There isn't anything better than getting to spend time with your dad. It's a huge added bonus if that time is spent fishing. I was lucky enough to spend most of my childhood doing just that. Whether it was walking the North Jetty, wading the Bolivar pocket, hiding from the wind behind the house on the Intracoastal or trying to catch a striped bass at the dam at Sam Rayburn, Dad and I were always sharing an adventure. In the words of the late Bob Stevenson Sr. "Havin' fun outdoors!"
Mid way through the summer when I was eleven, dad decided we were going to spend the night on the north jetty. That Friday night we added lawn chairs to the provisions that were loaded into the Stella. The Stella was our 10 foot long John boat that we transported to and from the beach in the back of Dad's Country Squire station wagon every weekend.
Saturday morning the wind was low, non-existent really, the day hot and the water clearing with every minute. My anticipation of the rewards the next two days would bring was reaching a boiling point as high as the heat that July weekend promised. Dad, my brother John (16 at the time) and his friend Mike Sabatelli executed our standard Saturday routine. We waded the Bolivar pocket chunking Mirrolures, Johnson Sprites, plastic shrimp tails and split tail beatles time and time again. The Stella was tied to Dad's waist as we waded toward the jetty.
The Stella which ultimately served as a floating wheel barrow, carrying our ice chest, tackle boxes, extra rods, etc... was originally called into duty as a transport for me. As the last of eleven kids and five and a half years younger than the 10th, I wasn't tall enough to wade through all the guts in the pocket. From the time I was 5 there was also no way I was going to be left behind. That being the case dad (aka. Paw Paw) had to make accommodations. Now the Stella also had added benefits... The primary being it's ability to serve as a ferry from inside the boat cut on the north jetty to outside or "past the cut".
On the days when the wade across the flat didn't produce the number or size of fish we were looking for, we would load up in the 10 foot aluminum and head out past the cut. The power behind the stella changed over the years. At first dad had oars to row us where we intended to go; next a Minkota trolling motor did the job and in the later years a 5 horse Mercury turned the Stella into a virtual speed boat (compared to rowing that is...).
On this summer day in 1980 the 16 year olds in our party headed back to Beaumont after a slower than expected day of fishing that resulted in 8 trout and a saddle back flounder. Dad and I dropped them off at the beach, loaded the collapsible lawn chairs in the Stella and headed for our granite campground for the night.
Dad and I passed the cut and the first marker on the outside mile and half of the north jetty and picked a nice flat rock on which to land the boat. When the tide was high enough you could run the boat up a little before the man in front jumped out and started pulling. On this summer day the tide was low and the waves almost non- existent on the gulf side so we nudge our way onto the flatest rock we could find and unloaded our heavier than usual provisions before dad and I hauled the stella up 4 or 5 rocks to safety on the jetty.
The afternoon was still young so we still had plenty of daylight to fish and we went to work doing just that. The tide was low, and the fishing slow as a result. The water was clear and green, but the non-existent current had most of the fish except the mullet in-active for the day. That being the case, the eleven year old me got bored and tied on the biggest Silver Johnson Sprite I could, primarily picking the spoon for the size of the treble hook in the back.
I found a semi- flat rock near the waters edge on the channel side of the jetty and proceeded to cast my spoon to a stationary school of mullet that swam aimlessly by the side of the huge rocks. My retrieve consisted of letting the spoon drop under the big eyed bait fish and yanking it back through in hopes of foul hooking one. If you snagged a big one they fought hard and on a slow day you could cut them up for bait. No telling what you might catch on cut bait in the Gulf of Mexico.
As my attempts to land a sharp point deep enough into the side of the hard scaled flat heads failed time and again, I started to let the Sprite flutter just a bit farther beneath the surface with each cast. What happened next is etched into my mind as clear as the brightness of the brightest blue sky you have ever seen. As the spoon fell in the clear water 20 feet from me, I watched each sparkle of sunlight flash off its sides as it oscillated against the resistance of the water. From a crevice unseen in the submerged rocks below a 3 pound trout shot out vertically as if to jump, unhinged its jaws and enveloped the lure. Luckily, due to the trance that I was in, I reacted slowly enough with the hook set so as not to yank the treble hook out of the big girls mouth. The yelling then ensued...
The first shouting came from me trying to garner Paw Paw's attention. Trying to get Dad's attention from 3 feet away while he was watching TV was hard enough, so try from 30 rocks away on the North jetty!! With lungs that learned loud early... and a practiced tone of urgency that either meant: I am "REALLY" hurt or "I have a big fish on" I was finally able to get him to see the bend in my rod. With agility I wish I could witness again, the old marine grabbed the net and bounded over and down to me. It was then that the sacred fish chant began.
Every one of you that has caught a fish of any size has experienced some form of this " fish dance". The person or people with you begin with the yelling of instructions. Well I learned the fish chant from Daddy and on this day and during the battle for this unexpected fish it sounded like this:
"Come on now... Keep your line tight. Don't horse him!! Get him OUT OF THE ROCKS!!!! QUIT reeling... Lead him to me. Head into the net now, head into the net".... Suddenly the speck realized she was almost done for and turned to run for the hills and it was my turn. "Daddy DON'T hit him in the tail!" Water splashed us both, the trout's last little burst of drag run ended and I turned her back towards the net. The mantra from Paw Paw continued; " Head into the net now, head into the net" and finally he hoisted the prize out of the water. The fish chant ended as it always does, with big smiles and a special kind of laughter that is not often found and hard to beat...
After that fish renewed our collective interest in the possibilities of trout to come, dad and I cast our lines toward the anchored ships in the Galveston ship Channel vigorously for the next 2 hours. As I stared at the horizon, I noticed a wall of water headed our way. Not knowing what to think I asked dad, " Daddy is that a tidal wave?". He stared out for a few seconds and said, "Well - don't know, but let's put our life jackets on and go hold onto the boat." I did as I was told and dad grabbed me with one hand and the front hold on the Stella with his other.
Thirty seconds after we had secured ourselves, a uniform wave big enough to crash completely over the North Jetty at extremely low tide knocked us and the Stella 3 feet toward the gulf side of the rocks and then all was still. In our life jackets, with firm grips still on our little beached vessel, Dad and did what we had done many times before and have done many times since; we looked at each other with big eyes and laughed out loud.
The rest of that night the tide rose. A yacht showed up just prior to dark and anchored on the gulf side not far from us. Dad and I ate cold fried chicken sitting in the lawn chairs and contemplated what sort of activity those on board were involved in. A little bass boat made multiple runs from the yacht to the channel side and back all night. Our imaginations turned the yacht into a drug boat. Those on board playing loud music and sending their flunky out on his runs were made into modern day pirates. We talked of rewards and dangers and all kinds of good eleven year old stuff.
The sky was completely clear and every star was visible for miles. The wind didn't even whisper and the only sound was that of the wave action being broken by the jetty.
We didn't sleep much as the tide rose extremely high the next AM. The thoughts of another unexplainable wave at high tide as opposed to low was evidently cause enough for concern for even the old marine. We fished and we talked and we both dreamed with nothing in our heads. What a night.
When the sun rose the water was as clear as it gets in that part of the Gulf. More blue than green, which just doesn't happen often. The water teamed with Spanish mackerel and we landed quite a few. We watched as schools of Stingray glided gracefully by. In search of trout we launched the Stella and headed back inland.
The extreme clarity of the water proved tough for trout that day as did the fact that the tide was so high early and would be moving slowly out the rest of the day. We managed a couple trout and in the afternoon made our way just inside the first bend of the jetty and picked up a couple more flounder. As the light started to get soft we made our way back across the Mexican flats and chunked our last few casts as we waded into shore.
The boat was loaded into the back of the white and brown Country Squire. Dad affixed the red rag to the front end of the Stella that served as our "caution light" to those cars and trucks that might not expect a boat to be sticking out of the back of a station wagon:); and we headed to Beaumont as the sun disappeared.
I have been lucky enough to catch sailfish on the "Adelante", to chase smallmouth bass in Greenbay; blessed enough to catch dolphin and tuna in Cabo, fortunate enough to hook a Muske in Wisconsin. I have caught trout all night under the lights at rollover pass and loaded the boat with salmon and rainbow trout on Lake Michigan. I've been granted a few Kingfish and Wahoo in North Carolina. I've fished lakes and ponds and caught big bass. I have a 9 and 3 quarters pound speckled trout on my wall....
I'd give it all back for one more weekend like that with my Daddy. I hope the memories I am building, have built and continue to build with my kids are as special and as strong when they are my age. Thank God for that old Marine.
Will
