A Fish Story
There was a time in my life when I fancied myself quite the fisherman. When I was stationed in Willacy County, my days off were spent wade-fishing the Lower Laguna Madre with a fly rod. And, in typical fly fisherman fashion, I was pretty snooty towards those who used less refined methods.
Yep, I could really find the fish, too.
Of course, pretty much anyone can find fish when their job allows them to pull up to any fishing boat they want to and take note of important things like how many fish are in the box, and (if it is a bunch) their location and what type of lures/bait they were using. I was pretty proud of myself nonetheless.
Anyway, my grandfather kept telling me about an old friend of his, Jimmy, who was one helluva fisherman and suggested I ask Jimmy to take me fishing.
Being a snooty fly fisherman, I figured Jimmy would be cast-nettin’ for mullet so we could anchor-up somewhere and soak them till we caught something. How gauche!
I finally gave him a call. We met at the ramp around 9:00 a.m. Who waits till 9:00 a.m. to go fishing?
He had a cool boat, though. It was probably about 16 ft. long with a big center console. It had a 70 hp motor on it and would run in spit.
We launched. I took note of his fishing pole; a 6 ft. rod with a bait caster reel on it. The plastic lure tied to the end of the line was kind of a faded rootbeer- colored shrimp-lookin’ thing.
“What the hell was he gonna catch with that?” I thought to myself.
Meanwhile, he encouraged me to get out my 9 ft. “buggy whip” and have it ready. “10-4, Gramps… will do.”
We scuttle-butted around the bay looking for fish.
When he found some, he shut down and said, “Climb up there on the console with your buggy whip,” so that’s what I did.
Then, he told me to scoot over some, and he climbed up there with me. I was on the right side, and he was on the left. I was whippin’ that rod to beat hell and he just stood there. His first cast was just a little flip that went out about 20 ft. BAM – he caught a nice redfish. “ Pure luck,” I thought. I kept whippin’. He climbed back up beside me and just stood there some more.
A little while later, he flipped his lure out again. BAM – another redfish. I was starting to get a complex, but I finally caught one.
My arm was getting tired just about the time Jimmy decided to make another cast – again, about 20 ft. out. BAM – another redfish. Jimmy had his limit then, and so had I – only mine was of humble pie.
We headed back to the boat ramp. I fished with him a few times afterwards and he gave me some pointers. He said he waited till the sun was high enough to allow him to see into the water better.
He’d run the boat around until he’d see some “nervous water”, indicating fish, and then he set up to drift into them. He wouldn’t cast unless he saw a fish.
He used the short rod because he only made short, quick casts. For him, it was all about lure placement. If you put your lure in the right spot, it didn’t matter what color it was, a redfish would eat it.
Jimmy was well into his eighties when I first fished with him. We went several times after that, and he always whooped me pretty good when it came to catching fish. Jimmy passed away in 2019 at the age of 93. He was truly a fine fisherman and friend.
