Before the “troll of the damn” ran us off Jake Schroder and I had some really good fishing on Lake Pleasant, then, in 1972 a 20 minute drive north of Phoenix on I-17, now, if you catch the traffic right, maybe 40 minutes. Jake had an original Skeeter Bass Boat with a flat bottom and stick steering that we’d put in at the State ramp, then head straight for the dam and try to fish inside the restraining cables.

The dam had a watchman, or the “troll of the damn” as we called him. We never met him, but almost became friends, because he ran us off from inside the restraining cables so many times. He must not have been a fisherman.

Until the troll would run us off, we would cast up on the dam and bounce our special multiple jigs back down its side, awaiting a strike from a white bass. White bass in Arizona you say? Yes, years before, Texas had traded millions of white bass fingerlings to Arizona for a large number of Rio Grande turkeys. Texas repopulated the state with the birds and Arizona created a great fishery for white bass in Lake Pleasant.

This particular trip was on a beautiful desert morning, clear, with no wind. As we got closer to the damn, I asked Jake, “You see the troll,” “No troll in sight,” he replied, so under the restraining cable we went. For a while, we were the only ones fishing around the damn and after several casts I had a strike with some weight behind it. Must be a catfish I thought. Then it made a nice run, more like a red fish, swirled at the surface of the water and took off again. Soon we lipped it and swung into the boat, the biggest white bass ever, maybe. We estimated it was 7 pounds or more. What a fish! Onto the stringer it went, and back to casting.

Catching one more fish, much smaller, out came the troll. “You boys get behind the restraining line, OK.” His first warning was always nice. We waved to him and kept fishing. “Behind the restraining line!”, more firm. We waved and kept fishing. He was beginning to annoy us. “Move that blankety-blank boat or I’m going to give you a blankety-blank ticket”.

It was time to leave, so we started up and headed away and noticed a fisherman in a boat right up to the restraining line, laughing at our encounter with the troll. He said, “I saw you caught a nice one, let me see it.” We showed him and said we thought it would weigh 7 pounds or more. “Real nice,” he said as we motored off. We took both fish home and had a fish fry.

Several months later I got a call from Jake and he said, “You remember that big white bass you caught out at ‘Unpleasant’,” our new name for the lake. I said’ “Sure do, it fried up real good!” He went on to tell me that the fisherman we showed the fish to was an outdoor writer for the local newspaper, and of all things, he wrote and was published in a national outdoor magazine, an article about the white bass fishing in Lake Pleasant, and most embarrassing, about the 2 Texas boys who caught a monster white bass, easily a new state record, didn’t register it with the state, but like all good meat fishermen, took it home and ate it.

Don’t ever forget that if records interest you, most times the state will keep the fish, and you can’t eat it

The second installment follows about the night spent trotlinin’ and the rest of the night spent wading the cold (to me) Brazos River.

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

Shelly pulled up the first line there was a firm tug coming back to him. It turned out that we had 5 more cats on the first line, 2 blues, 2 yellows and a funny one, 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 toe sack was almost getting heavy and we had another line to run, lots of good eating though!

Dad ran the second line and more pulls. It had 3 more cats, all yellows, along with several more twisted stages. To me, it looked like we were loosing more fish than we were catching! We kept the 8 we’d caught in my wet toe sack and went back to bed, but 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 the first line and it had 6 more cats, 2 blues, 3 yellows and another high fin. Crossing to the other side we rolled up the first line, returning, we checked the second line, no fish but probably 10 twisted stages, Dad and Uncle Shelly both said that we needed bigger hooks on the stages. We walked back across the river and rolled up our second line and set to, cleaning the fish. This was kinda’ like work, cleaning the fish, walking back and forth across the cold river, but it was worth it!

Our total for the night was 18 catfish, which meant some good eatin’ for everyone! However, I was still suffering chills from the cold water!

This is the first part of a 2 part story about an all night trot lining adventure my dad and I went on in 1952. In mid spring, Uncle Shelly, Shelton Gafford, a very well to do land owner in Falls County, Texas, called us and said, “Boys, come on up and let’s go trot linin’. The river is full of cats!”

We camped on the bluff of the Brazos River, where over a 100, years before 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 10 foot water falls, but the river changed course and today the falls are only 2 to 3 feet. In the old days, this marked the end of steamboat travel up the river and today there is a low water, concrete drive across it, which makes 2, 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 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 2 buckets full of small perch and minnows and headed to The Falls. The water was almost cold and jolted me when we waded out and all the way across the river the spot we’d picked had a good, rock bottom. First off we had to stretch Uncle Shelly’s trotlines across the river, over 100 yards wide, and there must have been a 50, or more, hooks on each of the 2 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 90 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, thinking, This was part of growing up! Carrying the toe sack and bait bucket, more growing up I was sure, we pulled up the first line and there was a tug meaning we had a cat on somewhere. We came across, a stage, all twisted up and figured one had pulled off of the hook. Soon we came to our first fish, a yellow cat, 4 pounds and great eatin’. We flopped him into the toe sack and soon bagged another, but that was all for the first line. The second line produced 2 more, one 5 pounds, another 4, all yellows.

Using our flashlights, we cleaned the cats, washed the fish off our hands, walked up the bank and hit the sack, better said, the ground with a sleeping bag under us!

The second part of this story will be on May 16.

Fly-fishing was never my cup of tea! My beginnings with the sport was spotty, I didn’t follow through and become a proficient caster, but 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. Knowing what I know now, I should have saved my money!

Being a self taught fly fisherman, I never really gave it a chance. And yes, I have excuses; most of the places where I fished for bass had real brushy banks and rolling a cast up under the brush wasn’t the easiest thing for me; at the time not many folks in Texas were salt water, fly fishermen; fly fishing from a boat, for me, was iffy at best, and I never became a proficient caster.

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 and fishing 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 (see above paragraph). 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 holding the line in my left hand, with a slight tug on the line, the small plug twitched once. Nothing. Another twitch and the little 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 finally became too much for the fish. Reaching down to lip it, I clipped the almost, 2 pounder to my stringer. Adding a big bream on the “glo” plug, I guessed it weighed 1-1/2 pounds so I called it a day. Catching them on this light stuff was fun, but still, casting was a problem for me!

While I was fumbling around Ralph caught 4 nice, bass!

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. Playing first base, my normal positions were either left or center field, at the last moment, the throw had a tail on it and it rose above my outstretched glove and nicked the end of the middle finger on my right hand, splitting it and knocking the nail off. Ouch!

This put me on the DL for 2 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. We’d been there the weekend before and caught 10 nice white perch and 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, no air conditioner drive.

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

The 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. Dad had caught 2 keepers and I hadn’t even scratched. All of a sudden, my cast was greeted with a solid strike, the bass, a nice one, over 3 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 expletives. 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, but 10 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, and the hat-kicking incident, enjoyed our outing.

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

Before the time of car air conditioners, May was a good time to plan fishing trips, so this particular day in 1955, my dad and I planned a trip up to the gravel pits north of Houston, just outside of Romayer, Texas,.  If we left before sun up the drive in a non air conditioned, car would be pleasant and 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 was purchased in 1958.

This particular spring day, Dad and I left our house well before sun up and at first light we had already picked out the gravel pits that we would assault.  This one was elongated with an irregular shape that reminded us of a hand with 4 fingers extended.

Enough esoterics, anyway, we started off with yellow Piggy Boats and during the first 30 minutes we only picked up a couple of small bass, but threw them back, then for some reason, 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 2 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 10 of the beauties, beauties to catch and beauties to eat!

The white perch stopped hitting so 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 3, footer, was jump, jump, jumping, frothing the water.  It then tried to spool him, made one last jump and the white, Piggy Boat, thank goodness, pulled free. Daddy said that the gar hit right as he was taking the lure out of the water and scared him sufficiently to cause him to yell out, then the fight was on!

It took 10 years for us to encounter another alligator gar and thank goodness again we had some long nose pliers along with us!

One Sunday afternoon in late April of 1970, we were down at our beach house in Jamaica Beach, on the west end of Galveston Island, and, Norman Shelter and I decided to take a run out to the Galveston Jetties to try and hook up with some white, sea trout or sand trout, Cynoscion arenarius. These are fine eating fish, but because of their soft texture they are difficult to freeze. The best way to try and keep them for any length of time is to freeze them in water and be sure to squeeze the air out.

With a light wind out of the southeast and big, 10, foot swells rolling over both the north and south jetties, it was a strange day and I had never seen anything remotely resembling it before. Both jetties served their purpose well and broke the big swells, but as Norman and I rounded the end of the north jetty, it was gut check time. We should have gone through the boat cut in the north jetty, but decided that the shortest way to the fish was to go around the end. So, at an angle, I raced up the side of 2 big swells got my timing, then sped down the front of the next one and, just like that, we were safely into the calm water.

Anchoring up, we bated our lines with fresh, dead shrimp and cast back toward the rocks. We were fishing on the bottom, right among the rocks, about 35 feet down, with 6-1/2 foot, popping rods, red, Ambassaduer reels, loaded with 15 pound line. Both of our casts were met with solid strikes and after short battles, we boated a couple of nice, sand trout, 2 pounders. Good fish, since the bigger ones like this were usually caught miles, off shore. Both fish had a mouth full of small teeth, no spots like speckled trout and a pretty, a bluish hue covering their heads.

This was repeated over and over until out 88, quart cooler was full of fish (and ice). Then, Norman said the famous last words, “I’ll just make one more cast.” He cast out toward the open gulf, the bait had no more hit the water and he was greeted with a savage, strike! The fury of the strike identified the fish, hurling the king mackerel 10 feet or more out of the water then the king ran, stopped, but on the light tackle, began another run! Rasslin’ with the anchor, it finally pulled loose and I started the motor. As I came about, the king, a nice one, 40 pounds or more, spooled Norman, hit the end of the line and the line gave a popping sound as it separated from the reel.

Since our cooler was full and our anchor was up, we decided to go on back in, we headed back to the yacht basin to take the boat out, but this time we smartly chose to use the boat cut! Anyway, we didn’t have room for the kingfish!

“Walkin’ the dog” is the term used for a specific type of fishing lure retrieval – twitch the rod tip and then reel one turn of the reel handle, then twitch and reel, twitch and reel, for the entire retrieve. The lure is moved along slowly, twitching to each side, resembling a small, injured fish.  My dad taught me this long ago and it is still a most favored retrieve for almost all types of fishing!

This was the technique used by my dad and our neighbor and fishing partner, Dub Middleton the past weekend when they had caught and released 2 big tarpon, probably 75 to 80 pounders!  Both fish were caught on red and white Zara Spooks, wooden, top water plugs “walked” past schools of surfacing, rolling fish.

One more point, these monster fish were caught on light, split Calcutta, cane, popping rods and Shakespeare Criterion reels, loaded with 15 or 17 pound, braided line. On the left is Dad’s old, circa 1933, reel with the original braided line still on it! The reel had no drag system, but to control the fish pressure was applied by using the angler’s thumb and among fishermen, blisters were common!

The next weekend, in the spring of 1953, was my first encounter with a tarpon.  Dad took Bobby Baldwin, and me to fish for them near the mouth of the New River, near Freeport, Texas. The New River channel of the Brazos was manmade to create a safe harbor for Freeport. What this created was a 5, mile long fish haven, frequented by tarpon in the spring prior to their beach runs of the summer.

Right after sun up we arrived at the fishing spot, then walked about 100 yards to the river’s bank. The walk, smells and all, seemed like a walk through a garbage dump!  The area was littered with the remains of tarpon, the big fish scattered about in various stages of decomposition.  Back then, I knew that tarpon weren’t a food fish and common sense said they should be returned live to the water, but these fish were caught, killed, I’m sure pictures were taken, smiles and all, and then simply left to rot. What a waste of a fine fishing resource!

After passing through the stench of rotting fish, we started fishing, casting to rolling schools of tarpon. They were everywhere along the river and, up and down you could hear folks holler when a fish was hooked. Being teenagers, we watched the show and then my dad, under his breath, let out a “Hmmpf”, his rod bowed and a silvery/green tarpon cleared the water, then haded upstream toward Rosenberg! “Did you see that? Wow”, we shouted as Dad fought the fish and all at once, the hook pulled out, leaving my dad with a sore thumb!

By the early 1960’s the tarpon had left New River. I’m sure useless killing of fish played a role in their disappearance, but the main culprit, thought by most fisherman, were the huge chemical complexes sprouting up around Freeport.

I have my Dad’s scarred up, Zara Spook in a picture box display, along with all of his fishing plugs. The old plug must be almost 90 years old!  No more tarpon that day and not another one until 1998.

When we lived in Georgia, Lake Lanier was about 25 miles north of my home in Lost Forest, in Fulton County and offered some very good bass fishing. Sometimes I would take my 12 foot aluminum, boat and fish around the edges, always staying within electric motor range of the launch spot and other times I would go with a friend, Phil, who had a luxury, bass boat.

Phil, red headed with a temper to match, worked for me and in the fall helped me coach a Georgia Youth Football team, plus in college, had played middle linebacker for Auburn. He told me an interesting story about when he took his official visit to Alabama and met with the legendary coach, Bear Bryant. The Bear told him flat off, “Son, you’re just too small to play for me!” Phil played at 200 pounds and was 6 foot tall. He went on to Auburn and played against Alabama 3 times, winning 2 of the games. Phil was a tough guy!

During a stretch of unusually warm weather early in March, this particular morning, the sun was just peeking over the horizon, when Phil and I pulled up to a launch ramp, near Cumming and we were first in line behind a couple of fat guys that were trying to manually launch an old fiberglass boat. We got out of the truck, started to load our gear into our boat, but couldn’t keep our eyes off of those 2 guys trying to manhandle this old boat.

Walking over to them, I courteously asked the one nearest me, who was knee deep in the lake, if they needed any help and his reply, to say the least shocked me, “Hell no, we don’t need any “beep-beep” help and I’ll whip you’re “beep” if you don’t leave us alone”, he must have taken me for easy pickins’!

Taking this as a threat, I advanced on my adversary, but with the speed of a Southeast Conference linebacker, Phil jumped between us and I knew that the fight was on. One look at Phil, red hair and red face, was all it took for Junior Samples, of Hee Haw fame, ‘ole BR-549, to back up and mumble an apology. Quickly saying, “We’ll get out of your way and you fellas’ can get launched.” All the while, his buddy, also in knee deep water, was standing, slack jawed, on the other side of the boat and trailer.

With their help, we launched and went on our way fishing. For the morning we caught 2 nice bass, 5 pounders, but when we came back to the launch ramp, ‘ole BR-549 and his buddy were gone. We both laughed when we discussed the next day’s possible newspaper headline, “Business Executives Fight With Prominent Entertainer Over Boat Launching Rights!”

The 2 things about this incident that I remember most were, one, we were never properly introduced and two, he really was missing both front teeth.

Seeing the big bass guarding it’s nest, I figured there would be no catching her, so just for practice, I flipped the motor oil colored, 6 inch worm just passed the nest.  Slowly dragging the worm over the nest, the big bass gently picked it up and deposited it outside.   Trying the same cast again, but letting it sit a little longer, I drug the worm over the nest, the bass picked it up and I set the hook, gotcha’ now!

This fish was, to say the least, angry, angry at being hooked and not guarding the nest, but no way it could have known that I’d return it back to the pond and then it could go back to standing watch.  The neat thing about all of this, the water was crystal clear and the bass fighting on the surface, gave me an added show!  Two jumps, some short runs and several wallows later, I reached down and lipped the beauty.  She’d obviously just spawned and her tail was scared from fanning out the nest, so I “guesstimated” her weight at 8 pounds, removed the hook and returned her to the water.  Of course, no pictures!

Randy and I were fishing the day this happened in March of 1981 and he’d recently received permission to fish in the small pond, about 1/4th acre, with the stipulation that all bass would be returned to the water!  Overlooking the pond was an A frame cabin, hence we called the place “A Frame”.  Interesting to note was the exceptionally clear water, especially for around Metro Houston and the pond was only about 3 miles by car from our house.

A year later Randy and his girl friend, Shellie were fishing at the “A Frame” and he hooked into a real nice bass.  Before he returned the bass to the water, Shellie took this picture of Randy holding up his prize, looks like she hadn’t spawned and she’s well over 8 pounds!

Could this be the same one that I’d caught the year before, because I don’t think the pond would be big enough for two bass this size?  Maybe this is a case of double jeopardy, almost!