I had recently retired from the military and my brother in law had invited me to go fishing with them. I wanted to get closer to my dad and they had gone out to the coast before. So I decided to go. Well, I found out that “them” were friends and relatives who were also invited. My brother included

The problem was that I had never gone fishing before. I had to buy a fishing rod and reel and I picked one for the salt water fishing rod thinking we were going out on a boat. Also, I had to buy other fishing equipment plus a license to fish.

We took three vehicles. My brother Joe had built a platform with wheels where we could stash our rod and reels and ice chest with food and drink so we didn’t have to carry them.

When we arrived at Port Aransas, we had to go across on a ferry. After going through the small town, we went up to the jetty, a strip of marble concrete slabs running all the way up to the deeper part of the bay. I was looking for the boat but they just parked on the side and started taking their fishing gear out and selected their own place to fish. No boat.

I took out my gear and proceeded to put the line in the reel and later got my hook with bait. I had to put a #2 lead to make the hook go down where the fish were. When I tried to bring the hook back, it got tangled between the rocks and I had to cut the line. I placed another lead and I lost it too. I lost all my #2 leads without getting a bite. They told me later that I should have use a bobber which keeps the lead from getting stuck. No wonder they were laughing.

Later we decided to go to Rockport which is further down the sound. At Rockport there’s a bridge that takes you across the bay. There is also a dock on the side of the bridge which most fishermen use to fish from. The water line is fifty or more feet from the dock.

Before we can fish, we have to take all of our equipment all the way to the end of the dock. This is where the moving platform came in. I didn’t know that the guys had put all the ice chest (5 with beer and 1 with food) and all the fishing equipment on the platform which made it a little heavy but easier to pull or push. The dock was a little less than a mile and it took a while to get there. Not even halfway, we noticed that it was getting harder to pull.

Unfortunately my brother had put plastic wheels on the platform and the rough concrete had caused the plastic to deteriorate leaving only the metal rim. So, we had to use all the guys to pick up the platform a little so we could make it all the way to the end.

It was getting late so some of the guys took a tent and nailed it to some remaining wood on the dock. The rest went fishing.

I was also excited about fishing from the dock but it was getting dark and I couldn’t see the water from there. I went ahead and let the line out. I did that two or three times and after that I noticed that the line wasn’t even wet nor the bait I had put in. I didn’t have enough line in the reel!

The next morning I was thinking about having eggs for breakfast and all they had was bologna and bread.

That was the last time I have gone fishing!