Jetty Time

May should be official jetty month, where we spent our best years as “jetty rats,” walking the rocks and slinging spoons for trout, redfish and mackerel. Which jetty? All of them in Texas, with the exception of the relatively new construction at the mouth of the Colorado River, now called Jetty Park.

(We haven’t been back to that area in a long time. Before there were jetties, we spent the night nearby in a small no-tell motel on a sultry April night without air condition or fan. Had to leave the window open to breathe, while just outside in the parking lot two women fought at midnight or closing time, cheered on by a small crowd. For some reason, we haven’t been back).

But I’ve wandered off on a tangent here. Jetties and their fish-attracting granite and growth poke out into the Gulf a fair distance, and they offer great sport tossing plugs and spoons (or live bait) into a green tide – without really knowing what will latch on next. It’s an element of surprise mostly lacking in the bays. Big critters both huge and loathsome prowl Texas’ numerous jetties. Maybe not the monsters of yesteryear, when in the 1930s the state record’s 736-pound sawfish and 551-pound goliath grouper were caught from Galveston’s jetty rocks by Gus Pangarakis. Big sharks and goliath grouper still lurk around those rocks, though sawfish are quite rare, these days.

From our vantage point on the rocks we could often see fish cruising by, sometimes only 10 feet away, like big sow trout attended by a half dozen smaller males. (It was early June and must have been spawning time.) The sheepshead are always there, nibbling and tugging on tasty marine growth attached to the rocks.

Great fun out there, maintaining balance and hoping not to stumble into a busted day at the ER. Without today’s fishing gloves, our bare hands were first to absorb a fall, hitting hard surfaces coated with sharp oysters and barnacles. Despite the risk, we piled up fish on many days. For years, boaters anchored nearby glumly watched our bent rods. We had great mobility and could pivot and catch fish on either side of the rocks. We prowled back and forth for 50 yards until fish were located, never knowing where they were on any given day. And we had it all to ourselves; nobody seemed willing to leave their boats and climb the concrete apron covering our jetty. Years later if the wind was right, perpendicular to the rocks, and without a current on the Gulf side, folks began venturing onto that solid structure. Most easily accomplished during a west wind, though that was bad for water clarity. However, a pocket of precious green water on the east side might hang on through the day and provide steady action. Green water remains a gift on the upper Texas coast.

This all happened at the Sabine jetties, only a 20-minute car ride from our homes. We had the murkiest jetty water on the Texas coast, but when green water did arrive there was serious action. The only live shrimp available were caught with 20-foot “sport” trawls pulled behind small boats, and we didn’t own a net. Live bait was so scarce, gamefish were brazen around artificial baits, far more so than at Galveston, where our Tout Tails went ignored. The mile-long line of rocks at Sabine originates in marsh country and is only accessible by boat. Our jonboats and small fiberglass rigs were perfect for jetty plugging; aluminum could bump rocks without damage if the wind was light. We didn’t even launch back at Sabine Pass, but at Mobley’s boat ramp within easy sight and a calm boat ride near the jetty’s base. Those rocks stuck high enough above water to shelter boats in the channel from whitecaps. Today, the same jetties have sunk low in the silt bottom, while the Gulf is said to have risen six inches in the past 50 years or so. It can now be a choppy, wet ride in the channel, just to reach the jetty’s end.

You can bet we made the most of it for 15 years, however. Sharp memories of ice cream days include:

>Landing and dropping 50 trout (before bag limits) on the flat concrete wall during fast and furious action at point blank range, only to have a passing crewboat wash them away. We jumped in, swam around and grabbed as many of the bigger floating trout as we could round up. Our mackerel sank, of course.

>During a trout blitz at sunset, our stringers were attacked by sharks four to five feet long, targeting our biggest trout. As the light began to fade, I had to swim to the boat anchored 50 feet away, in deeper water. Very fast. I vaulted into the boat because we never owned a dive ladder. We also never used a landing net out there. You could time a small wave and have it deliver your fish onto a handy, flat rock.

>The only tarpon we ever jumped out there happened in dark green water, a rarity for that area, and after that excitement it was a three-pound trout on every cast. Not another boat in sight! It was going to be an epic day…Except our friend Jay tried to carry his optimistic, empty Igloo up the algae-covered stairs at jetty’s end. He slipped and tumbled down the concrete stairs, landing with a screech on oysters and barnacles. Even his blue jeans were cut up and his hands…well, we won’t go there. We’d only been there 25 minutes, and had to bring him home. He was always a good sport.

>We spent the night out there twice. Under a full moon, we set up sleeping bags and lantern a dozen feet above water where Jay had fallen. Nothing biting and the night was bright as day. The Sabine Pilot boat and various crewboats roared by at 40 yards all night so, not much sleep. However, at dawn the tide was pouring out and trout on the channel side would do anything for a MirrOlure. Without another boat in sight, we leveled two Igloos with trout without ice, and then sped back to the ramp by 9-10 a.m.

On the other overnighter during a tournament, we set up a heavy generator with lights on the end of the west jetty, a dicey proposition with scattered but flat rocks. Fished and then tried to sleep on granite under the stars. One of the jonboats named Get Lucky had gotten leaky, and we had to turn on its bilge pump periodically. A west wind came up and whitecaps arrived, the tide rose and our rocks began to flood. We carried that generator through knee-deep waves, threw our possessions into the jumping boats, and made a full retreat.

>When there was a bag limit of 10 trout, I carried a flyrod out there on a hot calm morning. I had no proper flies to fling, like a Deceiver, which would have been nice, but I did have an old-fashioned bass bug, the kind with feathers and a cork head. Out on a handy half-submerged rock, I flailed away, had many popping strikes, and landed 10 trout in the 3-pound range.

Today, the Sabine jetties are far more hazardous to walk and fish from. Often awash, it’s caused a number of boat wrecks large and small because much of the structure is covered by a foot or more of water. (With numerous countries now offering to buy liquid natural gas via Sabine Pass, those rocks need to be raised for better navigation, but that only puts more weight on the rocks below.)

Few fishermen venture onto the Sabine jetty these days; instead they fish from boats, either anchored or by easing along with electric motors. All other Texas jetties can be walked in varying degrees, accessible from shore. The longest, at Galveston/Bolivar, can only be walked a certain distance and it is boaters who make the big scores further out near the end. Our first trip there long ago in high school was in a 12-foot v-bottom aluminum boat and by launching on the Bolivar side, even a mile out we were never more than 100 feet from solid rocks. All around us, other boaters were free-shrimping and hauling in big trout. I finally scored a single trout on the Tout lure, a fish that weighed six pounds.

Port O’Connor’s big jetties on Matagorda Island are only reachable by boat, although there are airstrips on either side of the channel, one of them small and the other quite large, built during WWII. When we lived in POC, we spent many days anchored around the jetties there, and had our favorite spots until they changed. Once, a day after the Labor Day crowd went home; while walking the rocks, I jumped 11 tarpon on fly, spin and baitcasting tackle. Not big ones, only 2-3 feet long, but they were energetic. Eleven tarpon without a plane ticket, just a fast ride in a jonboat.

We used to make a pilgrimage now and then to the South Padre jetties for more reliable green water and shots at jetty tarpon, where the state record was caught and held for decades by Tom Gibson.

The Mansfield jetties north of there are reachable from South Padre by car and can also make for a productive day, but only after a very long drive on the beach with its attendant, occasional hazards. Like driving over dead hardhead catfish without a spare tire. Or a spring storm that can flood that entire beach up into the sand dunes. This happened to us while camping there, a late-night flood that drove all beach campers inland. Once relocated and safely back inside our now saltwater-soggy tent, and trying to sleep, young people drove up, parked next to our tent and passed out in their car. Their 8-track cassette loudly and repeatedly played Peter Frampton for the next seven hours until we fled at sunrise. To this day, I can’t abide Peter Frampton.