In May of 1980, I decided to make an afternoon trip to one of the creeks feeding into Lake Conroe for a go at some bass. Having been given some brief instructions about getting to the spot, along with the possibility of catching some fish, I left work early and headed out. Going the “back way” from my home in Cypress, Texas this was a less than one hour, trip. Heading up FM 149, now freeway and four lanes all the way to Texas 105, and going through Montgomery, I continued north on 149 for two or three miles, crossed the first bridge and exited the road.

There was no launch ramp, just two ruts leading toward the water. Huffing and puffing my twelve-foot, aluminum boat, electric motor, battery, paddle, rod and tackle box, I, with wet feet, unceremoniously launched it. This is the same one that, in Georgia, I caught the twelve pound, bass out of a year earlier. Push polling with the paddle, finally paddling, I got the boat into deeper water, cranked up the electric motor, headed under the bridge and started casting. My bait of choice was a dark green, Lucky 13, a proven top water plug.

Outside of the creek channel, there was a big hydrilla, a very intrusive moss, laden flat, a likely looking spot, with a few lily pads thrown in and I headed toward it. Pick a spot in the moss, cast out, let the 13 sit until the rings disappeared, then twitch it and repeat if necessary. My second cast, after the rings settled, abruptly, a nice bass came out of the water and, on the way back into the water, clamped down on the Lucky 13. Having caught a lot of bass in the past, I’d never seen this before, a reverse blow-up! After several jumps, I reached down and lipped it, a nice, four pounder. Throwing it back, I kept on casting and twitching.

Casting into another opening, letting the rings settle, twitching the plug twice, another bass, a twin of the first, exploded into the 13 and the fight was on. Landing it and throwing it back, I continued casting for the next hour, with no luck. Heading back towards the “launch ramp”, I figured that with the lake up this would remain a good spot through June or until the water level dropped.

Getting home, I told Randy about the spot and gave him better instructions about finding it. He went up there the next weekend with a friend and was using a jig around the bridge pilings and caught a spinning rod and reel. It was a nice expensive, outfit that we cleaned up and used it in salt water for the next twenty years!

Now, for the rest of the story, Lake Conroe was once considered one of the top five bass fishing spots in the nation. We did fish this spot for the next year with some success, but then, to control the hydrilla, the State of Texas introduced grass carp, white amur, supposedly these fish were sterile, but they weren’t! Within a year and a half the carp had eaten up our fishing spot. By 1996 the carp, without any vegetation to eat, died out, vegetation rebloomed and the bass fishing improved with it. Now the State, the lake front property owners, various interested national organizations, fishing clubs and the San Jacinto River Authority are working together to control the hydrilla and other harmful plants and the fishing should improve.

As things sometimes will do, events happened to cause me to change my entire attitude about salt water, fishing.  Bobby Baldwin, my high school fishing buddy and close friend, had access to a twenty-three foot, cathedral hull, boat with a hundred and sixty-five, horse engine and outdrive, a real boat! We took it offshore fishing twice and both times stopped by the Galveston Jetties where I was shown a spot, on the Gulf side of the South Jetty that became my honey hole for the next forty years!  I caught the biggest trout of my life there in 2000, but that’s another story.

My first trip to this “secret” spot was in late May 1964.  We, Bobby, Freddy, his brother, his father-in-law, Tom and I, were headed off shore but stopped to sample the spec fishing.  This was the second time out for me, the first being in 1953, a long time between trips, but that soon changed!

We caught several nice speckled trout, but since the wind was only blowing five to ten out of the southeast, we cranked up and headed for the twelve mile, rig.  Trolling around it we caught several nice king fish and then, for safety’s sake, headed in early.  The boat owner, Tom, didn’t want to be caught out after dark with any kind of a problem.

Heading in we talked about boating safety and how treacherous the Gulf of Mexico can become with very little notice.  Hearing Tom, but being young, some of his sage advice stuck, but it took several big, storms later in my life for it to really sink in!

Our next trip out was cut short by the weather.  Just after we anchored up at the “secret” jetty spot and had cast out, one spec was hooked and landed, then the wind came up.  With the boat beginning to pitch, Freddy became very ill.  This was my first brush with, mal-de-mere, or sea sickness, but definitely not my last.

Getting the anchor in, we headed across the Galveston channel and stopped to fish behind the protection of the North Jetty.  Fred’s sickness responded to the calm water, he became well again.  We had virtually no luck except for a three pound, spec that I landed.  Before we headed in, we spent time casting spoons among the twelve inch, bluefish catching several.  These are blues that by the time they migrate around to Long Island and Martha’s Vinyard, weigh thirty to forty pounds!

This kind of fishing, with the fish’s big pulls, was beginning to catch me too!

Being a self taught fly fisherman, I’ll have to admit that it was never my cup of tea.  Having purchased an outfit in 1957, using it sparingly for several years, only once in Colorado and then for the last time in 1969, I never really gave fly fishing a chance.  And yes, I have excuses.  One, most of the places that I fished for bass on had real brushy banks and rolling a cast up under the brush wasn’t the easiest thing for me.  Two, not many folks in Texas were salt water, fly fishermen.  Three, fly fishing from a boat was iffy at best.  And, four, I never became a proficient caster.

But, gearing up for some serious top water, bass fishing, in May of 1957 I used some of my hard earned money and purchased me a fly rod, direct drive, reel and loaded the reel with a floating line.  Adding leader material along with some small poppers with one small hook, decorated with little feathers, I was ready to go after ‘em.

From my reading I knew that the line was cast out and there was no “slinging” out of a plug, so hieing down to a near by school ground for some practice, I flailed the air, finally gaining a slight degree of proficiency.  Being young, it never dawned on me that plenty of room was needed behind the caster and this fact didn’t show itself until after tying on a little, popper and making a failed, back cast.

Ralph Foster, a college buddy, and I drove up to the gravel pits outside of Romayer and seeing some bream beds along the sides of a pit beside the road, I decided to try out my new gear right there.  Attaching a small, yellow popper, I attacked the little fish.   My first cast in anger, resulted in the line and little popper hanging up on a low bush behind me.  Rearranging myself, with no back cast foul up, my second cast was a flopper with all the line “globbing” on the water in front of me.  Amused at my antics, Ralph said, “Jon, you look kinda’ silly with that line all wrapped around you!”  Back to the drawing board!

Finally, after a successfully presented cast, the little popper dropped quietly on to the water.  The rings of the displaced water quieted and with a slight tug on the line that I was holding in my left hand, the small plug twitched once.  Nothing.  Another twitch and the popper was engulfed by a small fish, type unknown.  After a spirited battle I slid the little, hand sized, bream up on to the bank and admired my first catch on a fly rod.  Throwing it back, while adding several more hand sizers, that also went back, I switched plugs, tying on a chartreuse, popper.

My first cast with the “glo” bait was met with a different kind of strike.  This one hit going away, and cleared the water, a keeper bass!  This bass actually pulled line from my left hand and jumped several more times.  It definitely put a bend in my rod, but the rod and pressure of the line were too much and it became too much for the fish.

Adding a big bream, I guessed its weight was a pound and a half, I called it a day.  Catching them on this light stuff was fun, but casting was a problem for me!

Ralph caught four nice, bass while I was fumbling around!

Something was shaking me, maybe them hogs? “Boy, time to go check the lines!” It was my Dad and checking my watch with radium numbers, it was 3:00 AM. Back into the cold water, and it was really cold now, but keeping a stiff upper lip, I said nothing, more growing up.

Pulling up the first line there were firm tugs coming back to us, we had five more cats on the first line, two blues, two yellows and one funny one, my Dad called a high fin blue, but later I found out that it was a channel cat. Baiting up as we went, we found many twisted stages meaning we had lost more cats than we had caught.

The second line, more pulls, had three more cats, all yellows and several twisted stages. It looked like we were loosing more than we caught! We kept the eight we’d caught in my wet toe sack and went back to bed, but my Dad was up with the sun. More shaking, more hogs? No, just my Dad, saying those cold words, “Let’s go check the lines.”

Gasping when the cold water hit me, saying nothing, more growing up, we checked both lines, six more cats, two blues, three yellows and another high fin. Crossing to the other side we rolled up the first line, returning, we checked the second line, took the fish off, walked back across the river and rolled up our second line and set to, cleaning the fish.

Our total for the night was eighteen catfish, which meant some good eatin’ for everyone!
However, I was still suffering chills from the cold water!

Mid spring of 1952 my Dad and I were visiting Marlin, Texas close by the Brazos River. We had come up to sample some of the fine cat fishing that was available just above The Falls. My Uncle Shelly had called and said, “Boys, come on up and let’s go trot linnin’. The cats ‘r here!”

Our camp was on the bluff of the Brazos River, where over a hundred years past one of our ancestors, Buck Barry, had crossed on his way to Austin. This crossing was named “The Falls of the Brazos” because of rocky outcroppings and a fall line that in the 1830’s caused ten foot water falls, but the river changed course and today the falls are only two to three feet. In the old days, this marked the end of steamboat travel up the river. Now there was a low water, concrete drive across the river, which made two falls now and Uncle Shelly owned the land on both sides.

This land was colonized in the early 1830’s and in 1834 Sterling Robertson, one of Stephen F. Austin’s early impresarios, established a town on the west bank of the river, Sarahville De Viesca. The Comanches quickly put an end to this early settlement and in 1845, when Buck Barry had crossed here, again they had just struck the only settler at The Falls, taking off with his wife, daughter and female slaves.

This history’s fine but we’d come up to fish. Seining several of Uncle Shelly’s stock tanks, we caught two bait buckets full of small perch and minnows and headed to The Falls. The water was almost cold and jolted me when we waded out. The spot we’d picked had a good, rock bottom all the way across the river. First off we had to stretch Uncle Shelly’s trot lines across the river and there must have been a fifty, or more, hooks on each of the two lines.

With both lines secured we came back toward our side of the river and began the process of baiting up. My feet were getting cold now but I soldiered on. Holding the bait bucket while my Dad and Uncle Shelly baited up the lines they would put a couple of minnows on the hook then a perch and continued this process back across the river.

All baited up, we retired to our camp, started the fire, it was only ninety degrees right now, and began supper. After eating the stories started and my Dad chipped in with Buck Barry’s story about the Indian raid just before he crossed here. Then, my Dad said, “Let’s go check the lines.”

It was dark and our flashlights helped some, but it was still dark! We eased down into the water and, to me, it was cold, but I said nothing. I guess this was part of growing up. I was carrying the toe sack and bait bucket, more growing up? We pulled up the first line and there was a tug meaning we had a cat on somewhere. We came across a line, a stage, all twisted up and figured we’d lost one on this hook. Soon we came to our first fish, a yellow cat, four pounds and great eatin’. We flopped him into the toe sack I was carrying and soon another, but that was all for the first line. The second line produced two more, one five pounds, another four, all yellows.

Our fire was down when we returned to our camp, but using our flash lights, we cleaned the cats, walked down to the river to wash off and hit the sack (ground).

In May of 1955 I had agreed to play semi pro baseball with a local team and our first game was on a Saturday. Lining a sharp single to right field, I was feeling good about my new team and the prospects for the new season.

By the bottom of the fourth we were up 5-2 and their first batter lined a shot towards our shortstop. Knocking it down, he pounced on it and cut loose his throw. I was playing first base, my normal positions being either left or center field, and at the last moment, the throw rose above my outstretched glove and nicked the end of my middle finger on my right hand, splitting it and knocking the nail off. Ouch!

This put me on the DL for two weeks, but the afternoon of the injury, with a finger stall on my injured digit, I talked my Dad into taking me fishing to the gravel pits outside of Romayer, Texas. He was a pushover whenever anyone said, “Fishing!” Showing him that I could cast and reel OK with my middle finger sticking out we loaded up for the one-hour drive.

Grabbing my rod and reel and my fishing hat, not just a normal fishing hat, I was ready to go. A fishing buddy and I had sewn snaps onto our straw hats and then snapped on our favorite plugs, Piggy Boat spinners, Lucky 13’s and Pico Perches. We believed they were the “coolest” fishing hats in the world.

These gravel pits were spread out over a wide area and my Dad and I walked to the back of them, almost a mile, and began casting. My Dad had caught two keepers and I hadn’t even scratched. All of a sudden, my next cast was greeted with a solid strike, the bass, a nice one of over three pounds, ran a short distance and jumped, and jumped, and jumped, successfully throwing the spinner bait.

Back then I was kinda’ tempery and I grabbed my special fishing hat with the plugs attached and threw it to the ground muttering a few choice words. Then I made a foolish mistake and kicked my hat toward the water, but the hat didn’t sail out into the water because one of the hooks had caught in my Chuck Taylor, tennis shoe lace.

Laughing, my Dad let me stew over my predicament and fifteen minutes later, having had to cut up my Chuck Taylor tennis shoe, lace, I was back fishing. We caught several more bass and even with my injury, enjoyed our outing.

Driving home it crossed my mind that maybe this wasn’t “my day”.

In 1954, May was a good time to drive up to the gravel pits outside of Romayer, Texas, north of Houston. If we left before sun up the drive, in non air conditioned cars, would be pleasant, if we fished ‘till dark, likewise for the drive home. For the record, our first car with A/C was a 1956 Chevy, Bel Air that we purchased in 1958.

This particular spring day, my Dad and I left our house well before sun up and at first light we had already picked out the gravel pit that we would assault. This one was elongated with an irregular shape that reminded us of a hand with four fingers extended.

Enough esoterics, anyway, we started off with yellow Piggy Boats, during the first thirty minutes we only picked up a couple of small bass, but threw them back. For some reason, then my Dad changed lures and attached a white one. His first cast, slipped under a low hanging willow tree, was met with a strike, not the solid head shaking hit of a good bass, but just firm pressure. The fish tugged and made one short run, but soon yielded to the pressure of the rod and drag, laid on its side and my Dad then slid a nice two pound, white perch, crappie, (sac-au-lait for my Cajun friends), on to the bank!

We never took pictures of the white perch we caught and I had to get this one from Wikipedia.

That got my attention and, quickly changing lures, I hurried over beside him. He had already strung the first one and had cast back out and was into another that turned out to be a mirror image of the first. My cast was met with a strike and I reeled another white perch in. This was repeated until we had strung ten of the beauties, beauties to catch and beauties to eat!

The white perch stopped hitting so my Dad walked around to the next finger of the pit and I moved to the one past him. More small bass, no keepers, but I heard Daddy yell, “Son of a gun!” and as I ran around to him, my first thought was Snake, but as I cleared the point I saw him locked in a struggle with a good sized, alligator gar.

The gar, at least a three footer, was jump, jump, jumping, frothing the water. It then tried to spool him, made one last jump and the white, Piggy Boat pulled free, (thank goodness). Daddy said that the gar hit right as he was taking the lure out of the water, it scared him sufficiently to cause him to yell out and then the fight was on!

It took ten years for us to encounter another alligator gar and thank goodness again, we had long nose pliers!

This past week, I’ve talked with two people who have read “[The End Of The Line”] and both had positive things to say about it.

First was R.C. Edmundson, a retired ag. teacher and girls basketball coach who said, “It was a good read and I liked it.” Asking R.C. to send me an e-mail with his synopsis of the book, he told me that he’d given up e-mailing. End of review!

The second comment was from Karen Steelgrave, a second cousin, a retired teacher and school counselor. She did send me an e-mail and a portion of it follows:

“Received your book in the mail today. Didn’t put it down until I finished it. I really enjoyed the stories and the pictures.”

I’m glad that these two enjoyed the book and let me know what they thought about it.

(I must be getting liberal because it makes me “feel good” too!)

In 1957 there was an ice house in Perry, Texas that was, at that time, the home of the cheapest gasoline in our part of the State. I’m talking about $.18 or $.19 per gallon, when all the other stations in central Texas were selling it at $.25 per. The proprietor of this establishment was a man called Zippo. No other name, just Zippo.

My Dad, John H. Bryan, had, as is said, never met a stranger and accordingly he and Zippo became fast friends. They were such friends that Zippo told my Dad that he could go fishing in his small lake, approximately one acre. The lake was located on a dirt road, just over the railroad tracks, across Highway 6, from Zippo’s place. There was one stipulation my Dad could only keep one bass!

Being hard at work in college, I couldn’t make the mid May trip up to Marlin and I especially missed going to Zippo’s little lake. Our technique of fishing small lakes and stock tanks was to begin walking around the edges casting our trusty, yellow “Piggy Boat” spinners. Then we would wade out until the water was belt deep and cast back toward the shore using Lucky 13’s. During the heat of the day we would switch to Pico Perch’s, an early plastic, swimming minnow type plug.

My Dad started off the Lake Zippo epic by walking around and casting his yellow spinner toward “bassy” looking spots. His first cast produced a three-pound, bass! Now he faced a dilemma, stop with this one or try for a bigger one? He released the first bass, kept fishing, the bass kept hitting and he kept releasing.

Finally, having caught a dozen or more, his dilemma was solved when the bass, pictured, a five, plus pounder hit his spinner bait, jumped four times and was finally slid up on to the bank. He kept this one. Calling it a day, he stopped by Zippo’s, showed him the fish, filled up his gas tank with the cheap gas and drove back to Marlin, where before filleting the fish, my Aunt Lil took this picture.

Shortly after this, Zippo, closed his operation and either died or moved away and we lost contact with him. Every time we would pass through Perry, my Dad would comment about the little lake and the nice bass he caught the one time that he fished it!

Day was just breaking as Jim Buck and I rounded the end of Galveston’s South Jetty and headed toward our favorite fishing spot. We knew that with the lack of wind, the gently rolling Gulf of Mexico and the clear green water that we would hammer the speckled trout this morning!

We eased up towards the rocks, Jim slid the anchor into the water, and right away, we knew that we were in trouble. The anchor line dropped straight down, the boat didn’t swing around into the current because there wasn’t any current. There was no water movement, just the slight breeze blowing into our faces off of the rocks. No water movement meant no speckled trout movement. Looks like the tide charts were off a little!

We decided to make the best of this bad situation and cast our live shrimp back toward the rocks. We were using our standard jetty rigs; six and a half foot popping rods, red, Ambasseduer reels, loaded with fifteen-pound line, with BB weights clipped twelve inches above a small, treble hook.

As our shrimp swam and bumped along the rocks, both of us had solid strikes! Surprised, we set the hooks and held on as the fish ran along the jetties, no rolls or boat circling like big specs, just a dogged pull. Soon, both of us saw Jim’s fish, a big, sheepshead that we netted. Then, netting mine, a duplicate of Jim’s, I muttered to him, “Any port in a storm”, and we baited up and cast out again.

Sheepshead, Archosargus probatocephalus, when properly cleaned and prepared, are fine tablefare. They are found around rocks and pilings from the mid Atlantic to the Texas coast.

Within two hours we had filled up our eighty-eight quart, cooler with two to three pound, sheepshead and headed back on into the yacht basin. No specs today but we decided that since I had just obtained a commercial fishing license, we would sell these fish. The local commercial fishing house on the harbor paid me $39.00, around $.40 per pound for this catch.

It was still early, the tide was just starting to move, so we re-shrimped and headed back out to the south jetty to have a go at the specs.