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EE If you fish long enough, my friend John Lopez says, you’ll do something stupid. Sad endorsement for the sport, but true.
In former lives, Lopez and I worked as columnists at the Houston Chronicle. He covered ball sports. I followed fishing, hunting, snowboarding and golf. (My gig was way better.)
Now we’re both radio guys covering our same beats, only he’s jumped into fishing with a podcast called “Bite Me” in which he talks Texas saltwater fishing with Capt. Scott Null.
It’s probably good that one stupid thing he did occurred enough years ago that nobody recognized him.
He was no rookie then either. Already on his second boat, and entirely comfortable with all that boat ownership entails, like every one of us who’s genuinely hooked on the sport, he suffered from fishing-induced brain-function interruption, or FIBFI. (If you have a better acronym, share it.)
One Friday afternoon, eager to kickstart the weekend, Lopez joined boat to truck and drove southwest from Houston to a ramp that opens onto East Matagorda Bay, between Galveston and Port O’connor. A favorite spot was unoccupied. He had an hour to test it.
As the sun tickled the horizon, Lopez caught several quality seatrout — 3-pound fish, maybe 4.
That would be his first stop tomorrow morning. No-brainer.
Lopez beat Saturday’s sunrise to the ramp, barely. He backed the boat skillfully off the trailer, as always, tied it off, as always, retrieved something he’d forgotten from the truck, not uncommon, climbed back into the boat, gave the official fisherman’s wave to three guys in another boat, and took a deep breath of salt air.
Beyond the “No Wake” sign, Lopez turned his cap, spurred his horse and started the 20-minute ride.
The flat that held those big trout was empty again. It was, by summertime Matagorda measure, a miracle.
Lopez quieted the big engine and set the hull adrift. He grabbed the same setup with which he’d finished barely 11 hours earlier, aimed the lure — and felt a chill run down his spine.
Load the gear, back the boat, launch the boat, get the cooler out of the truck…
The truck. He’d been so excited, so overcome with FIBFI, that he’d left his truck on the ramp, occupying one full lane of a two-lane ramp on a beautiful Saturday morning.
He’d been gone nearly an hour when he puttered sheepishly back into the harbor. His truck was still where he left it, and its keys were still on the driver’s seat. Lopez tugged the bill of his cap low across his face, avoided eye contact with folks in the single-file line that had formed behind that one open lane, and silently parked his truck.
As he walked back to the boat, not daring to look up, he heard a single pair of hands begin to clap. And then another, and another. And before he could finish his embarrassing walk, they’d all clapped. Not a lot. Just enough.
“We feel you, brother,” they seemed to say through respectful ovation. “We’ve got FIBFI too.”