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Tuesday, July 28. 2015

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.

Thursday, July 23. 2015

This year, 2011, Easter Sunday is very late falling on April 24th, but in 1978 Easter was very early, March 26th and that year my family and I took this opportunity to come back home to Houston for the holiday. Dub Middleton lived in West University across the street from my mother and I went over to see him, to see if I could talk him into a fishing trip on Saturday and after a lot of arm twisting, (haha), he finally agreed.

Our destination, in upper West Galveston Bay, was what we called the Triangle; Greens Cut on the north, South Deer Island on the east and The Wreck on the south. This area of the bay was studded with numerous oyster reefs, a hard sand bottom and was protected from the prevailing southeast wind. After buying a quart of live shrimp, we, Dub, Randy and I, launched the boat in Offats Bayou, sped out towards the bay, turned left towards Anderson Ways and, of all things, on the sand flats, a bird school was working over some, cornered shrimp, a sure sigh of speckled trout!

This was very surprising and very unusual, because the specs generally don’t start the birds working until mid May. Also, back in 1960, my first fishing trip taking the boat out by myself was to this very spot, where my cousin and I loaded the boat up with 2 to 3 pound specs, but since then, I’d never caught another fish in that spot.

Telling Dub to circle back around and come in on the tide side of the birds, we baited up our rigs. We were using standard popping rigs; 7 foot rods, black Ambassaduer reels loaded with 15 pound line, a popping cork trailed by a 3 foot leader, on to which was attached a small, number 8, treble hook.

This being the first bird school of the year, Dub came in a little close, breaking up the birds, but we cast out anyway. Rewarded with a big strike, I set the hook and the fight was on, then nothing, the hook pulled loose. We kept casting, with no results and 10 minutes later, started up the motor and headed on towards The Triangle. We sped past Anderson Ways, around Confederate Reef, over the old, Intercoastal Waterway and soon we saw The Wreck, cut the motor and cast out.

We couldn’t find the fish, or for some reason, the fish, specs and reds, weren’t biting, so we kept on drifting. After a while, my cork went under, I set the hook and was no longer in charge of the situation. A big fish, my first guess a bull red, was on the other end of the line heading for Greens Cut. The fish was running and taking out line at an alarming rate and I exclaimed, “Somebody start the motor and let’s chase this thing,” and the chase was on!

Down to a few turns on my reel, I could see the spool’s shaft and Dub finally started the engine, headed toward the fish, allowing me to reclaim some line. With the spool almost full, we neared the fish and my guess now was a big, shark, it took off again, but Dub almost kept up, keeping pressure on it. Now I was winning, the runs were shorter, the fish was avoiding a surface fight, staying around the bottom, changing my guess to a big ray, but frankly, I didn’t have any idea of what kind of fish I was fighting.Everyone was excited to see what variety of denizen of the deep this was. The fish was heavy, but finally wrestling it to the surface, our question was answered, a huge jackfish, jack crevalle. Dub netted it, but we knew it was too big for our scale, a Fisherman’s Deliar, so we guessed at over 30 pounds, the biggest one I’d ever caught now or then. Removing the hook, we released the jack and as it swam away, voiced our surprise and raised some questions..

Having caught smaller ones along the Houston Ship Channel and the beachfront, what was a 30 pound jack doing way up in the bay, a good 15 miles from the deep water of the Gulf? Another surprise and question, what was this jack doing up in the bay in late March? Maybe this was why the specs and reds were off their feed?

Saturday, July 18. 2015

Arizona summers can be brutal with their heat, July especially and this particular one in 1973 was really brutal! Temps in the hundred and twenties to twenty-five, not much wind and frequent, swirling, dust storms, the dust storms led to the chore of cleaning out our pool, too.

Thursday morning I got a call from Jake Schroder and he said, “Beech, this summer’s too hot for this ol’ Texas boy. Let’s take our families up to the Black River, camp out, fish and enjoy the seven to eight thousand foot temperatures!” Needing no prompting, I obliged him and we agreed, in order to get the camp set up before dark, to leave just after lunch on Friday.

The Black River, one of our favorite camping spots, was on the Ft. Apache Indian Reservation and already having permits to fish, hunt and camp on the Apache Indian’s land helped to make the three hour, drive an easy one. South of Ft. Apache, the Black River joins the White River to form the Salt River and the chain of lakes that leads down the Salt’s canyon to Phoenix. By the time the Salt reaches Phoenix, except for periods of heavy rain, it is just a dry river, bed, flowing on until it meets up with Quiotosa Wash and forms the Gila River that flows on until it meets the mighty, Colorado at Yuma.

Enough geography! Camp setting was easy too with each of our total of six children having their assigned chores. Jake and I planned our next days fishing trip while our wives started the preps for dinner. He and I would grill the steaks on our special, two by three foot, piece of steel, expanded metal. In 1971 we found this great, grilling, tool beside the road and used it whenever we camped out. During our move to Atlanta in 1974 every item of our goods was delivered, but for the piece of expanded metal and I’m sure that some moving hand acquired him a great grilling tool also.

As the sun was coming up Saturday morning there was no breakfast in bed as we gobbled a hurried snack and started our descent down into the canyon of the Black River. The canyon sides went from a pleasant walk, to a slide, with a misstep meaning a fall of some distance. Jake, our boys and I made it safely down to the river. The boys explored, like the girls above, looking for artifacts that were illegal to remove from the reservation, while Jake and I began fishing for the plentiful small mouth, bass.

Our lure of choice was a Mepps, Number 2, spinner a great choice for the small mouths and any lurking trout. I have used this spinner in several places along the Colorado River in Arizona, in the Big Thompson River in Colorado and in Georgia on the Chattachoochie, all with great results!

We were both armed with whippy rods, spinning reels with eight pound, line and we were also armed with .22 pistols, that later, led to an interesting development. We carried along our pistols, not using them once, for self defense, against the many rattlers.

We saw no one else during our two day stay, fished all day Saturday and Sunday morning, kept enough for a good mess for a two family fish fry and, needless to say, the fishing was great! After a quick meal of fish sandwiches, we gathered up everything, packed our trucks and, with Jake and his family in the lead, headed back to our homes, better said as ovens, in Paradise Valley.

After a several miles, four wheel drive only, jaunt we finally hit the blacktop and waiting for us, it seemed, was a White Mountain Indian Policeman. These have always been tough guys, the same Policeman that helped subdue the mighty Apache Nation and forced most of them on to the San Carlos Reservation. An ironic note to this sad chapter in our Nation’s treating of all Indians, was that after rounding up the Apaches, the White Mountain Apache Policeman were also herded on to boxcars and shipped off to Florida, returning years later to their mountain home.

The Policeman pulled us both over, checked the Shroder’s papers, no racial profiling then, then came running back to our truck shouting, “Where’s the pistol, out of the truck?” We unloaded everyone and I showed him the unloaded, pistol, a Ruger Bearcat, quite expensive now, he took it and said, “This is illegal on the Reservation and I’m going to keep it!” Offering a barrage of reasons why he should just give us the gun back and send us on our way, he finally relented, but forcefully said, “I don’t ever want to see either of your families on this Reservation again!”

We never went back, but Jake, his son, the same son that told the Indian Policeman about our gun, his son-in-law and grandson went back two years ago, but he never told me about any police encounters.

Tuesday, July 14. 2015

Shortly after our first meeting, we, me and my ex, had Bob Baugh, one of my customers and his wife out to dinner and were enjoying a pleasant evening, when the phone rang. It was Randy, now a Baptist Pastor, and he was calling to let us know he was going to be late for supper, and that he was stuck on our new duck and goose lease and needed help extricating the truck.

Part of the reason Randy was calling had been caused by a low pressure, system that came ashore between Galveston and Freeport, hesitated over Alvin and dumped over 24” of rain in a 24 hours on that small town. This remains a contiguous states record for a 24 hour, period! The low pressure, system also soaked the Katy Prairie and any dirt road travel was limited and additional rains had kept the roads “sticky” for a month or more.

The other reason the truck was stuck was because he and his friend Doug would try to see how much mud it would take to get stuck in. Most times, Doug would have his truck and they would alternate pulling each other out of the mire. Not this time because he and Doug had taken advantage of the early Teal season and gone hunting together in my truck!

Randy told me where he was stuck and the call ended. I sat down and filled Bob in on the details and he said, “Let’s go get him!”

We loaded up in Bob’s 4WD, truck and headed out for the short drive to the new lease. Waiting for us at the main entrance was Randy. He and Doug had found the rice farmer and he had pulled them out with his tractor.

Randy, Doug and the new truck were safe and we didn’t have to wade in the mud to get them out. Our evening was interrupted but Bob’s and my friendship was sealed and lasts till this day!

One more note about Randy and Doug. The owner of the local car wash, a nice man and a Deacon in our Baptist Church, banned both boys from using his facility to wash their trucks, because of all the mud they collected. He said that he knew when they had been there because his main drain was always stopped up, with mud, Katy Prairie mud, of course!

Thursday, July 9. 2015

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!

Saturday, July 4. 2015

Standing on the concrete spillway with the full force of Texas’, Colorado River, being held in check by the restraining balloon, I didn’t then, nor have ever found out what the air filled giant was made of, but it was over three hundred feet long and probably twenty feet in diameter and was stretched across the river from giant concrete anchors. Tidal water, from the Gulf of Mexico, fifteen miles south, was to my front and behind me, behind the huge barrier, was the fresh water from the river. The water was used for irrigation of the many rice fields in the area.

Surprise, one of my first casts, with an artificial shrimp tail lure, into the brackish water was picked up by a nice, channel cat and five minutes later I was stringing the eight, pounder. Several casts later, my rod bowed as a big fish hit the lure and headed down river. This wasn’t a cat and, because of the apparent head shaking, I identified it as a big red. My gear, a six and a half, foot fiberglass, popping rod, 6000C, reel loaded with two hundred yards of fifteen pound line, should be sufficient to stop this fellow’s run.

Hopping down off of the spillway and running along the bank, I was able to gain some line and soon the fish slowed and made another shorter run, but something was out of whack, this fish was fighting deeper than a red. Maybe it had swallowed the lure? Gaining line and easing the fish up out of the depths, I had my first glimpse of a big striped bass, probably thirty inches long.

Having caught some in South Carolina, but never in Texas waters, I wanted this one for, at least, a picture and as I bent over to “lip” the striper, all the while trying to keep my line tight, the single hook on the plug, pulled out. I could only watch, and I still have the mind picture, as this silver/greenish, striped beauty slowly finned down out of sight.

There is a small striped bass fishery in the Trinity River, below the Lake Livingston damn. Having fished Trinity Bay, around the mouth of the Trinity River, many times, I have caught reds and specs but never a striper, although I’ve heard tales of anglers regularly catching them. I’ve fished around the salt water, barrier on the San Bernard River and no stripers. I think there’s too much pollution around the Brazos/New River system for them and have never caught one around there.

All I can imagine is that this fish either came into the Colorado from the Gulf, or came down Trinity to Galveston Bay, then into the Gulf for, forty miles, then up the Colorado?

Monday, June 29. 2015

Taking the 2, plus hour drive from southwest Houston down to the coast, we, my dad and Dub Middleton and me, met my uncle, G.A. “Unkie” Pyland and his son George at the specified bait camp in Port O’Conner, Texas. It was still dark and we’d have a 20, minute boat ride to our destination, a place Unkie called the fish trap.

With the tide coming in all morning, we cranked up our boats and headed down Matagorda Bay towards Pass Cavallo, the fish trap was located just north of the pass, with a small channel leading into a hundred acre lake, the trap. Arriving, we anchored the boats, jumped into the water and started casting, our lures of choice were silver spoons with a treble hook, with a pink attractor attached to the hook. Each of us was using a black reel, with a 7, foot, popping rod.

Bump, bump, “Fish on”, I yelled out, as the rod bent with the strike, soon, not using a net, I grabbed the small red, not big enough to keep, behind the gills, unhooked and released it. First fish of the day, but soon we were all catching small reds and if we’d kept them all, we’d had a good mess! The small reds finally quit hitting and we remarked that funny, no big reds and no specs either.

After almost 2 hours of this fun, Dad, Dub and I told Unkie and George that we were going to try our hand in Espiritu Santo Bay and see if any birds were working, knowing that early April was a little bit soon for bird action. We pulled the anchor, and since Unkie and George were still fishing, we crept out of the fish trap and once in Matagorda Bay, headed north. Rather then going all the way back to Port O’Conner, we took a short cut into Espiritu Santo, a small pass that led into the east end of the bay.

Not 2 miles into the bay, we saw a bunch of birds hovering over the water, a sign that something had driven the shrimp to the surface. After changing to do nothing, slow sinking lures, we coasted up to within casting distance of the birds and Dub was the first to let fly and he immediately had a hard hit. What was it, spec, gafftop cat or lady fish, but circling the boat the fish soon identified itself as a nice trout and when we netted it, a 3 pounder.

Dad and I cast out below the birds and both had hard strikes that proved to be identical fish to Dubs. The birds would break up and 5 minutes later, here came the shrimp back up to the top, we could see them hopping about evading the specs below, but the birds would converge on the hapless shrimp and what the specs missed, the birds would get.

We stayed with this school of fish for almost 30 minutes and boxed a dozen then they quit. For a while we stayed around, but we noticed the tide had changed and was going out, probably the reasons for the fish’s lockjaw. No more bird schools that day and we headed home around noon. It was a fun trip and we caught 12 nice specs, along with a lot of small reds.

The fish trap is no more because several years later a hurricane rearranged the coastal area around Pass Cavallo!

Wednesday, June 24. 2015

During the time we lived in the Atlanta area, two of the summers we met the Schroder family, Jake, Peg and their three children, in Galveston and rented a very large beach house. The house we rented in 1978 was in Jamaica Beach and sported seven bedrooms, four baths and a large communal area, a true mansion! We had met the Schroders when we lived in Arizona and both families being from Texas had hit it off from the start, enjoying many great quail and dove hunting trips and fishing excursions.

This particular trip, during the peak of the speckled trout, birding season was memorable because of the unusual way we found the day’s last bird school. We had been fishing almost all of the morning east of Karankawa Reef, driving back and forth across the bay and only finding two bird schools. The first we found was full of small trout, below keeper size, but they were fun to catch. But in the second, Jake and I relieved the school of three nice trout, two plus, pounders, more fun to catch!

We decided to refresh our shrimp so we threw out the leftovers we had bought in the morning, and since mid day was nearing, we motored over to the Pleasure Island Bait Camp and acquired a fresh quart. We took this opportunity to stretch our legs and buy us a Coke and some cheese crackers. After the break we talked it over and thought we’d try the area east of the causeway and, showing off, as we entered the channel and I put the boat up on plane, I took a sharp right, to the uninitiated this looked like a turn into real shallow water, but knowing the bottom, we had a minimum of four feet below the hull.

As we sped toward the first of the two causeways, Jake said, “Beech, I shore hope you know where you’re goin’?” I knew, but might as well have some fun. Barely slowing down we scooted under the third hump in the first causeway and headed for the causeway for trains, where I did slow the boat down as we crept under the third arch. And there, not fifty feet out from the causeway was a huge school of birds working over the shrimp driven to the surface, the trout were even splashing as they chased the bait!

Cutting back the motor and turning the boat to the right I managed not to run through the birds that would have surely scattered them and dispersed the fish! Baiting up and casting out to the front of the birds we both had heavy hits and right away began the “West Bay Shuffle” around the boat. These two were big, unyielding trout that finally succumbed to the rods pressure and the black, reels drag. Netting both fish simultaneously in my one net, we admired them, three and a half pounders, into the cooler with them, we baited up and cast back out. Two more strikes, two more specs, not quite as big as the first two and into the cooler with them.

We stayed with this school of trout for twenty minutes and when they dispersed we had boxed twenty-two, all over two and a half pounds! We hunted and hunted for the fish, but with the tide coming in strong they had probably moved on into West Bay. Thinking back, the trout had cornered the shrimp in shallow water, three feet plus, up against the berm of the railroad track and were feasting on them, the seagulls spotted this top water action and the feed was on!

Just think, if I’d gone blasting through the third arch, we’d run right through the birds and the fish school. But in all of my fishing and the many times I’d gone through this way into the bay east of the causeway, I never found a school of birds and speckled trout at this spot.