Last Updated on November 6, 2018 by Terry
Good Friday afternoon to everyone. It’s time for another fishing adventure. I have a newfriend in the San Antonio, Texas area. Let’s call him Captain Javier since thatis his name. Javi and his wife Tiffany own a charter fishing company called Sacafishing.com. I was conducting some classes and overheard a couple of fellows talkingfishing. Well, I felt it was my duty to introduce them to the best bassfisherman from Martindale, Arkansas, so I butted in. Javier was telling an in-shorefishing story and I found it interesting. I asked him to send it to me and Iwould get it on my Friday blog. Here is hisstory in his own words. It was back in early April in 2007 when my fishing partner and I had entered one of the grand tournaments. It is called The Red Fish Cup which was a three-day tournament for red fish. We scouted and pre-fished for two weeks and found tons of fish, but the area we felt that gave us the best chance of winning was over 100 miles away from the boat launch. If we chose this spot, it would only give us about thirty minutes of fishing time each day. Really, our plan was to take about a 2.5-hour boat ride, fish thirty minutes, and a 2.5-hour boat ride back. We decided that if we were going to win, this was our best plan. We were going to swing for the fence or go down swinging! On day one, we crushed it! We were in the top ten and in contention to get a paycheck. After day two, we had moved up in the ranking! We knew if we had a third day like this, we were going to win. That second night, we discussed fishing closer to the weigh in area as we didn’t need many big fish to be in the money but we reminded ourselves that we began this tournament swinging for the fence so we decided that winning was the only money we were fishing for! We blasted off on day three and as soon as we arrived at our honey hole, boom, we had made two casts and had 17 lbs in the boat! It was probably enough to win but we fished to the last second we could in order to gain every ounce! I mean, first place was well over 50k winnings in cash! Why wouldn’t you fish every second you could? As I told you, we pushed it to the last second, fired up the motor, and headed back across the bayou and the 100 miles across the gulf! When we were half way across the gulf towards Venice, LA. I noticed water on the floor! My partner said, “Don’t worry, it’s the live well over flowing”, so I ignored it. A few mins later noticed there was more. I looked down noticed it was coming from the center counsel hatches. I opened the hatch and the flood gates opened. Somehow, we had cracked the hull. The water was pouring in and my partner began to panic. I told him to continue the course as there was a small island just ahead. (After the ordeal we named it Gilligan’s Island!) The Island was about 20 miles away. During that time, I reached out to Coast Guard telling them our situation. So, on we went, he was running the boat wide open and I was bailing water as fast as I could. As we approached the island I told homey if there was one time he needed to stick a boat on an island, this is the time! We were coming in hot at about 50 to 60 mph and now had two feet of water in the boat. He was pushing it as hard as he could as we made contact with the shore, and we began to slide across the mud to the point I thought we were going to slide completely across the island! As we crested the top of the island we slowly came to a stop. My buddy threw both arms out and yelled, “Safe”! We were stranded on the island for twelve hours before finally being rescued by the Coast Guard. A few days later we were able to retrieve the boat! The next day we checked on the tournament and our 17.5 pounds was enough to win the $50k. But instead of weighing in, we were napping on Gilligan’s Island! People ask me if I have any regrets on fishing so far away in a tournament. I remind them that even though we had an emergency and couldn’t weigh in, we caught more fish than they did. So yes, we would do it all over again. Hey, I told you, we were swinging for the fence and we have no fear! ThanksJavier for sharing your adventure with everyone.CaptainJavier Balderas w/Sacafishing says: “Take a kid fishing”.
