A Fishing Tale From the Coast

Janessa and I arrived at the south jetty of Packery Channel just as the moon rose Friday night. Joe, my brother-in-law, was already there.

Waves crashed up against the dunes. The tide was the highest any of us had ever seen. We could see some lights on the jetty.

But how would we get there? Joe flashed the lights on his truck. About 200 yards of water was between us. We saw some people walking across. It only looked ankle deep. So I carefully crept across in four wheel drive. Waves crashed over the jetty rocks, washing jellyfish onto the walkway. We walked down and found Joe. He’s a cordial fellow and already made a friend, Mike, who had caught a redfish before we got there.

“Don’t mind the waves, man,” Mike said. “We’re gonna catch some fish.”

We didn’t, though, not that night. We gave up around midnight after losing several hooks to the rocks.

Mike drove a minivan that was set up like a tackle box on wheels. I have no idea how he got to the jetties without getting stuck. He found a high spot on the beach and built a fire out of mesquite wood on which he grilled his redfish. We made camp on a higher spot near the jetties and slept for only a few hours. I woke to fishermen whispering and throwing cast nets a few feet from our camp. The jetties were packed. We thought the beach would be empty this time of year. I suppose the Columbus Day weekend brought out the crowds. Plus, Port Aransas was hosting a kite festival that weekend. Joe walked down the jetties and fished for a while. He caught a couple of big piggy perch but gave up after getting his line tangled with others who were packed on the rocks. So we moved on to the next spot which would be home for the next two nights Fish Pass.

Apparently some folks tried to build this pass through the island in the 1970s. They spent a bunch of money but not enough, and after a few years the pass silted in. A set of short jetties remain, and they attract some fish.

Joe brought his drone to drop bait way out in the deep water. We really wanted to catch a shark. But he forgot to charge the remote control. So we fished the old fashioned way for a few hours while he charged the remote from his truck. I caught a couple of small redfish while we waited.

Finally we got the drone launched. Quite a few people came over to watch the spectacle. Just as the drone was landing, one of our other poles bent over. I grabbed it and started reeling it in. I wasn’t sure what it was at first. The fish seemed to be swimming to shore. Then I saw a black tipped fin. It was a shark. The crowd that came to watch the drone now set their eyes on me. I got it to shore. People came over to look at it and take photos.

It looked to be long enough to keep, but it was our first shark. The three of us decided to turn it loose. There would be more, at least that’s what we thought.

We slept that night under the stars as the waves lapped up a few feet from our tent. The next morning I caught a speckled trout a few hundred yards down the beach. As I was bringing it back to camp I noticed Joe and Janessa looking at something in his hand. He had a hook in his pinky finger - all the way past the barb.

“We’re going to urgent care,” Joe said.

The medical staff cut off the loop and pushed it through. About an hour later they came back and Joe immediately baited a hook. He was mad at those fish. We didn’t bring home any keepers. But later, I realized we caught at least nine different species - redfish, speckled trout, ladyfish, blacktip shark, piggy perch, a big croaker, mangrove snapper, hardhead catfish, and a small gaftopsail, not to mention all the mullet we caught in a cast net.