Rancho del Mar

THEY WERE CAVALIERS and swashbucklers, high-tide adventurers who during the early ’70s built an outpost overlooking one of the final frontiers for wade fishing for redfish and speckled trout on the entire Gulf Coast. They were Ray Fiveash, of Houston; Popo Flores of Brownsville/Matamoros; and Lou Carter of Baytown.

The simple camp was nothing more than a wooden beach house clinging to the edge of a massive sand dune. The name of the sagging shack was Rancho del Mar.

Rancho del Mar was constructed board-by-board on the wild Mexican beach approximately 60 miles south of the Rio Grande. Before paved roads, jetty passes, and fishing ports, it was the only permanent structure below the infamous “Salt Mine Road.”

That desolate trail of sand and shell started about 20 miles south of Matamoros off Highway 101, the blacktop to Ciudad Victoria. The Salt Mine Road was passable only by a go-for-it attitude and determined four-wheel grinding. The ruts terminated on the empty beach. From there stretched tedious hours of low-tide driving on the hard-packed sand, dodging washouts and debris to reach the north side of Third Pass.

Because of the hostile logistics and lack of support equipment, commercial fishing pressure from Mexican net skiffs virtually did not exist in the region.

A few other rod-and-reel anglers had tested the potential, mainly Texans flying small planes and landing on the open beach (long before drug cartels issues), but Rancho del Mar was the first firm foothold.

The camp was rough, but the view from the weathered deck revealed the fabulous vista of the fabled “Middle Passes,” a series of four narrow channels that cut from the Mexican Laguna Madre through sand flats, grass beds and oyster reefs to the open Gulf. They spread like the veins of an old salt’s hand to feed the vast complex.

Hit it right, with a rich green tide swelling onto the beach, and Fifth Pass or Sixth Pass could answer every promise that wading for specks and reds ever made. My first expedition with Fiveash, Flores, and Carter occurred during the spring of 1973. I was 25, my rookie year as an outdoor writer for the Houston Chronicle.

They all were 20 years my senior, veteran pluggers with heavy leather wading belts and salty casting tackle. They had an aura, a correctness about the experience ahead. That excursion was my first great angling adventure. It carried to a different league—and after a world of far-flung fishing experiences, it remains one of my cherished memories.

We hit it absolutely, totally right. The surf was rough, but green to the beach, and the wind was light from the “sweet southeast.” Low, tight flocks of gulls were working baitfish along the distant ribbon of tide-washed sand.

Fiveash, Carter, and I were trailering a big Air Gator airboat and Flores followed in a heavy-duty, Army surplus truck loaded with camp crew, gas cans, supplies, and huge coolers of block ice. It was a major production, a dramatic departure from simply backing an 18-foot center console off a crowded ramp in Galveston Bay.

We reached the camp in time for a short afternoon session. Fiveash backed the airboat across hard-packed sand into the Laguna behind Third Pass. We piled onboard, and the huge radial engine blasted across the shimmering shallows.

He aimed for Sixth Pass, approximately 12 miles south of Third. Even far beyond the final vestiges of civilization, it seemed necessary to go as far as we could go.

The mouth of Sixth was narrow, and outgoing tide was funneling into the Gulf. Fiveash parked behind the south side of the mouth, where the prevailing currents had cut a longer, deeper channel through the surf. It was an excellent ambush trench for schools of predators waiting to prey on shrimp and baitfish.

We waded knee-deep and promptly leaned into bent rods. Speckled trout and skipjacks were stacked in the deeper water of the mouth, gorging on shrimp and minnows. Down the beach, schools of redfish and jacks milled back and forth in the first gut, tearing into frantic finger mullet.

I shall never forget standing on the sand and seeing the ghosting images of redfish sliding through the lifting sunlit swells. We were using 20-pound casting tackle and chunking big gold spoons to punch into the onshore breeze and track through the rolling whitewater.

We filled our cord stringers, tossing back fish less than two or three pounds. Remember, back in the ’70s limits did not exist.

Then Fiveash and Flores started cursing and pointing. Out front, rolling and splashing, advanced a school of tarpon. These big killers could tear up casting tackle and chase the specks and reds from casting reach.

Tarpon!

I had never even seen a tarpon, and I was frantic with excitement. While the old pros were cussing, I re-rigged with a bright King Bingo plug. Standing in one spot I jumped five rapid-fire, before one “stayed stuck.”

I saw the long, chromium flash in a humping swell before I felt the weight. I gloried in the dramatic power, the long runs and the twisting leaps. I chased the tarpon down the beach before sliding it ashore. It was a small one, maybe four feet, perfect for casting tackle.

A tarpon! Whipped while wading—the pinnacle of a young saltwater career!

We raced the sunset back across the utterly empty Laguna to Third Pass. I remember staring into the clear water flashing past the hull and quietly thinking, “Always remember this day, this place, these people.”

It was an astute observation. During the past 50 years, the tired old Gulf has suffered and changed. Certainly, consistent with a legacy of conservation, the potential for good, even great fishing exists. Yet, the untrammeled wildness is forever lost.

Fiveash, Flores, and Carter are gone, and I alone, remain to remember that glorious afternoon.

 

Email Joe Doggett at ContactUs@fishgame.com

 

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