More Fish Stories

     When I turned into a teenager at thirteen and went to work with Dad I didn't spend as much time at home. Mom was the woman in my life then, I now had an income and opted to spend some of it on Mom for Mother's Day. The thing Mom wanted was a one day fishing permit, two dozen minnows and me to take her to the creek to fish for crappie.
     The Saturday night before Mother's Day Dad would stop at a bait shop where I would buy a one day fishing permit and two dozen minnows. When we got home I would place the minnows under a dripping outside water faucet in hopes of keeping them alive till the next morning. Come the crack of dawn we would grab our gear and walk down to the creek about a quarter mile away and fish until the bait ran out. We usually caught some fish which I would clean when we got home and Mom and I would eat later.
     I kept up this practice for the next five years when I went into the Navy, when I returned I started back with Linda joining us but the family was getting bigger and life more hectic, the fishing trips just came to an end.



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     I was a shop supervisor for a company in 2005, Rick, the purchasing manager was an avid fisherman who had recently gotten into fishing for Redfish in Louisiana. He told anybody who would listen all about the great fishing in a little town called Jean Lafitte, La.. After a while he wanted to put together a trip and asked if I wanted to go along, Linda said I could so we made plans. The date we set was a weekend in late August 2005. Rick's boat was a 19 footer and could easily fish three people so Rick invited Russ who was a supplier, the trip was a go.
     The day arrived, we all met at Rick's house after work on a Wednesday night, we loaded up and hit the road by about 6:30 and for the next ten hours we were on the road. We arrived about four in the morning and met up with Chris a guy Rick had met on a previous trip, Chris lived in Baton Rouge and kept a fish camp of sorts in Jean Lafitte. Chris had a co-worker with him, they had been fishing for a couple of days. After rubbing the sleep from their eyes and downing a cup of coffee they were ready to go so we loaded up in their boat and headed for Grand Isle.
     We were going after the "Bull Reds" as they were called, Bull Reds were the mature Redfish who came in yearly to spawn in the shallow waters, they usually weighed in at twenty five to fifty plus pounds and took fifteen to twenty minutes to land one on the same rod we used for catching three pound bass in Georgia.
     Grand Isle was about forty miles by water, we started out in the dark but the sun was up when we got there and anchored down in twelve feet of water about a quarter mile from shore. Chris got Rick, Russ and I baited up and our lines in the water then he and his co-worker sat back and watched the fun. It didn't take long before the fish took the bait, I can't remember who hooked up first but it wasn't long till all three of us had a fish on at the same time. All of a sudden the 19 foot boat felt real small.
     I can't remember the name they had for it, Redfish Trot, Louisiana Two Step or whatever but we were doing it. All three of us had a Bull on the line at the same time and the fish went in all directions trying to get away. As we walked around the boat with our lines crossing and having to duck under each other Chris and his friend sat back and watched, laughing their butts off the whole time. The first half hour found us showing off our catch to the camera, it was determined that my fish was the biggest and weighed in about thirty pound. After catching one more each we headed back as Chris had to go home.
     Once Chris left we launched Rick's boat and headed out again to closer fishing grounds. Having been up since about 6:00 am the previous day we called it a day about 6:00 pm. Rick started cleaning the fish we caught as Russ and I watched and that's when it happened, Rick sliced his hand open with the knife and it definitely needed stitches.
     I loaded up Rick and took him into town to find a doctor, we found one but they said the cut was more than they could handle and sent us to the emergency room about ten miles down the road. To make a long story short, we were at the emergency room for about three hours, we had not eaten since the night before and had been awake since about 6:00 am the day before. We stopped off at Mc Donalds on the way back and picked up food for us and Russ, we ate and went to bed.
     The next day the talk was about a hurricane called Katrina wondering around the gulf. The locals seemed concerned about Katrina but we fished all day then headed to New Orleans for dinner. Rick and Russ decided to take in some of the sights after dinner. They took them in alright, having been to New Orleans before I waited in the truck, it was about four in the morning when they staggered back and I had to drive back to the camp.
     It is now Saturday morning, Rick and Russ are sleeping off the night before. I awoke about Nine and watched the news, the big story again was Hurricane Katrina still swirling around in the Gulf still a couple hundred miles away but definitely getting closer, the wind had picked up and was quite brisk. When Rick and Russ got up I pointed out that this storm was going to present a problem for us. Rick's answer to that was "oh no that storm is still a long way off and they don't know where it's going, let's go fishing".
     We went to the gas pumps and started filling the tank when the attendant came out to tell us a mandatory evacuation order had been issued, again Rick thought the people were crazy so we headed out for Grand Isle.
     When you come into Grand Isle you go under a wooden bridge, the marina is to the left and the pass is straight ahead and a little to the left is the Gulf of Mexico. As we came under the bridge I could see a white  line at the pass, I pointed it out to Rick and he wondered what it was I told him it was surf and it was not supposed to be there. When we got to the surf line there were rolling swells a good six feet tall and where we were fishing two days before was some of the meanest looking ocean I had ever seen.
     We did get the anchor to hold but the fish were probably running from Katrina like we should have, the people at the Grand Isle marina were packing up but fed us anyway then we headed back. The trip back was rough because the waves were running about three feet, there wasn't a dry spot in the boat. When we got back to the marina we loaded up for our trip back to Atlanta, Rick was still amazed that the people were in such a tizzy about the hurricane but the fish quit biting and businesses were closing, it was time to go.
     Leaving New Orleans we were rerouted through Jackson, Mississippi, it was a long drive and we didn't get home until the wee hours of Sunday morning. Katrina in the mean time made landfall in Grand Isle. Monday morning Katrina was all Rick could talk about, as he watched the news feed on the computer he would say how we were lucky to have left when we did.
     The devastation to the New Orleans area was enormous but we were back the next spring doing our bit for the area's economy.



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     Not long after returning from the Katrina trip, I purchased a boat, it was a 19 foot bay boat powered by a 150 hp Johnson engine. What at first started out to be an annual trip to Jean Lafitte soon turned into two trips per year, we pulled two boats down and fished three people per boat.
     The trips often were notable for some of the things that happened as much as for the fish we caught.
     To start the fishing waters around Jean Lafitte were some of the most bountiful I have ever seen but the most bountiful thing in Jean Lafitte was the "mosquitoes", there were probably ten billion per person. The night time was worse than the daytime, if you didn't have a strong breeze blowing then you walked around slapping at every part of your body, they could even bit through the clothing. When you were on the water it wasn't so bad as long as you stayed out from the shore line.
     Then there was the wild life, some of which you never saw and probably didn't want to. Every now and then we would run across an alligator, we new they were there but the only ones we saw were the young ones - four to five feet long. The gators stayed just out of reach but they were curious of us and would drift in closer, I always seemed to have someone on my boat that thought it was fun to antagonize the gator by casting his spinner bait at them. After awhile even gators will get testy and snap at the thing that bothers them, then you have a tug of war on your hands.
     One guy that was with me hooked a gator in his front foot and reeled him along side the boat then looked at me and said "now what do I do" , I handed him a knife to cut his line. The next guy who caught one actually hooked him in the mouth when the gator snapped at the lure, when he got the gator to the boat he asked the same question, when I told him to cut the line he complained because the gator had his lure so I told him that it was my boat and my rule was there would be no gators on board. I probably should have let him bring it aboard just to see what would happen.
     Then there was one trip where Russ and his son were on my boat, we followed Chris down to Grand Isle for the Bulls. It was a little rough that day as we had to sit down to fight the fish most of the time but we were having a good time and catching fish. At one point I was fighting a decent sized fish, Russ and his son were watching me when my fish made a pass along side the boat and we could see that he was being followed by another fish. Russ's son had his line out of the water with the bait hanging over the side of the boat, when he saw the second fish he dropped the bait in the water and the second fish attacked it, now we had two fish on.
    After Russ's son landed his fish he baited up and tossed his bait out, it wasn't long till he got a bite and the fight was on but it was very one sided. I think you should know that we fished with thirty pound test braided line that I swear couldn't be broken with fifty pounds of pull. Anyway Russ's son hooked his fish and it took off heading out to sea, the drag on his reel was singing and the fish wouldn't slow down, it just kept going till the knot tying the line to the spool snapped. Somewhere there was a fish of unknown size swimming around with 150 yards of braided line trailing behind him.
     About fifteen minutes later I hooked what I thought was the great grandfather of all Redfish, He put up a damn good fight , twice he headed out to sea but I turned him around, he stayed just about thirty yards out swimming back and forth, I slowly worked him in closer to the boat. After about fifteen minutes, as a wave moved in towards the boat I saw a flash of silver in the wave which was strange because redfish were a bronze color. The fish kept fighting, Russ and his son just sat there and watched wondering what I had, finally the fish went under the anchor line and got on the back side of the boat. The fish was tiring and so was I when he went under the boat, I pulled him back and was able to get his head up and there it was - a shark. This sucker was about five to six feet long, the only reason I was able to bring him in was that the hook was wedged in his teeth so he couldn't cut the line. Russ looked at me and asked what we were going to do, I handed him a knife and told him to take a picture and cut the line sharks were not allowed on my boat.


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     The above trip proved to be the most exciting one yet. Come Sunday morning we loaded up and headed out of town on the long trip back to Atlanta. Russ and his son were in my truck, Rick and two other guys were in his truck behind us. Rick had traded boats, he now had a small shallow water boat with an aluminum trailer.
     So here we were leaving town, I was in the lead  when we came upon a two lane bridge over a small canal. Just as I was about to go over the top a truck just like mine came at me so close that his mirror hit mine and banged it into my window, he kept going. When I got out I saw my boat was riding high on the trailer and both axles were bent. Rick on the other hand had been hit on the side of the truck bed and his boat, he ran off the road but not before his boat was knocked into someones yard and pieces of his trailer were scattered all over the place.
     The driver of the other truck lost his left front wheel complete with ball joints but that didn't stop him, his truck was balanced on three wheels as he drove home without stopping. The police found him trying to figure out how he was going to put his spare tire on. Turns out the guy had left church high on painkillers.
     Yep, that was one hell of a fishing trip.


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     I am not big on technology, only over the last few years have I gotten my feet wet with a computer, I am still confronted daily with things that boggle my mind. It never ceases to amaze me how much people have come to depend on the constantly changing technology that the world seems to depend on.
     Rick had a depth / fish finder on his boat that was equipped with GPS, the location of every fish he had caught since he had bought the boat was marked on the system and cataloged with a name for each location - one even bears my name. Rick is one of those people highly dependent on technology, he had the latest cell phone and computer and a GPS in his vehicles as well as his boat.
     When we were on the Katrina trip Chris had given Rick the coordinates for Grand Isle so we could find our way back there later on. I had watched when we went to Grand Isle early that morning, it seemed pretty simple to me, go down the channel to the green marker number 34 then turn south west, after a while you will see a water tower on the horizon, Grand Isle is to the left but this just makes me old school.
     That Saturday afternoon when we left Grand Isle heading back to Jean Lafitte was rough, the waves were running a good two to three feet and bouncing us around real good. Katrina was still some ways off but she was already raising hell. All of a sudden Rick stopped the boat and started fiddling with the GPS, seems it had gone out  from the rough ride. Rick was frantic as he tried to bring the system back on line, he said if he didn't bring the GPS back up then we were lost. I told him all we had to do was keep going in a northwesterly direction until we hit the marked channel then turn north. He finally fixed the problem and we took off, once we hit the channel and turned north he said it was lucky he got the GPS working, he said he didn't know how people found their way around before GPS.
     I told Rick that not too long ago mariners used compasses and charts, worse case they paid attention to landmarks such as trees on the shore line, rocks sticking out of the water or  shapes on the horizon and at night they traveled by the stars. Did us old school folks get lost from time to time, well yes but when we did but we didn't tell anyone we just called it exploring new territories



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    When my boat was repaired and ready to pick up I got a guy I worked with, named Terry, to go with me to get it. Of course as long as we were going to be in the area it would be ashamed to not wet a line so after picking up the boat and settling in to our room we launched the boat and went looking for redfish. Well we didn't find any fish so we went back to our room and met up with a guide who told us the wind had been blowing from the north for several weeks and blew a foot of water back into the gulf along with all of the redfish but we could follow them to a good trout hole the next morning if we wanted.
     The next morning we got up and slowly cruised down the channel as we pondered our problem. My thought was, if the wind blew the fish and water south the we needed to go south to find the fish so off we went. About fifteen miles down the channel we found a grass island that looked good so we checked it out. At first the fishing was slow but then it picked up as we went farther into the group of grass islands. There were redfish every where, they were feeding against the banks with half their backs out of the water, there were groups of three, four, or five and they were hungry.
     By lunch time we had caught somewhere around thirty fish between us, each of them were at least six plus pounds. Terry was fishing from the back of the boat when I heard the drag on his reel going crazy, I looked back and saw him holding his rod up high and reeling like crazy. I watched Terry as he fought what he said was the biggie. The water in the grass islands was at most about eighteen inches deep so the fish could not go deep he had to go out and he was big enough that you could follow his path by the disturbed water. Twice the fish pulled out all but a few feet of line from his reel forcing me to chase the fish down with the trolling motor. When Terry finally got the fish to the boat we saw it was a Bull Red about thirty pounds.
     We had two and a half good days of fishing and we spent them at the same group of grass islands. We lost count but figured we caught over one hundred redfish  but by the time we got to work on Monday morning the total rose somewhat due to "fisherman's prerogative".