Reflections

Does Your Wife Have a Fishing License?

It’s winter time and oyster boats are scraping the shell beds all over Copano Bay harvesting their bounty. I’m taking a newly made friend out to one of the reefs in the middle of the bay to fish. My wife and I had met Cy and Audrey at a RV park they were staying at and had quickly become friends. Cy is retired and migrates to the Texas coast every winter to enjoy the milder climate and fish. Like most winter visitors he is a big sheephead fisherman.

The reef we are going to is crescent shaped with a deep bowl on the north side of it. We had put the 19 foot Shoal water in at the foot of Copano Bridge. It’s not a good place to lynch because it has filled in and you have to pole your boat out to deeper water. This has been completely rebuilt and is now a really nice place with concrete parking lot and fish cleaning station. Getting to the reef we come around from the north and throw the anchor out onto the reef and let the southeast wind set the boat in position to fish in the bowl area.

We are fishing with live shrimp using bait casting rods Carolina rigged. We both are fishing three rods apiece and setting them in rod holders. The baits barley hits the water before there is a fish on. In comes a nice sheephead and then another. We are doing good. I notice Cy is holding one rod and every time he goes to tend another rod he lays it down on the cushion seat. I’ll say no more about this except the last time I saw that rod it was going across the bay like a torpedo leaving a trail of air bubbles behind it.

It’s not long before we have our limits and it time to go and I commit that it is a shame to have to quit so soon when the fishing is so good. Hearing this Cy turns to me with his cell phone in his hand and says “does your wife have a fishing license?”. I’ll leave the rest of the story for you.