My Brother, Harvey had married into an old Texas family that had extensive oil and gas holdings east of Houston. They also had a beach house right next to Crawley’s Bait Camp, on the northwest shore of Trinity Bay. Trinity Bay is part of the Galveston Bay system, and as far as I know, Crawley’s, where I have bought bait many times, still exists today.

Harvey and his Wife had invited my Mom, Dad and me to come down for a weekend during the summer of 1942, for some relaxation, sight seeing and fishing. I heard the magic word ‘fishing‘ and was the first one packed. Harvey used this visit totell us that he was joining the Navy and would be off for basic training and WW II, soon.

There was a long pier jutting out into the bay and on the left side was a boat lift, with a 12’ row boat, swinging in the straps. We started out at sun up, walked down the pier and loaded the boat with 2, called on the Texas Gulf Coast, 5 ½’ Calcutta, popping rods with 2 Shakespeare Criterion reels, loaded with braided line. For me, there was a 6’ cane pole with a hook, weight and bobber.

We rowed over to Crawley’s and bought a quart of shrimp for $1.00, it is $13.00 to $15.00 now, and with me in the middle next to my Brother, and my Dad in the back, Harvey rowed us out about a half mile and tested the bottom with a long push pole, found Beazley’s Reef .

Baiting up, my Dad baited the first shrimp for me, as I watched, both men cast out and both were soon rewarded with 2 solid hits and reeled in 2 nice, shiny, Speckled Trout. The prettiest fish I had ever seen and my life long, love affair with them began on the spot!

While I watched my bobber bobbing, both men caught several more Specks, then suddenly, no bobber bobbing and something was trying to pull the pole from my hands. Rearing back, up comes up a toothy mouth and a wiggling, splashing 12” Speck.

Grabbing the slippery Speck and taking it off the hook, I admired the Fish and I was “hooked” for life!

Some interesting notes about the area where we lived in Georgia, Sandy Springs (finally incorporated in 2007), was bordered on the west by the Chattahoochee River and we lived a mile up Soap Creek, where a large Civil War battle, in which two of my G Grandfathers participated, was fought where the river and creek joined.

We lived on Mark Trail Street in the Lost Forest subdivision. The subdivision land was previously owned by the creator of the “Mark Trail”’ comic strip. This strip was popular in the 1940’s and 50’s. There were about 30 houses built around the “hollow”, in Texas called a “draw”, and except for the ice storms, was a great place to live.

It was natural with the nearness of the river and my 12 foot aluminum boat, that we made several float trips a year down it. We would launch the boat at any number of places above Roswell Road, then float for several miles down to the I-285, North, bridge, and take out there.

One trip stands out. We, Benny Evans, a coworker and fellow Texan, and I put in way up the river, close to the gun club and made about a 6 mile, drift down to 285. We would drift the middle, drift around the eddies and drift along the banks, casting to the numerous “falls”, trees down in the water. We would drift, then electric motor back over promising spots, trying to keep our baits, Mepps #2, Spinners, in the water as much as possible.

Pictured is my Mepps #2 Spinner, the survivor of the float down the river. This bait is over 40 years old and remains poison for pan fish and fresh water Trout.

We avoided all the “tubers” and ended the day with a mixed, mess of small fish. The 4 Largemouth Bass were 12 to 15”; the one Smallmouth Bass 12”, one 12” Rainbow Trout, 2, 14” Pike, or Chain Pickerel, returned to the water because of excessive bones, 4 hand size Bluegills, topped off by 1, 15”Channel Catfish! We probably caught over 50 fish and had twice that number of strikes. By far the best day I enjoyed on the river!

In the late spring Georgia Tech held its annual, “Ramblin’ Raft Race”, a true civic highlight. The future engineers at the school would design the most motley collection of floating “things” imaginable. Prizes were awarded, classes cut, beer flowed and a grand time was had by all! I’m sure, by now, the “Friends Of Wildlife”, “The Green Movement” and “The Nature Conservancy” have put a stop to all of this fun!

Tubing was a family sport, and from May until September, the river was crowded with all sizes of tubes and people. For me, I thought besides getting sun burned, tubing was a serious waste of fishing time.

On this past Monday, one of my friends, Ted Red, left, invited me to go fishing with him. He lives along the San Saba River, 18 miles south of my ranch. I readily accepted and was treated to a real surprise.

The San Saba River originates west of Menard, Texas and flows east, through some rugged western and west central Texas landscape, to where it meets the Colorado River.

It flows through the town of San Saba and is fueled by the mighty spring in that town. Since its discovery in the early 1700’s, this spring pours out 6 to 8,000,000 gallons of water daily! We fished just below where it enters the river, just upstream from the small rapids and the setting is almost tropical, except for the Rattlers!

The river has been deeply involved in Texas history, exploration and Indian fighting. During the Spanish period, 1650-1800, there was a big Indian raid, killing all the inhabitants of an early Spanish mission and my 3G Uncle, Buck Barry, even had a good “scrape” along it during the 1860’s. History aside, it also offers excellent fishing!

Ted and I didn’t score on any of the big Catfish that the river is locally famous for, but we enjoyed several hours of steady action on the bream, small channel cats, and one, keeper size gaspergou, or freshwater drum.

The “gou” that I caught wasn’t huge, this past weekend in Lake Austin, that flows through our capital, a fisherman caught a 22.5 pound monster, but mine was keeper size and was thrown back to grow into a monster!

The next time we fish the river, we’re going to take along a heavy rod, keep the little bream, use them for live catfish bait and catch us some of the big “cats” the river is famous for!

Part 2 of the story tells of our successful fishing trip that had a very unusual ending.
My Daughter, suzanne, the heroine of this story, hold up a very, small catfish. This little fish holds second place in our family’s “Smallest Fish Contest”. Our Uncle Gus hold down first.

Young Lady, Just Who Are those Men

Because of the late hour, we launched at the Galveston Yacht Basin, rather than making the ten mile trip from Bayou vista, by water. In and out launching was $3.00 and gasoline was still less than $1.00 per gallon.

The weather still looked a little “iffy” so we decided to buy some shrimp and fish around the Pelican Island Flats, near the old, sunken concrete ship, a good spot for spring time Specs. We drifted for about forty-five minutes catching a few small Specs and the tide started out, and of all things, the wind laid. I told my crew, “Get your lines in, we’re going to the Gulf side of the South Jetty.”

Seven-miles out, there’s no wind blowing as we rounded the end of the jetty and headed for my favorite spot, and since the tide was going out, the water on the Gulf side was moving toward the beach. As we anchored I noticed small fish hanging close to the rocks. A real good sign!
Changing from “regulation” popping corks used when we were drifting, to a split shot ten inches above a small hook, we baited up and cast toward the rocks. 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. Catch the conditions right at this spot and it always paid off.

We had been fishing for about an hour and had five nice Red Fish and two Trout, when I heard a “Hmmpf” from Suzanne and saw her rod nearly bend double. A big Red and he is moving down the rocks to our right, out to sea, as Suz holds her rod up high and hangs on. Soon we boat a very nice twenty-eight inch, Red, that she fought perfectly.

For a day that started as a washout, we now had nice mess of fish, Spanish Mackerel, Red Fish, Trout and a couple of big Sheepshead. Our big cooler was close to one half full of fish, so as the tide changed, we headed back to the Yacht Basin. We were four 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 and 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.” “Hmmpf, they’re gross!” the well to do lady said, as she turned and scurried 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 graduate of Texas A & M University.

Baptist Men’s Fellowship may seem to be a funny name for a fishing story, but, yesterday afternoon, Warren Blesh, owner of RRR Ranch, and a past contributor to this blog, hosted a fishing outing at his ranch for Goldthwaite’s First Baptist Church’s, men’s fellowship. He said, “My little lake needs some thinning out. There’s too many Bass in it!” Fifteen fishermen showed up and fished for 3-1/2 hours and “thinned” 60 pounds of Bass out of the little lake!

My first cast, with my trusty Piggy Boat, netted a hard strike and thrown hook. But cast number 3 resulted in this fat 1-1/2 pounder. The Piggy Boat is still in the Bass’ mouth!

Warren weighs in our catch. Sixty Pounds!

Warren and one of the fishermen, tie into a wonderful supper of bar-b-qued chicken, Elgin, Texas sausage, beans, potato salad, trimmings, roasted jalapenos and sweet tea. A note here, sausage from Elgin are the very best our State offers!

Relaxing on the porch, the last eager eater is finishing up, while the tall tales are just beginning.

We had a wonderful day for our fellowship, sunny with a light wind, good fishing and great food prepared by Chef Warren!

Praise the Lord!

“Dave, I’m hung up” I exclaimed. Dave Miller stopped the slow troll to try and recover the new white Bomber, deep running, bass plug, that had cost $1.29, from the bottom of Lake Houston. My Dad said, “Damn boy, are you fouled up already!”

We, my Dad, Dave Miller, a close friend and one of our neighbors in West University, had just begun trolling for some of the “big” bass in the three year old Lake Houston. This was before the time of electric trolling motors! Then, mid March of 1953, the lake was over twenty miles northeast of Houston. This was before the time the city surrounded it, years later, by annexing Kingwood on the north and Atascocita on the south.

As the boat coasted to a stop, something strange happened, the log that I had hooked up with sped to the surface and cleared the water, revealing a beautiful, large bass. Being seventeen at the time, I began to receive serious coaching from Dave and my Dad, each offering suggestions as to the best way to get the “monster” in the boat.
After several more jumps we netted the fish. It was also before the time of grabbing the bass’s lip. Fumbling in his tackle box, my Dad found a hand held scale, one of the new Zebco models. Hooking it into the bass’s lip, we found that the fish weighed four pounds and twelve ounces.

My first big bass!

Wow! Into the metal ice chest it went. This was also before the time of fiberglass coolers. We continued fishing for another hour, catching several small, keepers and into the metal chest they went too.

Leaving Lake Houston, it was over an hour’s drive to our southwest Houston home. Arriving, neighbors and friends were called and invited over to see “the catch”, a new record for me. This was well before the time of cell phones.

My emotions ran high! I was pleased, excited and, to say the least, hooked on fishing for life. Pictures were taken, before the time of digital cameras too, congratulations given and accepted and the fish was then scaled, gutted and cut up for dinner the next night.

Just remember, all of this took place before the time we lipped a bass; before the time we released any bass caught, before the time I had learned to fillet a fish, before the time of freeways in Houston, before the time of cell phones and before the time of fiberglass coolers.. So many changes, to numerous to mention, but the thrill of catching “the big bass” was huge at the time and still remains!