Fishtales
Mansfield Magic by Leslie Kelly
Excerpt from Saltwater Texas
May 1998 Page 3
I was teamed up with Capt. Steve Oeller. We hit it off right away. Oeller, a young guy about my age, was a man of few words. "You mind wading?" he asked. I assured him I was looking forward to it. "Eight o'clock, all right" he asked, I liked him more already. Just as guaranteed, the wind laid during the night and the water was crystal clear as we headed South from the harbor. Oeller stood on the console and steered with his feet until he spotted a school of redfish. We were soon anchored several hundred yards away, armed with pumpkin seed Norton sand eels and into the waist-deep water we went. When we were within casting distance, we spread out, cast to the edges of the school and were immediately, hook-up. As the fish ripped line from my reel, I instinctively started moving forward. "Stay back!" Oeller hissed, "You'll spook them all." I stopped and let the big redfish show his stuff. It was marvelous.'
We continued to mine this load of redfish until I did something appropriate for the Mother Lagoon..In my excitement, I threw the mother of all backlashes. As I cursed the reel, the manufacturer of the reel, and all reels like it, the redfish were getting further away. Suddenly, Oeller was at my side, taking my rod and handing me his. "I'll take this back to the boat and get another. Use mine," he said. I started to protest and Oeller snapped, "It's my job. Now head over in that direction and you'll cut them off" I'd like to report I refused his generous offer, but I didn't. I went on gleefully catching redfish while Oeller waded the half mile back to the boat, cleared my back lash and brought the boat to pick me up. Is this a great country or what? By then the wind was howling and the water was murking up quickly. We switched to live shrimp under popping corks and spent the rest of the day drifting some of Oeller's favorite areas. We caught fish everywhere we went. Oeller is good at what he does and his knowledge of the Laguna is impressive. With miles upon miles of waist-deep water, a six inch drop-off is considered major structure. Oeller went unerringly from spot to spot, where he knew fish would be holding. My first day of fishing in 1998 had been spectacular. Little did I know it was only the warm for day two which was destined to become one of the best fishing days of my whole life.
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