| "Feed a man a fish, he'll be hungry in about an hour. Teach a man to fish, he'll screw off most of the rest of his life." -- unknown, but highly sophisticated, philosopher My first home was bounded by the San Antonio River. We lived in that place until I was maybe four years old. My dad taught me how to fish there. "We'd" dig worms with a spading fork where the river joined the Pioneer Flour Mills property. Then he'd strap me in a chair, jamb a cane pole into the arm of the chair, and just about the time I'd get bored, I'd "catch" a fish. It was like magic, I tell you. The magic is still with me. Oh, sure, once he passed away I stopped catching fish, but I think it embarrassed him to be putting fish on a 6'2" thirty-year-old's line. I've still got most of his fishing equipment, though. There's a 1945 Shakespeare Service reel with the 100# braided line still on the spool, a metal tackle box that he repainted a dozen or so times, maybe the first Bomber lure ever produced, steel leaders strong enough to lift a Buick, that old file he used to resharpened his hooks after every catch or hang-up, and three or four artificial shrimp that wouldn't fool Ronnie Milsap. I need all that stuff, too. I've only got three fly rods, three casting rods, two spinning rigs, jug lines, and cane poles of every imaginable configuration. When you own three kayaks and an eighteen foot power boat, this paltry supply hardly dents the available storage capacity. And if I ever do catch a fish . . . Contributors and their offerings: Al Patteson (my dad): The old man was the best bay fisherman I've ever known or heard of. He fished once each year. Always in July. Always in Copano, San Antonio, and Rockport Bays. His keys were moon phase (I won't share the particulars) and bottom firmness. He carried a sophisticated bottom sounder on board the 12' Lone Star rental boats we fished from--a 10' cane pole. Running wide open, his 3 1/2 horsepower Johnson Sea Horse was just slow enough that he could probe the bottom with the cane pole while he was underway. When he found firm ground, sand or shell, we'd go upwind and anchor. He only targeted speckled trout, but fishing for specks we caught enough reds, drum, flounder, and gafftop to make the trip interesting. Specks run in schools and gravitate to hard bottom areas. They're not built to root out a meal. Shrimp can bury themselves in a muddy area, thereby avoiding the specks. Locate hard bottom and wait. The specks will show up soon enough. Often in huge schools. We'd fill several large ice chests with them every day. He kept nothing under 22" (the distance from the reel seat to the first eye on his rod), except flounder. Why July? We never talked about it. Hell, he was almost totally deaf; I am almost totally deaf; there wasn't much use in talking about anything. But I've got a pretty good guess about the July timing--rain. There's little or none at that time of year. Specks aren't tolerant of fresh water, and no rain means higher salinity in the bays. Ergo, the specks would gang up there. Leon Patteson (my uncle): Uncle Leon may have been the best bass fisherman (black bass) in history. He was bright, observant, imaginative, and he fished at every opportunity. His fishing was, for the most part, done before the introduction of "Florida" bass in Texas. The "natives" seldon grew to more than 6 1/2 pounds. Uncle Leon cuaght more 8 and 9 pound bass than you could count. Not ocassionally, all the time! The 12 pound bass eluded him for the longest, but I think he finally caught a 12 lb, 6 oz "native ." Uncle Leon paid attention to myriad phenomena, but he understood that all other factors were secondary to speed and depth. Ignore either of the two; go home empty handed. Lonnie Patteson (another uncle): Uncle Lonnie would have been a better fisherman than his brothers, but he was "otherwise occupied." Not "otherwise occupied" like Dick Cheney, Uncle Lonnie was a veteran. Uncle Lonnie was "otherwise occupied" having fun. On more than one occasion there'd be someone banging on the front door at 3:00 or 4:00 AM. That was always Uncle Lonnie, blood oozing from every patch of exposed skin on his body, coat over his arm. Despite my dad's protests, my mother would always open the door. Uncle Lonnie would yell, "Al, that boy needs a cat!" He'd raise the coat draped over his forarm, and out into the house would spring a cat. Not just any cat, a truly wild cat. Cats don't just leave of their own volition; it takes from three days to two weeks to rid a house of a cat. The cat story was just thrown in to pad this section a bit. Uncle Lonnie was another of the family's once a year fisherman. He never talked about fishing. However, he may have been a professional fisherman. Only the folks who ran the San Antonio Sport and Boat Show in the 50's would know for sure. Since those of that generation are probably 90 to 100 years old now, I'm not sure that verifying Uncle Lonnie's "pro" status would be too easy. In one way, or another, Uncle Lonnie certainly worked for them, though. Before the introduction of the gigantic aquariums we've become accustomed to seeing at such events, The San Antonio Sport and Boat Show would display big bass on ice in galvanized washtubs. The week preceding the shows, Uncle Lonnie would refrain from cat catching, or whatever, and embark on his annual fishing trip. If the wind was high enough, he'd catch all the bass to be displayed that year--maybe 60 to 100 4 1/2+ pound bass. If the wind wasn't near gale force, he'd ignore the Sport and Boat Show folks for that year. Here's the way he explained it to me: High winds--small craft warnings at the minimum--blow all a lake's micro-organisms to the downwind side of a lake. The stuff that feeds on these creatures follow. Given a day or so of these winds, the entire food chain and ecosystem of the lake moves to the downwind side. Ergo, big bass. Plenty of them. Uncle Lonnie did not work at fishing. He fished only during brutal wind conditions . . . and he caught the hell out of fish. James Campbell (neighbor/great friend) Across the road from my place is a five acre "stock tank." It's stocked, OK. Stocked with some of the biggest bass in the state. You see, James was, for around forty years, co-owner of the largest boat yard in this part of the state. The pro fishermen he sponsored release their catches in James' tank. When James built the tank, he planted large pipes (tin horn) in the fringes of the hump of ground he left at the center of the tank--catfish condos, he calls them. The catfish are all named, and most of them will eat dry dog food from your hand. A couple times a week, James used to leave the boatyard at 6:00 PM, drive 150 miles to an East Texas lake, fish until he passed out, wake before the sun came up, figure out where his boat had drifted while he slept, rush back to the boat dock, then drive back to the boatyard to open it at 9:00 AM. When plastic worms were in short supply, James would "cook" them in his kitchen--"until my nose bled." I could go on, but what I'm trying to say is Campbell is a serious fisherman. A better friend, you'll never find. He's a quiet-spoken man, so quiet-spoken that you cannot make him divulge any fishing secrets. He once showed me how to rig Bass Assassins. Although he never said so, I allowed that meant they must be pretty good bait. They are. They work well in fresh and saltwater. Is this the only Campbell fishing tip you'll read here? Yup. Its the only one he's ever shared with me. But he did share a couple of tips that every serious boater should understand. Back in the day when James and I were little girls, before the Lake Whitney dam had been completed, the smallest amounts of rain would flood most of the east side of Waco. The water didn't stay high long, but it got wide plenty. During one of these floods, James got a tip from one of his boatyard customers that the Whitney dam was nearing completion . . . the existing flood water would be the last. James sprang into action. After filling all the gas cans in the boatyard, he loaded them into a boat he commandeered, and found a place to launch into the flood waters. Down the Brazos went James and his friend. It didn't take long to discover that in the mid-teen temperatures of that December, the motor block wouldn't stay warm enough to keep the motor running. Not discouraged, they stripped off all their clothes, wrapped them around the (now warm) motor, and continued their trip down the Brazos--naked. Things went well after that. Well until a few miles into Falls county. There's a low water dam across the Brazos there. Even during a flood there's no more than three or four inches of water covering the dam. End of excursion, right? Nope. Undaunted, James put full power to the motor and headed across the dam. This brings us to the first of the James Campbell boating tips: "Don, you've seen James Bond movies, and such. When a boat goes over a dam or waterfall, it sails several feet like and airplane then settles into the water again? It ain't so. When a boat crosses a dam, it immediately goes bow first into the water below. The bow doesn't rise again until the stern sinks." So now, James and his buddy have a boat full of water. Their gas cans are floating down the Brazos. Their naked bodies and the soaked clothes wrapped around the motor are beginning to ice over. For a lesser man, this would have ended the expedition, but not for Campbell. He and his buddy continued down the rushing Brazos until the following day when they arrived safely in Freeport, Texas, a small fishing village on the Gulf of Mexico, a couple of hundred miles from Waco. This brings us to the second of James Campbell's boating tips: plan your return before you launch. It seems that when you're naked and shaking like a dog passing peach seeds, people avoid you. No one will lend you a dime to call home for someone to pick you up. Always carry telephone money. The greatest fishing tip: Be really still now. Pay close attention. I'm about to share the greatest fishing secret of all times with you: Put the important stuff on ice! The background picture shows a speck my son caught on his first coastal kayak trip. He put it on ice. But if you look closely, you'll recognize that my son was lucky. An experienced fisherman had already put the beer on ice. (More to come)
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