3 Cool Texas fishing spots

View from the tub of the Bend Bend Hot Springs

Big Bend National Park Hot Springs on the Rio Grande

SOME COOL PLACES TO GO FISHING IN TEXAS

Now that we've had a little more rain than we had last year, I'm hoping that some of my favorite fishing spots will have a little better water flow. I'm going to list some of the rivers and lakes I'm concerned about, and a few of the Texas places that I plan to hit before the end of the year.

The Devil's River is located in extreme south Texas, north of Del Rio, where the Hill Country has faded and the desert appears. The Devil's River basically runs through the remote desert, creating a small oasis like environment around it. Yet, it is rough and hostile country. I've heard more than one kayaker who has run the river before it flows into Lake Amistad on the Mexico border as saying that everything around the river either chafes, cuts or has thorns. It's rough but beautiful country.

The Devil's River is THE CLEANEST river in Texas, rising from springs about 94 miles north of it's juncture with Lake Amistad. Wiki actually has what I consider to be a very accurate description of the river and access and such here at this site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_River_(Texas).

The Devil's River is also very noteworthy because it has a tremendously succesful transplanted smallmouth bass population. The smallmouth are mostly pursued by hardy kayakers or via the Devil's River State Natural Area.

The Nueces River located north of Uvalde also offers fine fishing for largemount, perch and crappie and the unique guadalupe bass. Camp Wood is the best place to HQ for a fishing trip to this area and here's a link to start planning your trip there http://nuecesriver.com/. In spite of the heat lately, I've been wanting to head that way around noon one friday and do a few days of river fly fishing. It's a gorgeous area but watch out for the snakes and the hogs if you're gonna be fishing at night.

Here's a link to an excellent article about fishing and staying in Camp Wood: http://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2004/dec/threedays/. It tells you just about everything you need to know.

The Hot Springs in the Big Bend National Park on the Rio Grande is an excellent place to fish for large river catfish. It's about the only place to fish, other than very scarce private tanks and ponds, in more than a 100 miles. You're a serious fisherman if you make this trek, but if you do, the reward of being able to sit in a natural hot spring while catfishing at night is one you can't easily duplicate.

I've made this trip once, about 12 years ago. Take Amtrak to Alpine if you've got some time, otherwise it's a lengthy car trip. The Hot Springs are in the southern portion of the park, the entrance to which is 60 or so miles south of Alpine. Once in the park, a short drive will get you to within 1/2 a mile or so of the springs, where after enduring a fairly crappy vehicle trail, a short hike along a well established trail gets you to the springs. There's also a longer trail of several miles that will get you there via a scenic river hike.

The locals use frozen shrimp and heavy duty freshwater spinning and spincasting rigs to catch large and medium sized catfish in the area surrounding the hot springs structure, shown in the photo above. They prefer to fish the area at night and I am told that fishing is generally better when there is a little chill in the air. Not cold, just a chill. Fish on the bottom with a double hook leader with a heavy weight on the bottom to resist the river flow.

Although I knew there was decent fishing in the Rio Grande in the park, I found out a lot more about this spot from some locals who were readying for their trip there that night at the bar of the Starlight Cafe in Terlingua. I didn't take them up on their offer to go with them, but did get as much info as I could from them about the fishing at the hot springs.

As you note in the picture above, there is a structure, the foundation of an old bathhouse constructed at the behest of former owner J.O. Langford around 1917 or so.

Langford wrote a book (which I have) and it's a fascinating story of he and his family settling this area and building and running a post office and hot springs operation. In the book, Langford discusses the construction of the bathouse. Langford brought in a newly emigrated german stonemason to construct the bathouse. The stonemason studied the river and it's flow for weeks and weeks, not building a thing.

Langford began to worry that he had hired the wrong fellow, because the everytime Langford inquired about why construction had not begun, the stonemason simply told him that he was studying the river flow and that he had to understand the river current to build the bathouse at the exactly correct angle to ensure that the stucture would withstand the powerful river's frequent and often turbulent flooding.

But the stonemason finally built the foundation and bathhouse, facing the river at an odd angle. I've seen pictures of the stucture as it existed, and it was basically a one story bathhouse with some windows and a door and wooden roof placed upon the foundation that still exists today.

The reason the foundation still exists today is because obviously the stonemason was a kickass stone craftsman. I say this because that after the National Park Service acquired the land in the late 40's for Big Bend National Park, the government tried to destory the bathouse. As I recall, they deemed it a hazard of some kind. So they brought in demolition experts who dynamited away the upper part of the structure.

But try as they might, the foundation and lower walls remains, firmly anchored and constructed in some kick ass old world way that defied even dynamite, much less the river, and it endures today. The walls and foundation could not be destroyed by even dynamite, and finally the government gave up and decided it couldn't destroy it and left it as a stone hot tub of sorts for the springs.

As you can see from the photos, it's just a kick ass place to fish or to just hang in the hot springs, which legend has it have magical healing powers. That's the whole reason Langford moved his family from civilization to here, and he claimed they cured whatever ailment he had. The hot springs never caught on, and after teaching school there, while operating the hot springs resort and post office and trading post, Langford ultimately gave up and moved away. But the post office and some other structures remain in the village, just a short distance from the springs.

Here's a short description of the springs from the National Park Service website, which also provided the Tom VandenBerg picture above with the sandle wearing feet showing:

The Langford Hot SpringsThe most famous of the thermal features along the Big Bend of the Rio Grande is the Langford Hot Springs. Located where Tornillo Creek enters the Rio Grande, some four miles upriver from Boquillas Canyon and the Mexican village of Boquillas. The natural springs at the site are known as Boquillas Hot Springs. Boquillas is Spanish for "little mouths" and refers to the many small streams or arroyos that drain this part of the Sierra del Carmen range and flow into the Rio Grande. Later, when the springs were promoted for their health benefits, the settlement and spa resort there was called Hot Springs, and a post office by that name was established at the site in July 1914. Although there are several other small hot springs in the area, these larger and more accessible springs are the best known.

The temperature of the springwater, which is heated geothermally, is 105°F year-round; the water contains calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate, sodium sulfate, sodium chloride, and lithium. The springs' flow rate in 1936 was 250,000 gallons a day, but more recent measurements show a decrease.

I've soaked in that tub and taken in that view. I did have a travel rod with me and did a little fishing in that area but didn't catch any fish that afternoon, but did have a real good time.

The Kings of the Gulf of Mexico

The fish shown in the above pictures is what is known as a king mackerel in other parts of the U.S., but here in Texas we call it the kingfish or more commonly, a king. A tremendous fighter, it is commonly found in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the Atlantic Ocean.

When I get the actual picture from my friend emailed I will substitute it for one of the ones above. My friend and her family went down to Corpus Christi to the Padre Island National Seashore for some early summer fun a week ago. The family members that accompanied her on this trip include her husband and their two grown sons with their families.

I was astonished to discover that while they were hanging on the beach doing some simple surf fishing, they landed a huge kingfish. The kings shown above are fifteen and twenty pounders, and I'll guess the fish in the picture of my friend's son is at least another ten pounds more than that, so a twenty-five pounder.

Here's a short excerpt on the kingfish from wiki: King mackerel are among the most sought-after gamefish throughout their range from North Carolina to Texas. They are taken mostly by trolling, using various live and dead baitfish, spoons, jigs and other artificials. Commercial gear consists of run-around gill nets. They are also taken commercially by trolling with large planers, heavy tackle and lures similar to those used by sport fishers. Typically when using live bait, two hooks are tied to a strong metal leader. The first may be a treble or single and is hooked through the live bait's nose and/or mouth. The second hook (treble hook) is placed through the top of the fish's back or allowed to swing free. When trolling for Kings using this method, it is important to make sure the baitfish are swimming properly. Typical tackle includes a conventional or spinning reel capable of holding 400 yards (370 m) of 20 lb (9 kg) test monofilament and a 7 foot (2.1 m), 20 pound (9 kg) class rod.
King mackerel are known throughout the sportfishing world for their blistering runs. For that, tournament series' have found success promoting events for this species.

I was stunned with this catch because I have fished this stretch of North Padre Island many times. Many times. In fact, I've fished very nearly the entirity of the Texas gulf coast, from the southernmost beach locale in South Padre Island to the upper reaches of the Bolivar Peninsula, with lots and lots of trips to certain areas in between known for good fishing, like Matagorda Island, Surfside, and Port Aransas.

But much of my surf fishing has been within twenty miles of the location my friend and her family were at a week ago, which according to her was about two miles south of the entrance to the Padre Island National Seashore. So it's not like they went fourwheeling down near the Mansfield Channel (which divides north and south Padre Island about 63 miles south of where they were fishing) or anything, where the fishing pressure and beach activity are virtually nil. No, they were fishing right in the middle of beach activity central.

In fact, I've fourwheeled extensively in the no-man's land between where they were fishing and the Mansfield Cut (65.5 beach miles from the entrance to the National Seashore), as it is often called in those parts, including one hellacious journey nearly 30 years ago all the way to the Cut in a modified 4WD Ford truck my friend Mog (he is also known by the a/k/a's of Mogenstern, Mogenstein, The Mogster, Mogen David, etc) owned. We spent as much time digging out of sand bogs on that trip as we did fishing, and although we caught lots of HUGE speckled trout and redfish, we didn't come anywhere close to landing a huge kingfish.

I've caught kingfish I a mile or two off the beach in a boat fishing off Port Isabel on several occasions. I've also caught them on deep sea fishing trips going out of Galveston, Matagorda, Corpus Christi and Port Isabel, but on those ocean going trips I learned they prefer LIVE bait and usually you need to be trolling (or pulling behind the boat) at a fast clip in order to cach one. On those ocean trips, I guess we were usually 10 to 20 miles offshore, and it was not every trip that you caught a king.

I say all this to say that it is UNUSUAL AS HELL to catch a kingfish from the Texas surf when using fairly standard fishing gear (i.e. not casting out past the 3rd sandbar) and dead bait. Highly unusual. I know flyfishers that go all up and down the coast fly fishing the surf, which is a daunting, windy task at best, who catch all kinds of fish and not a kingfish.

As a youth, our family vacations centered around a week or two of fishing in the area with a family friend who lived there and fished it daily for 40 years, Old Man Joe El. Joe El knew every flat, dip and crease in the Laguna Madre, and also knew the troughs and geographical features of the beach on the opposing side of the island, and fished it often as well.

I guess it's possible he caught a kingfish in the surf, but I never heard him talk about it. He never mentioned catching one in the Laguna Madre either. We talked A LOT about the kinds, sizes and locations of various fish he had caught in the bay, and I never heard kingfish mentioned.

As the wiki excerpt would imply, it is highly uncommon to catch a king off the beach. Usually they are trolled for, deep in the ocean's waters, in a manner not unlike one would fish for billfish, sailfish, dolphin or the other trophy fighters of the deep. With the same heavy boat tackle used for fish that feature explosive jumps and leaps during the fight to land them.

So while I'm happy for them and their monster catch off the beach, I'm somewhat stupified as to what I've been doing wrong all of these years. And not a little bit envious. It's like, what the hell am I doing wrong?

Having an investigative background, I asked my friend questions, being sure there was some secret method or bait that I've failed to use that resulted in this monster catch.

Nope. They were using the standard medium duty saltwater tackle that one sees up and down the Texas coast on piers and beaches. The rod was about 9 feet long, with again a medium duty saltwater spinning reel. The same rig you might buy for $40 or $50 at your local Academy or Wal-mart store (at least the Wal-Marts near the gulf, where they generally carry more salt gear than at the inland stores).

They were using the standard double drop leader, albeit a metal one, but a short one at about 24" long. Again, when I've fished for kings in the ocean, we've used huge metal leaders anywhere from 4' to 6' long. The same kind of leaders you would use for a shark, barracuda or a sailfish, because kings have sharp teeth and literally destroy the live fish they prefer to eat as soon as said prey enters their mouth.

So they weren't using any magic tackle. They were using the same stuff I've used for years. For bait, they were using a dead shrimp (frozen shrimp from the grocery store, not recently dead shrimp bought at a bait camp or seafood store, which would be fresher and in theory emenate more odor to attract fish) on one of the double hook leaders hooks and a piece of recently dead cut mullet (a small baitfish) on the other hook.

They weren't fishing way out from the beach either. They were doing just like I do, fishing in the trough (usually 6' to 8' deep at high tide) between the 2nd and 3rd sandbars off the beach. So they weren't doing the hard core surf fishing thing of using a 15' rod and wading out over their heads to the third bar to cast their bait as far out in the ocean as they could.

No, they were doing everything just like I would, except all I ever catch on cut mullet is hardhead catfish. Not kings.

So good for them. Yeah, I'm envious as hell, and it just made sure that the Padre Island National Seashore is a place I'll be visiting later this year, like probably August when the fishing heats up.

But for my friends, who also caught a lot of sand trout, hardhead and gafftop catfish and a pretty big stingray (which they ate, yech!), I'd say the fishing was pretty damn good down there.

The Zen of Fishing

So as I said, I went fishing last night at a friend's very nice farm pond. I caught one bass, hooked and lost another just as I was landing him, and had numerous other bites. I ended up getting all my strikes on a slab sided hard plastic medium depth wobbler with rattles inside, using an ancient but in excellent condition Garcia Mitchell 300 and Lew's Speed Stick rod, both from the 70's.



Originally purchased at Gibson's Discount Center in Tyler, Texas by me for the then-whopping sum of $50 total. I've done alot of fishing, fresh and salt water, with this rig, and it's held up great. The old Garcia reels were made in Sweden and are built apparently better than a Mercedes, as it is nearing it's fifth decade of semi-regular usage and is in tip top shape.



Last night was just a great evening. The almost full moon was bright and although we didn't do any more fishing after sundown, we easily could've seen to fish (and seen snakes, if any were about) by the abundant bright light. It was amazing. We turned out all the lights and blew out every torch and candle save for the citronella bug candles and it was quite bright. Bright enough to cast a strong dark shadow on the ground.



It's been a long time since I've been semi-out in the country late at night, with the moon on high, and it was great. It got very cool (and especially for a June evening) around 10 O'Clock, with a light breeze, just enough that I almost needed a jacket to be comfortable.



Our weather is helter skelter. I can recall late nights in June on rare occasion that were this cool (but only a few and it was years ago), but with as messed up as the weather is these days, it just seems as strange as everything else weather wise in the world.



So as I've said, I do really like fishing in farm ponds and creeks/rivers, but again tomorrow I'll be fishing in another friend's farm ponds at their place with Fishing Musician Jr. He'll likely outfish me, and I'll be glad we're lakeside enjoying the day. Late afternoon fishing on a great day is one of those experiences I remember so well from my youth.



My father had no shortage of friends and clients that had fishing ponds on their farms and ranches near and far from Houston, and some of my fondest memories are an evening of fishing at these lakes. Our luck varied, but the great times did not, and I got a chance to be exposed to all kinds of wildlife on these frequent outings.



Growing up, we had a couple of 40 acre places that were once far from town but are now really suburbs and adjacent towns in the urban sprawl that is Harris County. One heading up into east Texas had a huge clear creek and one out west in Cypress had a big lake we were allowed to fish on right next to our land. Lakes Conroe and Houston were equal distances away and it wasn't near the ordeal and hassle to head out north on I-45, US 290 or I-59 as it is now in the late afternoon.



And it wasn't like I ever stopped doing this and I am being nostalgic now that I have kids. No, I've been full on fishing since I was 8 or 9 years old. I started fishing before school and it's just been a part of every phase and aspect of my life. As Cowboy says, I'd fish in a sink of water if it had six inches in it and I thought there might be a fish possibly in there.



I've fished in lots of places and what I have found is that the act of fishing depends not so much on success (although I do enjoy that and it is exiting for me) but on who I'm with. Port Aransas or Galveston, Boliver or South Padre, Lake Fork or the Llano River. I could go on and on. It is not how many fish we caught that I remember about these fishing trips, but the *mis*adventures and hilarity that surrounded it.



Stuck deep deep deep in the sand (I learned sometimes all that having a Ford super powerful 4x4 means is that you can get MORE STUCK in a MORE REMOTE locale than with a regular truck) in the Padre Island National Seashore and hiking out 20 miles starting at midnight.



Out on the jetties at innumerable coastal locations with my law school friend Bobby C. in the afternoons we didn't have class.



Going to this HUGE chain of FIVE COUNT EM FIVE highly differently constructed lakes, all chocked full of bass and none of which had been really much fished in for the past 20 years. It was within hearing distance of the Beltway 8 on the south side of town, maybe about a mile off of the Beltway.


So fishing opportunities abounded for me growing up and even until this current day, and I'm trying to do the same for my kids.


So with a nod of the head to Robert Pirsig, that's the Zen of fishing for me, and I hope Jr. too. It's not the catching of fish, it's the journey. The time spent together.

Excellence in blogger posting

The *anonymous* prosecutor-blogger Arthur Seaton at Saturday Night and Monday Morning posts today:

"I mean, if you’re gonna go, it might as well be by autoerotic asphyxiating accident in Thailand. "

To that, I can only add, as one Houston Chronicle poster said: "two words I don't want in my obit-Autoerotic asphyxiation."

Arthur Seaton is brief in his verbage but is also highly entertaining in his content and what he has to say. For more about Arthur, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_and_Sunday_Morning_(film)

I'll post more later on this weekend about an evening fishing trip I took yesterday, when one of my fishing buddies who does not have the internet postulated a bizarre scenario that somehow, in a way that only my fishing buddy (who we'll call The Master Carpenter) can comprehend, and yet not explain to others, as to how the Bruce Lee legacy could somehow allegedly be involved in the Kung Fu star's death.

As the Master Carpenter said: "Mark my words. Before all is said and done, they will find out that Carradine's alleged suicide had something to do with someone being mad about the way Bruce Lee was treated."

When I was regaling fellow blogger R.J. MacReady at MacReady's Ice House with this gem, R.J. retorted: "And here I thought that King of the Hill was just a cartoon."

Now, the Master Carpenter truly is a master of carpentry and various other construction methods. He is as much artiste as he is craftsman. He worked on my place for about 4 months a few years ago and I got extremely high quality work for a reasonable rate. He used to be a high powered construction manager of high end homes, but found the stress not worth his paycheck. Since then, he's been his own man and is as happy as he can be.

We were out at his family ranch with his brother, The Cowboy, and their father, The Rodeo Star. Cowboy is one of my main hang around friends, and his father has a hilarious story for every moment of the day.

After we finished our fishing, which resulted in one 3 lb bass for me and one for The Rodeo Star and unfortunately none for the Master Carpenter, we were back at the outdoor hanging out spot (shaded screened Gazebo, garden, cooking center, outdoor dining room and recreation area). It's been the project of Cowboy for several years now, a present for his mother, a place in the middle of their 300 acres where she can throw her famous 4th of July bash and entertain friends and family in temperate weather.

I would have stopped building out the area several years ago when it was merely an over-the-top outdoor resort, but Cowboy, with the help of the Master Carpenter, have gone into overdrive and it's a highly relaxing environment. It sits on a hill right above a fish filled tank (pond to the city folks) and the sun sets over the far end of the pond, which is a high tree filled ridge.

So as the Master Carpenter and I were recounting Master Carpenter's Bruce Lee legacy theory, which basically involves some wild, fanatical Bruce Lee fan who is still upset that David Carradine got the Kung Fu role instead of Lee 4 decades ago. I'm afraid Master Carpenter's theory requires a bit too much of a jump in logic and reality for me, but it's working for him.

So after all of this, Cowboy remarked "I didn't know he was so well-hung". The Rodeo Star deadpanned "I guess his kung fu wasn't strong enough".

In the end, I can't believe it was the way he wanted to go. Sympathies to his family and friends, and apologies to the Bruce Lee faction for the Master Carpenter's hairbrained theory.

It's all food for thought, dudes and dudettes. We're only on this planet for a very short time. That time seemingly moves faster as we grow older. And we're all here to do what we're all here to do.

Me and Fishing Musician Jr. have to go fishing tomorrow evening. It's what I'm here to do.

Drum shops: immune from recession?

It was brought to my attention today by my good friend Paul Mason, a Canadian who makes Tempus Drums http://www.tempusdrums.com/, that several new drum shops have recently opened across the globe. In this time of severe recession or depression or whatever it is the government is calling it these days.

One of those drum shops is Shane Kinney's Drum Centre Of Portsmouth http://www.drumcenternh.com/ and another is Cymbal Fusion http://www.cymbalfusion.com/CymbalFusion-com-Homepage-6.html in Houston, Texas. I recently bought some Drum Workshop stuff from Cymbal Fusion and couldn't be more pleased with the quality, low prices and fast and personalized service that the owner gave me. Although primarily an online business, Cymbal Fusion does offer in-person service at their store by appoinmtent.

I guess I'm just amazed that a niche business like a drum shop can open admidst this global economic chaos, but I'm happy they are opening. It give me hope for one day opening my Fishing Musician shop somewhere, selling fine and used high-end musical instruments and fishing gear.

Meanwhile, I just wish I had some more expendable income so that I could buy one of the drumsets as pictured above. Roberto Spizzachino is a custom cymbalmaker who lives in Italy whose hand-made and hand-hammered cymbals are very desired in drumming circles. Called Spizz cymbals by those who love then, they are quite expensive, being made by hand in the old country way that all cymbals used to be made. Whereas most other fine cymbals are sold by the diameter size (i.e. 20 or 22 inches for a ride cymbal), Spizz cymbals are sold by their weight by the gram.

Every now and then, Roberto makes a metal drum kit. The exact composition of the metals used in the drum shells is a trade secret, but it is speculated that some if not all of the alloys used in the making of the metal shells is similar to the alloy mix used in his cymbals. I don't know about the truth of that rumor but I do know that the one set of his that I heard and briefly played out in LA last year knocked my socks off. Volume. Tone. And resonance for days, all from a tiny be-bop jazzer sized drum kit.

I have other pics of Spizz drum kits and many of the parts appear crude upon first glance, especially when compared to modern drums. The deal is, that EVERY part on the drum is handmade and machined from raw metal by Roberto, down to the screws and lug bolts. Nothing is mass produced, and every component is made by hand.

And when I say every component, I mean everything. The legs on the floor tom. The spurs on the bass drum. The brackets. The lugs. The lug bolts. Everything. You just don't see that in musicial instruments and really, in almost no other product made today.

They sell for about $8k new but I've seen several on ebay this year in the $3k-$5k range.

My friend Paul Mason, the maker of Tempus drums, and one of his buddies, Ronn Dunnett, who makes the most excellent Dunnett Classic Drums http://www.dunnett.com/ , were in Germany for the annual Musik-Messe musical instrument show a few years ago and visited Roberto in Italy to see him making cymbals firsthand. Ronn not only makes wood drums but also is well known for his titanium and stainless steel snares and sets that he makes.

When Ludwig needed someone to make the shells for a commemorative John Bonham metal set a few years ago, they called upon Ronn. When DW drums needed someone to make the shells for a limited edition snare a few years ago, they also called Ronn. So Ronn knows metal and Ronn knows how to build a metal set. I myself had a set of Ronn's titanium shelled drums a few years ago, only to sell them because a drummer in Austin who heard me playing them offered me far more than I had paid for them, and I can attest to their quality constuction and great sound.

So when Ronn Dunnett tells me that the Spizz metal drum kit is among the finest sounding kits he's ever played or heard, I listen.

I'll keep dreaming about those while I keep playing my excellent Tempus drumkit and Dunnett snare.

Fishing Holes and Strange Brew

As I've said before, I like to unwind by fishing and by musicianing. Lately, it's been more of the former than of the latter, but it comes and goes.

I'm always looking for a new fishing hole. It can be near or far. I prefer fishing in isolated spots on small lakes, ponds, creeks or rivers, but I've been known to fish big lakes if the spot is right. Of course, I love the entire spectrum of Texas saltwater fishing and do that every chance I get, which is usually 2 or 3 times a year.

But given my preference, a forgotten farm pond (or lake, as we always called them coming up), is one of my favorites. One never knows what kind of monster bass or catfish has been hanging out in older, underfished farm ponds. Generally, there are lots of eager to be caught smaller fish and a few grandfolks.

I found such a pond this weekend. Just five minutes or so from my house, it lies in the woods behind a business. I was visiting the business recently, and began asking questions about it. Ultimately, I was able to go fishing there. I didn't catch any fish, but saw rises from what I believe to be some largemouth bass jumping out from shoreline weed cover to nail a variety of insects hovering on the water at sundown.

I threw everything at em. I had five rods rigged with a variety of baits. A topwater Heddon plug in yellow, a proven producer for 30 years. Likewise, some of the thin, slab shaped plugs that dive then rise and rattle, again, a proven bass producer for 10 years.. A Mepps spinner on an ultralight rod. A weedless Creme rubber frog in green for tossing into the weeds. And an Orvis fly rod #6 with some black gnat looking flies that I got in the 80's from the long-defunct Austin Angler fly shop.

Nada. So I'm going to get one of my friends that has a canoe and hit that shoreline from the water side later this week. It's a small lake, perhaps an acre and a half or two, easily worked well from a paddled canoe.

And after seeing those largemouth bass nailing those bugs from the shoreline, I've got a pretty good idea of where to be fishing come sunset.

I'll take my fairy rod like #3 Orvis and use some more tiny gnat flies. This rod is so thin and whispy that it makes catching the smallest fish seem like a monster. Or perhaps the deadly rubber green spider with white legs, the longtime catcher of many a species of freshwater fish. Sports Afield fishing editor Homer Circle http://www.owaa.org/legends/legendHomerCircle.htm has long touted the benefits of the green rubber spider as one of the ultimate freshwater fly for various bass and panfish. And I have found this to be absolutely true.

It's true, the Dave's Hopper pattern as well as various blackfly and gnat patterns are often successful in southern waters from Texas to Florida. But I've caught trout with those green spiders in places like Colorado and even caught a saltwater speckled trout with one many years ago fishing the bay flats in Rockport, Texas.

In any event, it's been an august year for fishing already. Although the stocked trout at State Parks season this past winter was disappointing due to the mostly high temperatures we endured, I did have one good day during the winter when rainbows are stocked throughout Texas in State Parks.

I had gotten there early, in time to see the truck dump the load of rainbows into the lake. Contrary to what certain fishing authorities have said, I find fishing at the time of stocking to be awesome. The experts say the fish are in shock, but if that's true, they're hongrey and eating while in shock.

There soon arrived two long haired young men, very nice, with quite a variety of tackle. In another era, with their beards and long hair and earrings they would have been described as hippies. I guess they would still be described that way. In any event, they were plenty nice and were from a university not too far away.

By their equipment, their handling of it and their plan of action, you could tell they were serious. They had big saltwater rods for getting bait like salmon eggs and kernal corn out far and deep into the lake. That's a tactic I often use for catfish. They had regular freshwater spinning rods for fishing lures closer in.

They also had what they claimed was moonshine. They spied me staring at them as they were drinking a clear liquid from a small mason jar, and filtering the liquid through a cheesecloth as they drank it. They offered me some, and told me it was homemade sour mash whiskey that a friend of theirs made. They said several folks they knew were running stills for sour mash whiskey, and that amongst their friends, who were mostly musicians, moonshine was just all the rage.

I thanked them kindly but declined. They seemed nice enough and didn't appear to be getting too plastered on the stuff, but I can remember as a child hearing my deep East Texas and South Texas kinfolk talking about making sour mash whiskey in a still in years gone by, and if a critter like a opposum or racoon or mice/rat/squirrel variant fell into the batch after it had been going awhile, well the offending critter was scooped out and the moonshining continued unabated.

Also, there is no telling what the hell these guys were using or putting in their homemade moonshine or how sanitary the conditions had been. There's a thousand reasons to say no and really none to say yes to an offer of strange brew.

Besides, if I need some whiskey, I prefer mine come aged and brown from burnt oaken casks and produced by the legacy of a couple of fellas named Jack Daniels and Lem Motlow.

But back to critters and moonshine stills. Critters, you see, are naturally attracted to the various aromas associated with making of sour mash corn whiskey. I suspect they climb in the vat/barrel/pot and eat a little of the high octane sour mash corn residue floating on the top of the mix, get way intoxicated and fall into the stew. In any event, it's nasty.

My relatives, they'd always laugh an evil laugh and say the critter added flavor to the batch of moonshine. They swore they drank everything they sold, something about sampling and quality control.

My newfound fishing buddies, despite the moonshine snockering they began to show before I left, were definately not too drunk to fish (a condition I have seen before), as they limited out in just a couple of hours.

Cigars, Donuts and Coffee

The blogs you find listed in my blog roll are those that I read daily. I've discovered some new ones, like Guitar Girl RN, about a guitar and bass playing nurse, and it's really cool, but it's so mostly about being a ER nurse that it's a bit too medical for me, what with all the shop talk and medical terms over there. Still, she's saving lives, and that's cool as hell!

But another new to me blog I am reading daily is Cigars Donuts and Coffee . Jason, the blogger there, is in the non-profit business, meaning he's a cop, and I enjoy his blogging.

When I was a cop in Houston in my youth and attending parties and the like, when asked what I did for a living I would tell them I was a garbage collector. I found that the hip young people I attended college with had far more esteem for the garbage collector than for a police officer. Once they got to know me and found out what I did for a living, they generally stayed my friends, but there is always a few that being a cop scares off.

Once, when taking college classes at St. Thomas University, the first month or so of the semester I was taking comp time from work. I had earned so much comp time working overtime that the powers that be said I had to take a hunk off because I had reached my limit of comp time I could carry.

So the first month of the semester saw me attending classes in jeans and a t-shirt and sprouting a beard. But then came that time I had to go back to work. I worked the 2p to 10p shift then, so when I hit my late morning classes, I was in uniform.

Jaws dropped. Folks that had gregariously interacted with me and invited me to their parties and happy hours looked at me like I was a werewolf. It taught me a lesson.

At that same time of my life, I was friend's with the Chief's secretary, Nadine. I had known her for years, and she was always a good friend to me, looking out for me like a second mom. One day, as we were having coffee, she told me that she thought all criminal defense attorneys should have to be a cop for two years before they got their license to practice. Like the Israeli's and other nations have mandatory military service.

Nadine said alot of the young defense attorneys she had dealt with in various jobs around the courthouse needed to understand what the real world was like. What it was like dealing with a suspect at 3 in the morning with no one around to help you if trouble came knocking. Seeing what kind of pain gets visited upon the less-fortunate and young and the disabled of the world. Most of all, she said, they'd learn that the stories their clients often tell them in court are just that, stories and not the truth.

I'm no philosopher like some of the defense attorneys blogs I read. But what I do know is how manly and righteous being a police officer is. So is Jason, the cop and blogger over at Cigars Donuts and Coffee.

Many years ago, the Houston Police Department had a PR campaign with bumper stickers and TV ads that said "The Badge Means You Care.". I thought that was great and I'm one of those folks who think cops are great too. Thanks for protecting us and our families, even those who don't appear to like you very much.

So, I'll close with this quote from one of my TV hero's, Hill Street Blues Sgt. Phil Esterhaus, who always closed his roll calls with:

Hey, and be careful out there!