Corpusfishing.com

[jebsays]

[20mako77classic]

Mr. gulftrout, I sincerely hope that you had another wonderful day of fishing on Nueces Bay today, in your little boat. That being said, the disparaging comments regarding your alleged boat ramp experience involving two State of Texas research vessels concerns me. I was there, working, doing my job. I am a State Investigator. I have many responsibilities. One of my required duties includes monitoring the water quality of the bays and estuaries here in the Coastal Bend, and beyond. Nonetheless, that's only a small portion of what I am charged to do on a daily basis. I have a challenging job, and, believe it or not, I enjoy what I do; I am proud of my work. I am a salaried, university educated, degreed professional serving the people of the State of Texas for almost 25 years. Fortunately, I am still able to put food on the table, even though, in real terms/today's money, I actually earn no more compensation than I did 25 years ago. Moreover, I have had a job every day of my life since I was 15 years old. Additionally, I have been an avid fisherman for over 40 years. We were doing our job, Mr. gulftrout. We were diagnosing an unexpected mechanical issue with our boat in order to efficiently complete our monitoring event. We were successful, we solved the problem and conducted our required monitoring on schedule. We could have chosen to waste time and additional resourcesby giving up and calling it a day. We did not. My number one responsibility during our monitoring events is to ensure the safety of the total operation. I have been boating and fishing long enough to know that bad things can happen, in the blink of an eye, if you are not paying attention. Finally, I specifically pulled the boat out of the ramp, and then backed it down closer to the dock so that you would have room to launch. Upon your arrival, you appeared to be acting in a sarcastic, abusive manner. You continued shouting at us, apparently not realizing that we could not hear most of what you were saying. We were doing our jobs; we were trying to resolve mechanical problem in a safe and professional manner.

[gulftrout]

I just woke up and had a dream about a charter I had many years ago aboard the charter boat "BILLBUSTERS". I ran the "Billbusters" for several years before Y2K. This charter was pretty much like every other charter I ran, with four guys going fishing. There were three young guys and an older gentleman. He had light blonde hair, was dressed real nice and walked around the dock before we left with an "Air about him". I quickly learned he was "THE BOSS." Apparently he owned a small company and was taking his three employees out on a fishing charter as a reward for the success that the company was having at this time. It was in late July and fishing had been great. Every day was pretty much the same, quick limits of kingfish followed by a pile of red snapper, with a ling or two thrown in for good measure. This day started out like pretty much every other charter. I left the jetty's and turned slightly to port and put the boat on a heading of 70 degrees. I was headed to a set of three structures and an offshore buoy. There was a single yellow pipe that I would get to first. If I remember correctly, my first stop would be 21 nautical miles from the Port Aransas Jetty's.

[gulftrout]

Have any of you ever had an entire set of rigs or popular fishing spot in the Gulf of Mexico named after you, "Well I have". This area I was headed to was nicknamed by every charter boat captain in Port Aransas that I knew, as "Sparkyville" because I liked to fish this area and when I headed north of the Port Aransas Jetty's this was always one of my stops and quite frankly probably my only stop. A couple of years prior to running the "Billbusters" I ran a 38' Pacemaker named "Sparky". The owner was Sidney Sparks, God rest his poor soul. I met 'Sparky" one July morning in 1984. It was my second year running offshore charters and I had landed a job on a 35' Chris Craft named "Bold Venture." The only reason I was running the "Bold Venture" was that the owner, Roger Sorenson had been hired on to run a 42' Bertram for the summer. As I backed into Dolphin Docks the owner, Paul Dirk met me and sort of pulled me over to the side. The only thing he said was, "Take care of these guys." That's it, nothing more, nothing less. So I assisted "Sparky" and another old gentleman named Bob Burke aboard the "Bold Venture", as my deck hand, my younger brother Jim, loaded the boat with bait and ice. It was around 8 am and the entire charter fleet had already headed out for the day.

[gulftrout]

Being this was only my second year of offshore fishing one would think I would not be very experienced in the offshore fish catching business. Well, that was not the case. My first year of chartering I ran a boat I bought in Houston. It was a 21' "Santiago" made by Bayliner. It was a nice looking boat with a black hull and red bottom paint. I named it the "Reel Fun." It ran at a quick clip and sounded like a race boat when at full throttle. It had a 350 Chevy engine with a Volvo outdrive and I'm not sure of the top speed, but with a flat sea no other charter boat would pass me up, with only one exception, a 31 Bertram powered with big block 454's.. Back to my fish training experience. I kept the "Reel Fun" docked at Deep Sea Headquarters were there was a young group of up and coming offshore captains that were just beginning their career in the offshore charter business. Since this was my first year chartering I had very few charters, which was fine with me, to be honest. That left me with more free time to fish the old wooden Horace Caldwell Pier for the huge specks that called the first and second gut in the surf, their home. Since I had very few charters, that left me available to be a deck hand on any and all of these young captains boats. There was my younger brother, Larry. Larry now lives in Key West, has his masters diver card and works full time on a dive boat out of there. Then there was Captain Jim Harmon who owned his own boat named the "TOUCHE". This was a 28' Bertram and it was powered by two Chevy 350 engines. The Gulf of Mexico is very hard on gas powered boats and that would come to haunt Captain Harmon the following year, as I will explain later. Then their was Captain Jay Lancaster aboard the "Hot Tamale". There is only one reason it was named the 'Hot Tamale", it was probably the fastest charter boat out of Port Aransas. It was powered with two 454 Chevy engines that were souped up by Jay. Jay was a mechanic by trade and he had these two engines in top form and kept them this way. It was not uncommon for Jay to tinker with these 'Big Block" Chevy's in the evening just to see if he could get them to idle a little smoother or boost their output just a little bit. When Jay wanted to get somewhere quickly, he would open those engines up, and that 31 would simply fly! Last there was Captain Paul Eccleston. He was also running a 28' Bertram named the "Playmate." He was not the owner but managed the boat and his charter business called "Eccleston Sport Charters." So as you can see, I had the best training anyone could "EVER" have in fish catching, safe boating and seamanship in general, as all four of these captains have made offshore boating and fishing their career, and everyone from this group has been proven and tested over the years as being some of the best in the business.

[gulftrout]

Now back to that morning at Dolphin Docks. We loaded up and headed offshore. We went to one of my favorite areas and started trolling cigar minnows rigged with a feather jig. This combination is deadly on kingfish if you can get the cigar minnows to swim properly and not let them spin. Jim had a magical touch when it came to rigging cigar minnows and I could look behind the boat at any time of the day and see 4 cigar minnows swimming perfectly, as they were being trolled slowly at around 4 knots. We quickly started catching fish and continued catching fish until I wore those two "Old Gentlemen" out. At this time "Sparky" looked up at the bridge and said, "Lets Go Home." These were the first three words, either him or Bob had spoken that day. I had Jim reel in the baits and I pushed the throttles down and set my heading for the Port Aransas Jetty's. Back at the dock "Sparky" came up to me and said, "Well you did pretty good today but I sure hope you know where their are some bigger fish that these, because I have you booked for the Dolphin Docks kingfish tournament in a couple weeks. I told him not to worry, that I would fish differently during a tournament than I do during a charter. At this time, I had no idea Mr. Sidney "Sparky" Sparks would be my boss for the next seven years aboard the 38' Pacemaker named "Sparky"!

[gulftrout]

OK, now we are back to the original story of my experiences that day aboard the "Billbusters". As mentioned we are headed to "Sparkyville" at 21 knots so it will take me about one hour to get there. This is the time of the day I enjoy most. When the seas are calm, it is just a peaceful boat ride, alone by myself on the bridge. When we arrive we immediately start catching kingfish. Each fisherman is taking turns instead of picking a rod. This is usually best, because I have each kingfish leader rigged with a different sized weight, so the bait will fall at different speeds. The heavier weights will be the closest, while the lighter or no weight ones will be away from the boat at a greater distance so the lines will not get crossed while making turns. If everything is set out properly, you can do figure eights and when you take the engines out of gear the lines will fall and none will be crossed or tangled. Well, when it comes time for the boss to reel in his fish everything goes well until we land the fish. Immediately upon me gaffing the fish, he flips the freespool lever and backlashes the reel. I am on the deck this day because my young son has come along as the deckhand. I take the reel from 'The Boss" and explain that you never flip the free spool lever, no exceptions never. Well, his next time reeling in a fish and the same thing happens again. I once again explain that you "NEVER" flip the freespool lever and show him if he needs some slack you just simply grab the line and pull the line off the reel. I never fished a tight drag like some did, especially Captain Eccleston. He would set his drags so tight I could barely pull line out even if I wrapped it around my hand before I tried to pull it off the reel. So now it is the "Bosses" time to reel in another fish. Once again he looks straight at me, flips the feespool lever and backlashed the reel so bad, I cannot pick it out. I look right in his eyes and holler, "You are finished for the day." I tell him all the tackle on board is mine and the last thing I feel like doing is going home and working on fishing reels just because some idiot cannot listen for one minute to anything that they are being told. He is stunned that someone would actually talk to him that way, probably the same way he talked to his employees every day at their job. He say's I cannot keep him from fishing, but I assure him if he touches another fishing rod on this boat we are headed for the house and their trip is over. He finally realizes I am serious and sits down for the remainder of the trip, never saying another word. We fish the remainder of the day with no more backlashes and all the other guys are having a great time while "The Boss" sits in "Time Out". When we get back to port, "The Boss" quickly jumps off the boat, runs up to Freida and starts ranting and raving about the trip. They head over to the "Back Porch" area at Woody's where Captain Reese does what he does best, entertain the clients for the remainder of the afternoon. I start loading my truck as my son cleans the boat so we can get home at a decent hour so I can get some sleep and repeat the same scenario over and over again, all summer long. As I am loading up my fishing rods in the truck one of the guys on the charter walks up and hands me a hundred dollar bill. He smiles and says, "Thanks". All three of us have wanted to do that so many times you cannot even imagine. We have ALL wanted to do what you did, just once to that jerk! When I arrived at the boat the next morning Frieda came up to me and asked, :" What in the world did you say to the guy? He stayed until late in the evening doing nothing but complaining about you and wanted us to fire you on the spot. I told him you had been running the boat for four years and that he was the first person that had ever complained about their trip with you aboard the "Billbusters and that there was no way we were going to fire you." She also mentioned that she finally had to just walk away and head to the house. I laughed a small chuckle and said, I guess he did not understand my "Sense of humor!"

[gulftrout]

[Aggie 81]

Gulf trout,
Thanks so much for the story. Brought back many good memories of my years fishing offshore with my partner, Dr. Booger Hubert.
_________________
Aggie 81'

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift."
Steve Prefontaine

[FIDO]

[Repoman911]

Eeeeesh. Cliff notes?

[Granite Guy]

Are you kidding me, I have not seen that much rambling on since grand'a ma found a coon in the chicken coop, Sounds like you were thinking that day that the whole boat ramp was yours. I appreciate all the folks [ feds, state, local, SEA. and CCA, to monitor our bay system . Have you every thought about writing a new version of the dictionary ??
_________________
Been fishing Baffin/Land Cut since 1968

[lifeaquatic]

The BILLBUSTERS story built up to a perfect Seinfeld moment..."No fishing for you!"

[rodandroll]

[gulftrout]

My first gulf charter aboard the "Reel Fun." The year 1983. Everything was more laid back and people seemed to get along a little better back then.