“Dub, I’m hung up” I exclaimed, as Dub Middleton cut back the throttle on the 40 HP motor, no trolling motors back then, as Dub put the big motor into reverse.  Backing up, we stopped the slow troll, but before we could free up my brand new, white Bomber, a deep running, bass plug that had cost me a whopping (at the time) $1.49, the plug and a big looking bass rolled on the surface.

We, my dad, Dub Middleton, a close friend and one of our neighbors in West University, and I had just begun trolling for some of the big bass in the 3 year old Lake Houston. At the time, in the early spring of 1953, the lake was over twenty miles northeast of Houston. Now it’s in the city limits surrounded by the subdivisions of Kingwood on the north and Atascocita on the south.

As the boat coasted to a stop, the big bass cleared the water for the first time, revealing a truly, excellent fish.  Being 17 at the time, I began to receive serious coaching from Dave and Dad, each offering suggestions as to the best way to get the big ‘un into the boat.

After several more jumps and a couple of 10 yard runs, we netted the bass, grabbing the bass’s lip was unheard of back then. Fumbling in his tackle box, my dad found a hand held scale, one of the new Zebco models that he hooked on to the bass’s lip, a 4 pound 12 ounce beauty!   Wow! Into the metal ice chest it went, this was several years before Igloo coolers were developed. We continued fishing, for another hour catching several small, keepers and into the metal cooler they went too.

We loaded up the boat, left Lake Houston for the back then over an hour’s drive to southwest Houston and our homes in West University. Arriving home neighbors and friends were called and invited over to see the catch, a new record fish for me. I was pleased, excited and, to say the least, hooked on fishing for life. Pictures were taken, congratulations given and accepted and then all the fish were then scaled, gutted and cut up for dinner the next night, this was way before I learned to filet fish.

Remember, all of this was before the time we lipped the bass to bring him in the boat. Before the time we released any bass caught; before the time of Florida strain bass in Texas; before the time we had learned to fillet a fish, before the time of digital cameras to record the catch, before the time of freeways in Houston, before the time of cell phones to alert everyone of the return of the fishermen. So many changes, to numerous to mention, but the thrill of catching a big bass still remains!

However, even with all the freeways, Lake Houston to West University is still over an hours drive.

Late October, back when I was without a deer lease, it was an Indian summer day, a four tide day with light wind to boot, unusual for a weekend, especially Saturday, because generally, it’ll blow hardest then! Having passed on an offshore trip with Dewey and Bob, the college football games were not very interesting, so I decided that I’d drive down to Bayou Vista, launch my 13 foot Whaler and see if there were any birds working in the bay.

Calling Mack Mitchell, he said he’d love to give it a shot, so I drove by and picked him up. On the way down I told him we’d be using artificial only on this trip, mostly jigs, but I wanted to try out a fresh water bait, a plastic worm. For the past couple of weeks, I’d been kicking the idea around and had decided to attach a 6 inch worm to a ¼ ounce jig head, this would not be too much weight, anyway I’d be using light casting gear with a 7 foot rod, so with the wind, I could cast it a “mile”. Mack opted for a bigger jig head to go along with his traditional trout outfit.

This was back before I had a boat stall behind my house so we went and launched at Dewey’s on Tiki Island and everyone believed that just by happenstance, this was the best launch ramp on the Texas coast! We launched the boat and without further ado, parked the car and sped off to the 6, foot water around the wrecked shrimp boat. This was a trout haven, all the way to Green’s Cut and the best starting place to look for fish.

Motoring slowly down the old Intercoastal Waterway we spied birds circling and diving on what probably was speckled trout feeding on shrimp. The specs drive the shrimp to the surface, the birds spy the tell tale dimples on the water made by the shrimp evading the fish and the birds then dive on and secure the hapless shrimp, classic food chain stuff! We both cast into the melee, me with my 6, inch plastic worm and Mack with his Tout Tail, connecting with 2 solid strikes, looks like my freshwater rig works OK. It didn’t work OK because my fish threw the hook, so I reeled in and netted his fish, a solid 2 pounder. This late in the year the specs have all summer to gorge and grow so this wasn’t a 10 or 12 incher of the summer, but a full grown fish.

Because of the commotion we made the birds had left, but I assured Mack the fish would still be there and casting back out, we both were rewarded with 2 solid strikes. Netting both fish, more 2 pounders, we cast back out and nothing. Staying in this area for 10 more minutes, the fish had left, so we resumed our motoring down the bay.

Another bird school, 4 more specs fell to our offerings and we motored on, looks like my freshwater rig works OK on specs. We found one more bird school and picked up a single trout and then, once the tide changed, the fish stopped feeding, hence, no bird activity, so we headed back to Dewey’s.

The offshore trip had ended, the fishermen were sitting out in Dewey’s back yard, Bob, Dewey and their wives and another couple unknown to me. Adult beverages were offered to Mack and I, we declined and set to cleaning our specs, no offer of help was made so we finished and iced down the filets and bid adieu to the partiers.

Mack, an Elder in his church, chuckled that it looked like they were having fun, but I told him, “We had fun too, much better fun and we even caught some fish!”

Dove hunting season had started on September 1st, duck season would kick off late next month and with nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon, Bobby Baldwin and I were headed down to Galveston for some fishing.  As high schoolers, our spare time, when not involved with girls, athletics, hunting or studying (ugh) was spent fishing and most of the time this was around the Galveston’s South Jetty, either walking the slippery rocks or wading along the Gulf or channel side.

Today we were wading along the channel side of the South Jetty, casting into a small gut at the base of the rocks.  Bobby had a backlash and as he was removing it, his Dixie Jet spoon with a yellow buck tail attached, floated down to the sandy bottom.  One of my old Dixie Jets with a yellow buck tail is pictured.

Removing the snarl Bobby began retrieving the excess line and when his line came tight, he grumbled, “I must be snagged on the rocks,” just as his line headed east for deep water, he was into a nice fish, what kind, we didn’t know.

After a short, spirited fight a big flounder, 2 or 3 pounds, was on the surface.  Of course we didn’t have a landing net. That would have been too easy!  So Bobby tried to grab the flounder across its back like a spec.  It was more like pinching the fish since a flounder doesn’t have the width or “grabbing” surface that a trout has.  When grabbed, the fish flopped away, the hook came loose and the flounder headed for the bottom.

Sensing something, we cast our spoons toward the rocks, let them settle to the bottom, slowly retrieved them and for the next hour had some terrific fishing, not catching, but fishing!  Like my dad always said “If you caught fish every time you went out, it would be called catchin’ not fishin’!”  Without a net trying to grab one was next to impossible.  We tried hugging them to our chest and they just squirted up, away from us, trying to use both hands proved fruitless and no matter how hard we tried, they proved to be ungrabable too.  Anyway we had fun hooking them and trying to “capture” one.  We probably hooked 25 or 30 and landed zero!

The tide changed and the fish quit hitting and as we were wading out a man fishing from the rocks yelled to us, “Boys, that was a great show, and it was free!”  Being well brought up and taught to respect our elders, we said nothing and dejectedly walked back to our car.

During the spring of 1970, drifting around Greens Cut in Galveston West Bay, I caught, at the time, a personal record, 29, inch, 7-1/4 pound, speckled trout.  In the late fall of 1991, just before deer and quail season opener, I tied, or maybe surpassed this feat.

We wouldn’t be deer hunting that year because our rancher had hired a ramrod for his ranch who would be using the house that we’d used for the past 10 years. The end result of the rancher’s decision and my frustration was that on opening day of quail season, I didn’t have a place to hunt.  Solving the problem was easy I’d just go fishing!

The last weekend in October, the quail opener, just after sun up, found my son, Randy, his friend, Doug and I drifting toward a shell island in Jones Lake, with a light wind blowing from the north and the tide, that just changed, was rushing in.   This morning’s tide wouldn’t be high until well past mid morning and as Randy spotted a shrimp hopping on the top of the water, he looped a cast, a shrimp under a weighted popping cork and was rewarded with a solid strike, a nice spec’ and the fight was on.

Many times, foraging fish will drive shrimp to the surface, causing the shrimp to hop around trying to escape the hungry predators.  When sea gulls, always on the lookout for an easy meal, spot these tell tale dimples in the water they rush over to inhale the hapless shrimp.  A well placed, cast usually results in a savage strike from a spec’ or a red.

Randy’s fish was netted and put in the cooler and Doug and I, both with fish on, soon boxed our own specs’. The action slowed and we moved out into the lake to start a new drift and about 200 yards ahead Randy spotted 3 gulls circling what must be fish ‘on’ shrimp and a closer inspection showed 2 birds floating on the water, another sure sign of fish.

Cutting back the throttle, we eased toward the birds and Randy and Doug let go with two long casts and started vigorously popping and retrieving their baits, and bam, bam, two hard hits.  Under these birds there was a nice school of specs’ and for the next few minutes we thinned their numbers.  The fast and furious action ended and admiring our almost full cooler we decided we’d try one more spot and maybe pick up a couple of reds.

Easing several hundred yards towards a channel marker, we started our drift over a hard shell bottom.  If a red or a trout were around, the shrimp couldn’t burrow in the mud and would be inhaled by the predators.  Casting toward the channel marker, and only keeping my line tight, I let my rig sit for several minutes and didn’t pop it.  Then one pop of the cork and it disappeared and I felt the weight of a very nice fish.  The fish made a long run and I couldn’t tell what it was, until, a long way out from the boat, it started to circle us.  While a red will burrow his nose in the bottom and grudgingly fight a fisherman all the way to the boat, this tactic, circling, is reserved for big trout and after a long, spirited fight, Randy slipped the net under the monster spec’.

The trout was shining, the black spots seemed as big as dimes, it was a beauty laying in the net on the bottom of the boat.  The big fish was spent from its loosing fight, then I noticed one egg had slipped out of the fish’s vent and right away, as I carefully measured her, 29-1/2, inches, a new record for me, I told Randy, “Slip the net and fish back into the water.  We’re letting her go!”

It wasn’t long before I gently removed the fish from the net and it swam off.  In our cooler we had enough fish for several messes and we were happy that this big one, that measured over 29 inches and probably weighed nearly 8 pounds, would be free to spawn for the second time that year!

More on Jones Lake, Randy and I had been fishing in Jones Lake, the shallow 4 to 5 foot estuary of Highlands Bayou, for almost 12 years and were familiar with the reefs and underwater structure.  It was a year around, except for very cold fronts, fishing place and I have caught nice fish, specs’ or reds, in every month of the year.  Adding to this, in 1988 Layla and I bought a canal home in Bayou Vista on Highlands Bayou, just a mile by water from Jones Lake.  We sold the home in 2005, retired and moved to our ranch in Mills County, Texas, so for 26 years we hammered the fish in Jones Lake!

P.S. It was just as good on my last trip as it was on my first one, see my post “[A Hot New Spot]”, May 14, 2007!

During the summer of 1954, speckled trout fishing had been excellent along the broad sand flats from Galveston’s East Beach Lagoon around to the base of the South Jetties, a curving distance of approximately two miles that was protected from any wind except north or northeast. This area, at the far eastern tip of Galveston Island and the western side of Bolivar Channel, between the Island and Bolivar Peninsula, is also the mouth of the Galveston and Houston Ship Channels. It was good fishing and just plain fun to go down there and watch the ships and the girls.

The week before this day’s events, my cousin and fishing buddy, George Pyland, and I had made a killin’ on school trout on the north side of the flats. The fish were everywhere, plugs or live shrimp, even a bare hook. We spread the news among our fishing group and everyone eagerly awaited a break in the weather.

The break in the weather came the following Saturday morning when another fishing buddy, Bobby Baldwin, called saying, “Fishing look good around the flats this afternoon”. My reply, totally unacceptable to him was, “I can’t go fishing this afternoon because I have a date”. His girl friend, out of town for the weekend, didn’t like fishing anyway, so he was free all day and tonight. However, my girl friend was game for anything, she wasn’t a fisherman (back then gender wasn’t a problem), but liked to wade out and watch us fish. After tempting me with, “I’ll buy the gas”, all of $.18 a gallon, I called my girl and told her of the change in plans and she reluctantly agreed to go with us.

The tide was running in and the wind was light as we bought shrimp at Bobby Wilson’s East Beach Bait Camp and headed for the flats. Bobby, to my right, and I were about 30 feet apart and girl friend was behind me, my stringer floating off to my left with the breeze and incoming tide as we waded out about 75 yards into waist deep water. The fish were there and we started catching some nice specs, up to two pounds, that we strung on my stringer, still floating away from us.

With 7 or 8 specs already caught, my cork went under and as I set the hook I remarked, “Hey, this is a real nice fish probably a big red”. My companions watched intently as I struggled to keep the line tight as the fish bored towards me. Ten feet in front of me a beautiful five foot long, black tip shark cleared the water, mouth open, the teeth getting my attention and hit the water, splashing some on me. My question was, what do you do when a big shark hits your speckled trout outfit, then runs 15 yards towards you, and all the while I was thinking that it was a big red, until it jumped out of the water in front of me and then stripped off all of my line?

The shark headed off to my right towards where I thought Bobby was located, but my valiant fishing partner and girl friend had already halved the distance to shore, leaving me alone to battle this denizen. Not much of a battle, 15 pound braided line on a Shakespeare Direct Drive reel and a fiber glass popping rod, all being no match for an 80 pound shark. The line was tied on the spool of the reel and popped as the shark stripped it, then I headed straight for the shore where my stalwart friends were awaiting me.

That area, the East Beach Flats including Bobby Wilson’s Bait Camp no longer exists. Natural erosion assisted by a small hurricane that came up the channel in the mid 70’s, complete with north and northwest winds, changed the landscape, eliminating one good fishing spot.

At least the shark didn’t get the fish on my stringer, but my girl friend never went wade fishing with me again.

During the summer of 1959, while I was in college, before and after my attendance at ROTC Camp at Ft. Hood, Texas, I worked for an uncle of mine, Shelton Gafford, in Falls County, Texas. At the time, Uncle Shelly farmed and ranched over 3,000 acres of prime Brazos River Valley land and on this, he ran almost 500 head of cattle. This was right at the end of the famed drought of the 1950’s and back then we didn’t even think about La Nina or El Nino (missing tildes) and their effect on our weather patterns.

My job was to drive over the barely flowing Brazos River to his ranch along Perry Creek across the river, but still in Falls County and, at least, there was a concreted, low water crossing for my daily trips. Falls County is one of the few counties in Texas that span a major, river, obviously a carryover from the Texas colonization days with Mexico. Taking this route eliminated a 20, mile drive through Marlin to Perry Creek.

The trips were for checking the several hundred cattle on the place for screwworms, a blight on the cattle industry and certain death if the grown animals weren’t treated within 5 to 7 days and a calf in 2 to 3! Screwworms were a terrible pestilence that hounded our State’s cattle industry until a cure was found. The cure, developed at Texas A&M during the 1960’s, was the releasing of millions of sterile, male, screwworm flies. This procedure saved our cattle industry and spawned the terrific deer herds that we now have across Texas! Treatment was begun in 1962 and by 1966 screwworms were eradicated. Texas hasn’t had a recorded case of infestation since August 1, 1992.

Most days I’d pull a horse trailer and saddled horse, spending my day in and out of the saddle, but behind the seat in the truck I always carried my fishing tackle because there were 2 stock tanks on the Perry Creek place that were full of bass. And even back then, I’d rather fish than eat! By late afternoon, after making my rounds and checking the cows for any evidence of screwworms, I’d stop by my favorite stock tank, get out my rod and reel, with my favorite plug, a Piggy Boat spinner bait and make a few casts.

As the cows used the water up, it had been getting lower and lower, until most of the moss was gone and now I know that most of the oxygen was too! That particular day, my first cast was met with a solid strike and after a couple of jumps I reached down and slipped my fingers between the bass’ jaws. However, something was wrong with the bass, it had lost most of its coloration, was a pasty, white color with very little green showing. Throwing that pound and a halfer back in the tank, I made another cast and my spinner bait was gobbled up just as the bait hit the water and this one, a nice 2 pound bass made several leaps before I lipped it and same results, a lack of colorization.

Pitching the bass back in, I thought I’d better let Uncle Shelly know that the bass weren’t doing very well, but before I started the drive back it dawned on me to go check the other stock tank. Same results as the first, moss dying, water getting lower almost as I watched, greedy hungry bass with a lack of color and now I believe that the lack of oxygen and food caused this trauma with the bass. Over supper we discussed the strange color of the bass, but couldn’t come up with an answer or reason.

During the epic drought the stock tanks never went completely dry, but fishing in them never returned to the excellence of past years. By the time the drought had broken, I had gone into the Army and Uncle Shelly had sold the ranch across the river. At least for me no more hazardous river crossings, but Shelly did tell me of once that when the water was flowing over a foot over the concrete, he drove his pickup and horse trailer across, scaring him sufficiently, so he came back the long way through town.

Also, now I know that in 1845 or 46, to enlist in the Texas Army following a border incursion by the Mexicans into Texas, one of my relatives, a Great Uncle, Buck Barry, crossed the Brazos, at this same spot, over a hundred years before, on a trip from Sulphur Springs to the new capital of the State, Austin. Between the two towns, that were well over 100 miles apart, the one settler he had seen along the trace had located at the falls of the Brazos. It turned out the settler was the only survivor after a Comanche Indian raid and when Buck arrived on the scene, just missing the Indians, the settler had lost everything, his slaves, cattle, horses and women. This was Buck’s initiation to the Comanche’s and by far, not his last one!

Even though we were both past retirement age our jobs required our presence on site so days off were scarce, so Jimmy Buck and I jumped at the chance of a hastily organized fishing trip.  Hastily organized because Brad had just returned from a tour in Korea and had been transferred into the First Cavalry Division, at Ft. Hood and they were currently training for a bout with the aggressors at Ft. Irwin.  It also happened that at the time Iraq was being fumbled by the U.N. Inspectors.

Brad had called and said that he had this coming Friday off and so did his kids and he would like to take his son, Bradley, salt water fishing.  Bradley, at the time was thirteen and had been fishing with me several times, so I quickly said OK and called Jim and he said that since his nephew and great nephew would be there, he would make time to go, so the trip was on!

The night before Brad and his family drove down from Copperas Cove and when Jim drove down we were almost ready to shove off.  Months before, Layla and I had moved full time to Bayou Vista and I had my twenty-two footer in the boat stall on the canal, so all we had to do was load up the ice, water, food and Jim’s tackle.

Brad and Bradley were using my tackle and shrimp were no problem since I had bought some the night before and kept them alive in a specially remanufactured, plastic, garbage can tied to the boat stall.  Transferring them, using a long handled net only took a short time and then we were off.

My “party” wanted to fish Jones Lake to see if my bragging was correct and the fishing was as really as good as I had been saying.  Since it was Friday, as we glided under the railroad bridge, boat traffic was almost non-existent.  At mid tide the bridge’s clearance was almost seven feet and the distance between the bridge supports was about eight feet, with signs clearly marking both channels.  Several years before, a new bridge had been built that really opened up Bayou Vista’s access to West Galveston Bay.

This is a picture of Highlands Bayou flowing under the new, Bayou Vista bridge.  The old bridge had half the clearance of the new one.  The Bayou empties into Jones Lake and then on into West Galveston Bay.  When I took this shot, the tide was high, it was cloudy and threatening rain, the precursor of Tropical Storm Erin, that one week later caused serious flooding in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Sometimes you get lucky and today was one of those days with the tide flowing in all morning, light winds from the southeast and nice, green, clear water.  All we had to do now was find signs of baitfish or shrimp popping out of the water as the predators chased them.

As we cruised slowly towards Tiki Island, the boat seemed to handle a little sluggish, but I thought it was just the load of our food, water and equipment, plus the four big guys.  There were bait fish in the water as we started our drift and began casting out our shrimp, under rattling popping corks and soon, whamo, Jim was into a nice fish, a speckled trout, definitely a keeper, that when netted it was unceremoniously pitched into the big cooler.  Shortly Brad connected and we iced down another trout.  Bradley had a solid strike, a spec that he landed, but it proved to be below the minimum length so back into the water with it.  We iced down another and seemed to have drifted out of the fish, so we made a slow circle back, near to our original starting point.

During this move the boat was still sluggish, so I gave it more gas and as we started our drift, Bradley cast out and was rewarded by his cork slowly going under.  “Bradley, let it go under, slowly take up your slack, now hit him,” I instructed, and his bowed rod and line peeling off his reel, gave tentative identification to the fish, probably a nice red. Several years before when Bradley hooked his first big red, he was afraid it was going to pull him into the water, but not this time because he successfully brought the fish, a keeper red, to the boat and it was added to the cooler.  This spot slowed so we prepared to move to another proven spot about a half mile away.

Bringing the boat to plane, I was now certain something was wrong with the motor, it bogged down and barely got the boat up on top, but reaching the new spot OK, we started our drift.  Soon we had boated 3 more keepers and as the fishing slowed we decided to circle back and drift through this spot again.

Attempting to start the motor, grind, grind, nothing happened.  No ignition.  Grind, grind again, nothing as Jim said, “It seems like it’s broke.  You have plenty of gas?”  Looking at the gauge, I replied, “Three fourths.”  Brad added, “Dad, does this boat always ride so low in the water?”  “No,” I exclaimed, kneeling down and opening an inspection plate, I spied our problem.  The entire bilge area was full of water, that’s why it was sluggish.  Obviously the bilge pumps had shorted out but the motor should have started.  Trying again, grind, grind, nothing.

Facing my “party” I told them, “Boys, it looks like were stuck.  Get on the life jackets and Bradley tie a rag onto the end of your rod and put it into the rear rod holder,” and the “crew” complied with the orders.  We were less than 2 miles from my canal house, but the channels had some 10, foot plus holes, so wading and pulling the boat back was out of the question and swimming the boat through and under the railroad bridge was virtually impossible so we’ll have to sit and await a rescuer.

Now the story gets real strange.  We had been the only boat in Jones Lake, but in the distance there was one boat heading our way. It turned out to be a nice, bay/offshore fishing boat, 23, feet long with a 225 on the back end, a nice rig, and nice to see him!  Pulling up beside us, the driver said, not even asking if we need help, “I’m here to pull you all in.”  “That is fine with me.” I replied, as I tossed him a line, then adding, “Getting under the bridge is going to present us some problems.”  He said, “If all of you all can keep it from banging into the supports, I believe we can sneak through OK.”  Never having seen this man or his boat before, I wondered how he knew about the bridge?

We putted up Highlands Bayou and, with no damage, manhandled the boat, riding low in the water, through the bridge, the flotation keeping it up.  Asking the Good Samaritan if he would tow us on to Louis’ Bait Camp to use the ramp and load up there, he gladly complied.  Calling Layla on my cell phone, I told her we had a problem and asked her to hook up the trailer to the Suburban and come on down to Louis’.

Once we were tied up to a pier at Louis’, I offered to pay the man for his help, “No,” he replied, “I broke down a couple of weeks ago and was pulled in from 20 miles offshore, and I’m returning the favor. I knew someone needed help and I’m more than glad to offer it.”  Wow!  How did he know we needed help, kinda’ spooky wasn’t it?

We loaded the boat onto the trailer, took it to the local boat shop, and two weeks and $720.00 later, it ran like new.  The leak in the bilge area was caused by a worn water line going into the live well and a loose fitting had allowed the water into the gas tank.  From then on I used the live well for storage and closed the valve to its water intake.

Having pulled in several boats, once finding an empty boat and even saving 3 men from drowning in a sinking fishing boat, this was different, me getting pulled in, but it all ended well because we did have enough fish for a big fish fry that night!  However, it has passed through my mind that I never saw the man or his boat again!

With no wind, calm seas and high humidity everything was real close and if you live along the Gulf of Mexico, you know exactly what that means! At sunup, as we reached the end of the Galveston Jetties, we set our course to 150 on the compass. Earlier we had stopped by our friendly, ex German submariner’s to buy some cigar minnows and were told by him that the shrimp boats could be found about 20 miles out on a course of 150. The breeze created by Bob Baugh’s boat cruising along at 35, was refreshing to Bob, Brad and I and 18 miles out, sure enough, we sighted the first shrimp boat.

Bob pulled alongside of the shrimper and the mandatory swap, beer for some chum, was made. Beer is the legal tender of choice out on the Gulf and can be a barter item for shrimp, chum and even ice. The trade made we baited up our medium weight rods, loaded with 20 pound line, a 3 foot, light wire leader and red reels, with cigar minnows purchased from our German friend, tossed out a couple of handfuls of chum, small fish culled from the boat’s night of shrimping and awaited the inevitable strikes!

They strikes weren’t long in coming. All three of us got almost simultaneous strikes, and the race was on, 3 kingfish, roaring away at full speed, the reels nearly smoking as the fish pulled out line. We gained a little line, then the kings took off again and two of the kings decided to battle it out on the top. Many splashes later we gaffed two, but kept one in the water because we only had 2 gaffs and gaffing the last one, we whacked all 3 with our “kingfish persuader”, admired the 3, 20 pounders and into the cooler with them.

We repeated this scenario two more times, long runs, splashes on top and grudging fights alongside the boat and added two more kings, 20 pounders like the first three, to our cooler, then Bob said that a person could eat just so much kingfish and we should leave these fish alone. Because, this past week, he’d heard about a new rig, 50 miles out, in about 150 foot of water, that should have some amberjack around it.

Bob figured out our new course and we headed out, the slick seas letting us make the 30, mile run in just under and hour. Soon we saw the rig on the horizon, Bob’s calculations were right on, so we pulled up to it and trolled around it a couple of times with no luck. Next, we pulled up to the rig and tied on, then let our cigar minnows out to drift in the current, then, not 5 minutes later, I had a savage strike, the fish heading south, then jumping several times. The fish, later identified as a 25 pound barracuda, put up a savage fight all the way to the boat and, trying not to hurt the fish too much, we slid the gaff into the point of its chin and hefted it aboard, a nice catch, but no eating for this one. Barracuda in southern climes, many times carry a disease, cigutera that they contract from other fish that eat the shellfish on tropical reefs, so we’d take no chances with this one.

No amberjack at this stop, so we caught several more toothy, barracudas, then with the seas still flat, we untied from the rig and headed back in. As usual, not a mile from the end of the jetties, we picked up a race, with a sleek, 30 foot inboard with, obviously, 2 big diesel engines and built for speed. Full bore we were racing when we spied a crew boat heading our way. Both little boats veered to the right, but both boats caught the edge of the crew boat’s wake, a 4, foot wave and both, slammed into it. It’s a wonder both boats weren’t destroyed, but Brad and I were tossed around the fishing area of Bob’s boat and going down, my watch, a Rolex, hit a sharp object cutting my wrist and breaking the watch band. Rolex bands aren’t cheap, even back then in the 80’s, and $200.00 later, with a new watch, band, I was ready for whatever the Gulf could bring my way, I thought.

Back in the 90’s, before the low railroad bridge across Highlands Bayou was raised, Bayou Vista’s outlet to Jones Lake and Galveston Bay had probably only 5 feet of clearance above low tide.  This prevented large boats from passing under it, so by necessity, I became a two boat fisherman.  Owning a 20, foot boat that wouldn’t make it under the bridge, it was trailered and used for offshore fishing and fishing around the Galveston Jetties, but I needed something that would make it under the low bridge.

That something turned out to be a 13, foot Boston Whaler.  This particular boat had no motor, no steering controls and was on a worn out trailer.  A new galvanized, trailer fixed one of the problems and the other was fixed with a new 20 horsepower, manual steering, motor, I even added a trolling motor.  My steering position was near the transom, on a small cooler, that also served as a bait bucket.  Maybe this was a little light on safety issues, but with me alone, the boat would run over thirty and it would be great for fishing in Jones Lake.

Here I am, perched on the bait box/cooler, scanning for birds working.

So what was one of the first things I did with my Whaler?   Roy Collins a former Galveston Bay fishing guide, and I trailered it to the base of the Texas City Dike, put in there and went screaming of to the northeast to drift around Dollar Point in Galveston Bay.  Definitely this was big water, not the best place for a 13, footer, even a Whaler!

There were probably a dozen other large boats drifting in the Dollar Reef area.  Never having drifted in the Whaler before, I mistimed and misdirected my first drift and before I knew it was drifting into a 23 footer.  Yanking the starter cord, nothing happened.  Yank, yank, yank, still nothing.  Roy grabbed the side of the big boat to hold us off, while the  owner was giving me some very clear instructions, “Keep that, blankety, blank little thing away from my boat.  Watch it, don’t drift into my engine, blankety, blank, blank!”

Clearing the 23 footer, I saw we were about to drift into some fishing lines from another big boat, 21 footer!  Yank, yank, yank, the motor still wouldn’t start.  More instructions from the other boat owner, “Blankety, blank, blank, keep out of our lines. Blankety , blank, don’t you know what you are doing, blankety, blank!”  This was very embarrassing!  Yank, yank and then I remembered, Viola, turn on the motor’s on/off switch, which I did, yank, put, put, put, put, put, it started and, feeling very embarrassed, we eased away from the fishing lines!

Getting control of our drifts, we began catching some real nice speckled trout, when a small rainsquall popped up south of us and was heading our way. We really didn’t pay much attention to the squall and kept on fishing and catching fish. Then it started to rain, better said, “Then the bottom fell out!”

Blinding rain and the next thing I knew, water was up around my ankles, the gas tank was afloat and the rain was still pouring down!  At the time I didn’t have a two-way drain plug that would have let the water drain out, so the water kept rising and we both started bailing.  Pouring the shrimp out of the 33, quart cooler, also my seat, we finally made headway in our foundering boat.

Ankle deep, the rain stopped.  Starting the engine, I pulled the drain plug and gunned the engine.  We jumped up on a plane and the boat drained.  Whew, that was close!  Reinserting the plug and we went screaming back to our trailer, and thinking to myself, No more big water for this little boat, but I will say one thing about the little Whaler, it didn’t sink.  Whalers are made with positive flotation and as their advertisement shows, you can cut one in half and it won’t sink!

That afternoon, I bought and installed a two-way drain plug!

Being in college, this was way before the time we even thought about owning a boat, in fact, fishing boats back then, were few and far between. Our choices were wading, renting a skiff, but we didn’t even have an outboard motor, or rock hopping on the Galveston Jetties. The following is a story about one of the rock hopping days.

It was a beautiful summer day on the beach in Galveston, the girls out in force with their 1950’s, “skimpy” bathing suits, nothing like now a days Bikinis, light wind from the southeast and no waves crashing on or over Galveston’s South Jetty. However, this trip, Bobby Baldwin and I didn’t have eyes for the girls, but we had walked out the concrete walkway then, holding on to our rod and reels and carrying our live shrimp in a bait bucket along with one tackle box, literally climbed out on the slick, rocks of the jetty, ending up a hundred yards past the topping.

This was to be our fishing spot and our target for the morning would be speckled trout. Both of us were armed with six foot, popping rods, direct drive reels spooled with fifteen pound braided line, both reels having the luxury of a star drag system and later in the morning, mine would be tested severely! We were both using popping corks with a two to three foot, leader, the bait of choice was live shrimp. We’d cast along the rocks and slowly reel in while popping the corks, the pop simulating the sound a trout makes while feeding on the surface, hopefully attracting other fish to the shrimp.

Casting our baits out, it was no time until both corks went under, setting the hooks, mine came back hookless, but Bobby was fast into a Spanish mackerel and obviously, my leader was cut by another’s sharp teeth! Swinging his mackerel up on to the rocks, in our haste to get to fishing, we both remembered we’d left the net in the car, so for the morning we practiced swing and catch the fish. This proved much easier said then done, since a three, pound trout doesn’t swing very good, let alone they’re slimy and hard to hold on to!

Threading the mackerel on to the stringer, it dawned on us there was no place to tie it off, our choices being a cleft between two of the massive stones used to construct the jetty, or loop it around the tackle box that was wedged in securely, we chose the tackle box. Wouldn’t you know it, after I rehooked and cast out, I had a big strike, with the fish wallowing and splashing on the surface, quickly identifying it as a big trout, I tried my best to land it, but as I swung it up out of the water, it didn’t swing very good, the hook dislodged and, plop, back into the deep with it. Smaller trout, along with the occasional mackerel, were no problem, but how do you tell a big fish not to eat your shrimp?

We’d caught maybe a dozen trout and two mackerel, when I cast out and had a huge strike, really a pole bender! All I could do was hold on as the reel’s star drag was zinging as the unknown fish took out line. Zzzz, zzzz, zzzz, the star drag was singing as the fish headed down the jetty for parts unknown. Finally the end of my line was reached, pop, it gave way, leaving me with an empty reel and unbowed rod. That was some fish!

With me with no line and since I drove, I called it a day and Bobby followed suit. The fishing and catching was fun, the rock hopping proved to be dangerous because a friend, not two weeks later, slipped and fell, cut his leg, that required ten stitches to close. This one event brought our rock hopping to an early end!

Years later, I finally figured out what kind of fish was probably on the end of my line. After catching many kingfish on light tackle, I bet it was a fifteen pounder that stripped me. It was too fast for a shark, they fight more doggedly; not a tarpon, no jumps; not a big redfish, no head shaking and not a king size speckled trout, no wallowing; had to be a king!