We Were Jetty Rats Once…and Young

Sticking a sow trout at the jetties this past June was like visiting an old friend. If you've ever spent a summer's day on a Texas jetty you know them well, with their elemental forces and prowling redfish, mackerel and trout. Scarred by the rocks and more wary now, we no longer prowl them on foot, however. Instead we use an electric motor to ease up and down the long wall, firing casts.

My big sow lathered the water and fought like a redfish but was soon landed, weighing seven pounds, twelve ounces. Behind her the same green rocks from our youth sloshed and sighed in clean water, full of memories going back to the summer we graduated from high school to become jetty rats. June marked our 40^th year of fishing these jetties---we skipped the high school reunion, which was probably a scary event anyway, convening instead where little has changed from our glory days.

A true jetty rat has scars earned from years of traversing clean granite boulders that have grown treacherous with marine growth from countless tides. No other fisherman flirts with disaster at every step; one wrong move and the rat's day is done. While scarred surfers are among the ranks in some jetty venues such as Padre Island, it is jetty anglers we deal with here.

In our youth, we spent perhaps a thousand sun-struck days walking, wading and plugging the jetties, casting for six or eight hours at a session, dragging stringers of fish, all of us suffering wounds on occasion. We walked the rocks and covered ground, bailing out of perfectly good boats left anchored and empty. Anchoring meant judging the wind to a fine degree: If it exactly paralleled the jetties, I delivered the guys and their gear to a prominent green rock, backed the boat off, anchored and then bailed out, swimming in 30 feet of water. Close in, you sort of felt your way to solid footing---not with the hands, but by probing ahead with high-top Converse shoes; it was easy. The only problem was returning at sunset. After sharks had tugged on our stringers, there was never a volunteer to retrieve my anchored boat. Sometimes we could snag the boat with a plug, and coax it within reach. Other times I had to swim 40 feet or so in record time, vaulting into the boat before startled sharks could figure out the program and cause more serious mischief.

Walking the boulders meant seeing things anchored boaters couldn't, like eight-pound sow trout swimming through rocks in a leisurely fashion right under our rod tips, with a half-dozen small male trout following closely. We were free to roam for hundreds of yards, pivot and cast on either side as the current or water color suited us. Sometimes we fought big trout for hours with topwater chugger lures, while anchored boaters glumly watched. There was a 10-trout limit on fly rod, using surface poppers. And nine tarpon in one evening without, I assured the Chronicle sports desk, an airplane ticket involved...

Our tools were simple enough. Gold spoons were the favorite, with an occasional MirrOlure thrown in. Today's full tackleboxes and wide selection of artificials would have shocked us back then. We were wary of Spanish mackerel taking our few plugs, and only used them in mackerel-free water. In a good summer I used up a dozen or 15 cards of spoons, each with a stronger treble hook added. Some days, the MirrOlure just worked better. One Memorial Day the spoons drew countless follows by sizeable trout during a green afternoon tide. When I switched to a pink Mirro I was amazed at the solid, wallowing hookups. Somehow I had two pinks and my buddy was happy to borrow. For an hour we were bowed up on three-pounders, with others following every hooked trout. It was a serious lesson that color and plug design could make a big difference.

Our red reels held no-nonsense, 20-pound Ande line that could survive a glancing blow from marine growth. Or jiggle a spoon loose from a snag below. And maybe survive a toothy mackerel hit. The only time we used light wire leaders (which trout disdain) was August/September when mackerel were a threat on every cast. One Labor Day before limits, Amy and I packed a four-foot Igloo with big macks while anchored at the tip of the jetty. Another August while walking, we had exactly 25 Spanish on the stringer, which didn't have a float. A newbie fisherman with us couldn't lift it into the boat and dropped it, the entire load sinking like a stone. I dove repeatedly without a mask in the rocks, but couldn't find it.

Was it worth it? A thousand trips would indicate that yes, our healed scars were a badge of honor. I wonder how many anglers would trade countless safe trips, walking, climbing and wading through tides and waves, landing thousands of gamefish, without worrying about stingrays or submerged (sea nettle) jellyfish, for maybe a single trip to the hospital? We also burned very little boat fuel and somehow never had problems with Vibrio bacteria, though we were wet every trip. Shannon Tompkins would agree:

In the early '80s I had some of the best trout fishing of my life walking those rocks. One May 1, Pete Churton and I stood on the very tip of the jetty, on that flat part on the Gulf side of the tower on the end, and smote the huge trout. They fell in heaps. I caught a nine-pounder and several over six. Waves surged around us and we were soaked. The climb down from the tower to the little apron, and the climb back up were treacherous and dangerous and something only young men with little understanding of their mortality would do. But, Lord! did we smite the trout. Huge fish, silver and lavender with ice-pick fangs poking from yellow lips. They wallowed like chrome 2x6s in that margarita-green water.... And we had it all to ourselves. Most people had better sense.

Boat-fishing the Jetties

It is of course far safer to anchor a boat and fish the jetties, anchoring within easy casting distance of the rocks. Or better yet, use an electric motor and ease up and down the wall, covering more ground, keeping 10 feet or more from the cruel rocks, which have a bad effect on expensive fiberglass. It requires a steady hand when waves are crashing into granite; some guides won't even fish the jetties. Aluminum jonboats are more forgiving when bumping rocks, though the ride out can get bumpy. In our jetty rat days we didn't hesitate to toss an anchor on dry rocks where it couldn't get snagged underwater, pull in close, unload our gear, then kick the jonboat into deeper water. We never looked back, unless the wind direction was sketchy.

Things to remember when boating here:

>Schools of fish move up and down the rock wall, and angler mobility can be important. That's why the guys on the rocks scored so big in the past. Without a bay boat and electric motor, try drifting if the wind parallels the rocks. If not, pick a spot and anchor with a small chain and good rope.

>Watch other boats for action, and learn. Avoid crowding in on another boat enjoying action, unless invited. If you see boats anchored within six or eight feet, they're probably friends. Bring a selection of small weights and hooks when using live bait; jetty fish roam the entire water column from top to bottom. A weightless shrimp might work one day on sow trout, while the next day you would ideally have two-ounce bank sinkers to hammer a redfish school prowling bottom in 20 feet, a popular depth for these fish. Pyramid and egg weights will only snag rocky bottom.

>Live shrimp is good insurance. In the old days we were badly burned when visiting the Galveston and Port Aransas jetties, which held cleaner water. The fish wouldn't touch our killer lures from East Texas, but anglers employing live shrimp, either free-swimming or weighted and down deeper, caught ponderous redfish and trout. It wasn't fun, sucking hind tit and slinking back to the dock with maybe one fish. We've all been there, done that.

>August is prime time for tarpon and if you see someone in the next boat posing one of these precious fish for too many pictures, dropping it with a thump every time it thrashes, encourage them to release it pronto. (A pet peeve of mine from the POC jetties).

Injury Report

The jetties guarantee that falling is bad news. One develops fine footing and balance, or moves slowly without taking rash steps, not even for trophy fish. Tough blue jeans and high-top tennis shoes are tools of the trade here. Today I wouldn't walk the rocks without padded Aftco fishing gloves. Fingers remain exposed for tying knots, but you really want to protect those palms that hit first, if you stumble and fall.

Borrowed track shoes on an impromptu trip in May, 1978 resulted in a bad slip while jumping from wet boat to jetty wall, and my day was done without ever standing on the rocks. I lay stunned on the concrete apron, legs in deep water. An oyster shell the size of a quarter was broke off, hidden inside my palm. In a hospital room they snatched it out, and the wound took more than a month to close and heal. It was my worst injury ever. In those days the jetty rats called me the King of Pain.

Shannon Tompkins, whom we introduced to the Sabine jetty, has a similar tale. Bowed up on something huge, perhaps the sow trout of a lifetime, he followed it quickly down the lumpy concrete apron grown thick with cruel marine growth. I can say without the slightest embellishment that he tripped, flew through the air in a moment of true jetty rat glory, and landed hard. Bam! His rod broke and the palm of his hand was ripped to the bone, among other injuries.The only remedy was to bundle him off to the nearest Doc-in-the-Box for treatment and Keflex, the antibiotic of choice for jetty rats.

Shannons account:

I didn't do a belly flop, but I knew I was in horrible trouble going down. As I fell, I kept the rod in my left hand and used the reel to take the brunt of the force to that hand. Sadly, I had nothing to protect my right hand. My hands took the force of the fall. A three-inch cut diagonal across my palm was the worst of it.

Pete drove me to Beaumont, where Dr. Gupta acted like I was bothering him, what with dripping blood all over the place. The nurse put my hand in a bowl of Betadine and cleaned the shell fragments and algae out of my palm. [I dug shell and green stuff out of my knees and legs for weeks]. Then the good doctor gave me a single injection of anesthetic near the cut, waited two minutes and began sewing me up. Internal and external stitches. I was on my back on a table with arm extended to side. The anesthetic was all but useless. I was writhing in pain, but not moving my hand. Trying to be tough. Pete left the room first, then the nurse. Pete said later the nurse was upset because the doctor wouldnt give me more anesthetic. The whole time, Dr. Gupta repeated ad nauseum: Mr. Tompkins! You are being most uncooperative! At least I got a neat scar out of the deal