Hello from the Texas Gulf!
Kim is in the back of the R.V. watching some cheese holiday musical movie. She wanted me to watch with her, but I’d rather die, so I am updating this blog. We have just seen off the last of my family from Arkansas, my brother Tuna left this morning. We had planned on a two day straight fishing marathon, but mother nature had other plans and shot a nasty cold front our way. We got soaked with wave spray from the 30 mile an hour constant winds stirring up the water over the jetty rocks and were only catching junk fish, so we quit and played Playstation games for the rest of the day yesterday. It rained so hard last night and the forecast was for more of the same, so Tuna left for home and I can’t blame him.
We met up with my family in San Antonio. My mom had scored 8 free tickets to Sea World from one of Bill’s connections at Anhueser Busch and was ready to play Super Grandma for a few days, so she rounded up all the grandchildren and their parents and headed for Texas. Kim and I had completed a three day visit to Big Bend National Park in South Texas and headed to San Antonio to meet with everyone else.. I was greeted by two dozen or so head butts to the sternum and stomach by Emily Rose. E. Rose is the youngest of my sister Julie’s and John’s children. The good lord decided to untie Julie’s fallopian tubes at the tender age of 40 and the product is a curly blonde headed whirling dervish Nacho Libre wannabe. The powers-that-be gifted E. Rose with strength, stamina, and a strong will, so that she can survive her older siblings, two of whom have a mean streak a mile wide. E. Rose is cute, so that she can avert the potential wrath of the adults that she frustrates with her temper and tenacity. Little Emily is propelled by a 24” diameter spool of 200 yards of NASA super-alloy spring steel self wound at night with the calories she consumes from Sprite, pizza, juice, and other family vacation fare. This mechanism only affords the E about 10 seconds of attention to any given stimulus. Next in the room to greet me is Margaret Elizabeth. M. E. is the next oldest at 7 years. She ran into the room and power hugged me and gave me a kiss. I haven’t been a good enough uncle to deserve this treatment, but she is a sweetheart. M. E. looks like Donna’s mini-me. She is the spittin’ image of Donna and must be parented very well. She is smart, polite, fun to be around with just the occasional sassiness. Jeremy, Little John and Bee are old enough that they don’t cut me any slack or affection, they just put up with me.
Sea World was as much fun for me as it was for the kids. The killer whale and Dolphin shows are great and the roller coasters were a surprise. The weather was almost hot, so we dried off quickly after getting soaked by the river raft ride. Jeremy won a huge stuffed sea turtle at the arcade by flipping three frogs into their lily pads. Bee was enthralled by the dolphins and Little John actually smiled while riding the roller coaster. Everyone took turns riding herd on the E. Rose, We took off for the quaint fishing town of Port Aransas and made it there by 11:00 p.m. where Tuna and M.E. joined Kim and I in the R.V. at the campground on the beach and the others stayed in hotel rooms that my mom had booked for them.
Tuna caught the first big fish on the jetty, a 36 inch Red Drum or Redfish. It was a battle for a while, but he brought it in without incident. The following evening Big John, Tuna and I all went out on the pier and night fished for shark. After about two casts I brought in my tackle only to find that I was tangled in someone else’s fishing line. I started to untangle the beautiful purple tinted line when simultaneously I felt stinging on my hands and heard John yell “Portugese Man-Of-War”. He said it so quickly I had to rewind the tape and listen in slow motion replay. “Porch - You- Geez- Man - O - War!!!!!!” I looked down onto the railing to see the oblong purple balloon that I had dreaded for years since my childhood and quickly dropped “the fishing line” that belonged to the purple jellyfish. The boy in me was sure he was going to die a slow torturous death, but the man in me does all the talking and he assured Tuna and John that aside from the stinging and swelling I was fine. I casually baited up again and cast out, all the while wondering what fate would befall me. Tuna all but insisted on an E.R. visit. In a matter of minutes I had hooked a shark and forgot all about the stinging. I caught 5 or six sharks and John caught three before Tuna could even hook one. I felt this was just desserts after he caught the only big Red the day before. The man-o-war left his tentacles on the railing unbeknownst to John and Tuna and they both got a dose of him on their forearms before the evening was over. Tuna wiped his mouth with his sleeve and got a numbing dose of man-o-war on his lips. We left the pier with three sharks, cleaned them and put them on ice.
Jeremy had spent the night recovering from too much sun and missed out on the shark fishing. Julie seems to miss out on all of the fun, so we took them with us the following night to try our luck again on the sharks. The first big cold front of the year was bearing down on us, so we tried to get out as quick as possible. There was a 20 mile an hour warm breeze coming from the southeast right off the ocean and it was 75 degrees. We got our lines in the water and I hooked a small shark. I gave the shark to a Mexican man and re-baited my hook. All of a sudden the warm ocean breeze went dead calm. Tuna and I looked at each other and said “here it comes” simultaneously. Within 10 seconds we got hit by a 50 mile an hour or better cold wind from the North. It was blowing poles over, scooting tackle off the pier and blowing the tops off the white caps back into the ocean and up onto the pier. At that instant Tuna’s line took off into the wind driven mist and his pole doubled over. God had put the biggest fish of Tuna’s life on the end of his pole while driving a huge norther right into our serene Gulf evening. This combination was evidently more than my brother’s rationale could handle and the next 20 minutes was pure chaos culminating in a temporary loss of dignity. Tuna barked out orders and laments and proclamations at everyone in earshot. Early in the fight he was sure that the fish was too much for his tackle, then no, no it wasn’t and everybody needed to stand back. “Get my red bag dude, before it blows off the pier, get the landing net, get out of the way, go this way, oh forget it, he’s gone, no he’s not, don’t tangle the net rope, cut the rope, cut the rope, wait, wait he’s gone, no he’s not, get out of the way” and so on. He disenfranchised all of the onlookers, but I understood. The little boy comes out in every man when he gets the big one on. I stayed with him, because that’s what brothers do and then we make fun of him later. Julie, John and Jeremy scrambled and got all of our gear off the 200 yard long pier and back to the truck while Tuna and I did our best Laurel and Hardy fish landing routine to the laughter of a couple of punk teenagers who were out enjoying mother nature’s wrath. Finally the big Black Tip Shark curled it’s 52” body into our crab/landing net and I was able to haul it up onto the 25 foot tall pier. At 55 pounds this was Tuna’s biggest fish of his 43 years and I think he was entitled to freak out a little. Now the rain started pounding down and we each took a side of the net and hustled the shark to the truck. Julie, John and Jeremy met us there and we said quick good-byes after Julie and I made fun of Tuna a little. I imagine the shark fishing would have been awesome that night and Jeremy or Julie would have been the next to hook one if the weather had just held off for a couple more hours. As it is we have a great story to recall every Thanksgiving.
I am sorry this blog rambled, but I do love a good fishing tale. I also love my family despite all of the funkiness. We are definitely dysfunctional, but it is an open, outward dysfunction that we all discuss and critique on a regular basis. Thanks Mom for all of the adventures you have inspired and the goofy siblings you have provided me. We are still a team after al these years. Julie, I miss you and your giggle and good humor already. John, I had a great time hanging out with you, you are officially in the “circle of trust”. Tuna, screw you! I am going to catch something in the next few days to make you jealous. Your long history of Texas fishing one-upmanship is starting to piss me off!
P.S. Tuna thinks the shark weighed 80 pounds, he is full of it.
Picture 1: James feeding the dolphins at Sea World. He did let the other kids have a chance too.
