live shrimp, just purchased at Crawley’s. This is a proven rig that I have used successfully for over fifty years, catching all types of salt water, fish!

The tide was coming in, the water for mid June was cool and not five minutes after our first cast, both of our corks went under and for the next three hours, we were into some memorable trout fishing! The specs were all between one and two pounds, good eatin’ size and, after throwing the small ones back, we counted up our stringers, thirty fish. A good number to quit on since, this afternoon, my girl friend of three years, was flying home from vacationing with her relatives in Pass Christianne, Mississippi. I wanted to get back to our home in West University and get ready for my big date. We stopped fishing and set to the filleting of our catch.

Time for the big date and the minute I picked her up, I knew there was a problem. Talking it out, I found out that during her stay, Elvis and his entourage, body guards included, checked into the same motel and she had a couple of dates with him. She added that she thought it would be a good time to break up anyway.

End of story, no, but two years later, at ROTC camp at Ft. Hood, Elvis was there in Basic Training, in one of my friends Training Company. Elvis was a model trooper and I saw him many times from a distance, but we never met. To this day, hearing “Don’t Be Cruel” brings back memories and still ticks me off!

After, as it turned out, a very eventful trip off shore (visit the Honey Hole) with Bobby Baldwin, his brother and father-in-law, I was to meet Bobby and one of his friends from Beaumont at their boat shed on Bolivar peninsula and head back out with them for another go at some kingfish. To top it all off, my ex-wife and I were to spend the weekend at their family’s beach house.

When I arrived at the boat shed, no Bobby. His friend, Joe, was waiting for me and said, “Bobby was purty sick, but he told me to tell you to take the boat on out and catch some fish.” What a surprise to me because I’d never taken a big, boat out anywhere, let alone, offshore. Well, there has to be a first time for everything!

Joe and I cranked it up, it started and purred as we backed out of the shed and putted out into the Intercoastal Waterway. Trying to remember everything Tom had said coming in from my last trip with them, I opened up the big engine and we cruised on out into Galveston Channel and around the South Jetty. We agreed that we’d stop at the special place and try for some speckled trout. Fiddling around there for an hour, we caught two, two pounders, then pulled up the anchor and headed south, out toward the twelve mile, oil rig.

Really being ciceros and having no experience with a big boat or offshore fishing, just as we left the spot on the jetty, we put out two lines for trolling, one with a green feather jig and another with a blue. Unknown to me at the time, there’s a small hump on the Gulf’s bottom, probably an old wreck or some other type of structure, six miles of the end of the jetty. Trolling over the hump, both lines were hit and two kings took off. We did our best and finally gaffed both fish. We had caught two, by our estimate, fifteen pound, kingfish.

Not even knowing to turn around and troll back across the hump, that we didn’t even know was there, we doggedly kept trolling south, toward the rig, now visible just over the horizon. We trolled around the rig for an hour with no luck and since it was past lunch time, I told Joe that we were heading back in.

We must have trolled back across the hump, because one of lines was smashed by something big! Putting the engine in neutral, I grabbed the rod, this big fish took line out like there was no drag on the reel! The fish continued the battle, but stayed deep, taking more line. Finally I started gaining on it, and as it wallowed on the surface, we both gawked at the biggest red snapper we’d ever seen! Gaffing it, hauling it aboard, it was huge and we guessed it weighed at least twenty pounds.

We iced the snapper in our cooler and headed in, past the end of the South Jetty, up the Galveston Channel and turned into the Intercoastal Waterway. The engine had been running for almost six hours and, when we left this morning, we’d never thought to fill the gas tank. Luckily for us we didn’t run out! But misfortune reared its ugly head as I was putting the boat into the slip, I turned off the engine and our drift, that I thought would take us on into the slip, stopped cold. The tide was going out. I didn’t even know about tides then!

Trying to start the engine, all I got was one click. The engine that had been running for almost six hours wouldn’t start. The starter chose this time to quit working. Luckily, a man outside of the shed threw us a line and we tugged the big twenty-three foot boat back into the stall. What if we’d gotten the click when we were offshore? I didn’t even know how to use the ship to shore radio!

On meat market scales the snapper weighed twenty-two pounds!

On Friday, May 7, in [More About My Book], I posted remarks from two people who had read “[The End Of The Line]”. This past week I’ve run into three more folks that have read it. Listing them and their remarks out, it seems that they liked the book and the stories.

Rocky Gonzales, former Marine, retired missionary and currently a master plumber, said, “Jon, I didn’t know you were an officer until I read the book and there were a lot of good stories in it!”

Steve Bridges, owner and editor of The Goldthwaite Eagle, our weekly, local newspaper said, “I liked the book, especially all the parts about fishing with your family. I’m a big family guy too!”

Dayton House, a Preacher and youth worker said, “If you love fishing, you’ll like this book!”

Now I know that I’m getting to be a liberal because all of these comments make me feel good.