Sunday, August 10, 1997
Go fishing to experience the thrill of the great 'buffalo
hunt'
By Ray Sasser
The Dallas Morning News
(KRT)
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Bill Sheka has the deeply tanned face of an outdoorsman,
and he's a crack shot with a rifle or a pistol, but he didn't look much
like a buffalo hunter.
Sheka had just announced that we were about to take part in the great
buffalo hunt of 1997. Heck, there hasn't been a bison in these parts since
Capt. Richard King's sheer force of will transformed the Wild Horse Desert
into the King Ranch.
Sheka is not known to stretch the truth - not since becoming a born-again
Christian about five years back. He seemed deadly serious as he sat at the
dock under the causeway bridge and calmly ate a coconut macaroon.
In the east, the first rays of daylight played on the Gulf Coast's moisture-rich
clouds, promising another Technicolor sunrise. Sheka didn't appear to be
in a hurry.
Our little party of "buffalo hunters" consisted of fellow writers
Phil Shook of Houston and Mike Leggett of Austin. We'd all been on coastal
"buffalo hunts" before. Most had turned into a cross between a
wild-goose chase and a snipe hunt - with us holding the proverbial bag.
"Buffalo hunting was bad last summer," said Sheka in the same
serious tone that Sitting Bull might have used to discuss a poor season
on the Great Plains. "We just didn't have the herds last year."
What Sheka jokingly referred to as herds were redfish - schools that
typically number 100 to 500. When the fish gang up in huge late-summer schools,
they move across the shallow bays like a roving pride of hungry lions.
Anything that flushes ahead of the herd - crabs, shrimp, baitfish - -
is devoured in short order. The more fish present in the herd, the more
aggressive the reds become to beat their schoolmates to a morsel.
Sheka and other coastal guides refer to running the schools as "buffalo
hunting." Like the Plains Indians of North America, who rode their
buffalo ponies into vast herds of galloping bison and picked off the animals,
Sheka runs the redfish with his boat.
The fish are so aggressive they actually will strike lures as they flee
the boat. Redfish may be the only game fish that continue to feed when spooked.
This unusual ferocity makes "buffalo hunting" extremely effective
when conditions are right.
"You need big schools of fish," said Sheka as he fired up his
trusty buffalo pony, a 21-foot Kenner tunnel-drive, shallow-draft boat powered
by a 200-horse Yamaha outboard. "The other key ingredient is calm winds.
Calm conditions make it easier to see the fish."
Marina flags hung limp as Sheka shoved the throttle forward and the boat
rose effortlessly on plane. A herd of reds feeding in the shallows creates
a rippling disturbance that a veteran buffalo hunter can spot at long distances.
It's more difficult to see the fish when strong winds create wave action.
"Pick up your rod and get ready to cast when I stop the boat,"
shouted the guide over his engine's roar. "There's a herd up ahead
on the right."
We dutifully prepared for the charge. Judging from the ripples, the redfish
occupied an area about the size of a two-car garage. As the buffalo hunters
bore in at 30 mph, the fish had little chance to escape.
With redfish 30 feet away and charging to elude the boat's disturbance,
Sheka turned his steering wheel to create a broadside shot, cut his engine,
and we cast four plastic lures on heavy lead heads into the fleeing fish.
Two of the lures were eaten by very large reds. The other two casts obviously
did not hit the water in front of a fish.
That scenario was replayed throughout the morning. We frequently fought
two or three fish at the same time and had four redfish hooked up on at
least three occasions.
We also witnessed the frustration of tenderfoot buffalo hunters who obviously
had trouble seeing the schools. They circled time and again only to stop
short of the action as we cast into the school for multiple hookups.
One fisherman even fell out of the boat when the driver cut hard to set
up a cast. Sheka said such antics are not unusual in the crowded bays around
Corpus Christi.
When the great buffalo hunt ended at high noon, we had boated 48 reds,
including several fish bigger than 30 inches. The heaviest weighed 12 pounds.
It was the guide's best redfish day thus far in 1997.
Along the coast, the dog days of summer could easily be known as the
"buffalo days."
(Ray Sasser is a sports columnist for the Dallas Morning News. Write
to him at: Dallas Morning News, Communications Center, Dallas, Texas 75265.)
(c) 1997, The Dallas Morning News.
Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/
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