History with boats had meager beginning
"A young boy, two hands on the wheel.
I can't replace the way it made me feel.
And I would turn it shore line, and make it wide.
He'd say, 'Ya can't beat the way an old wood boat rides.'
Just a little lake across the Alabama line,
But I was king of the ocean when daddy let me drive."
-- Alan Jackson
I love Alan Jackson's popular country and western tune When Daddy Let Me Drive. The lyrics remind me of my childhood years and those sultry summer holidays spent tooling around in my dad's 1958 model Yellow Jacket. It was a homemade wooden boat built from a kit he bought for $100.
The 14-foot boat was slick in its day. The deep-V hull was molded from from Honduras mahogany with a pin-striped oak deck and transom, all held together by brass screws. There were two hardwood bench seats cradled by heavy duty coil springs and a windshield to cut the wind as the boat raced across Lake Lavon near my hometown of Garland.
My two older sisters learned to slalom behind that boat. So did I, but not until I rescued it from a rickety wooden barn and gave it an overhaul in 1980.
Dad's old wooden boat eventually followed me to East Texas and Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches. It rode on a homemade trailer fashioned from 2 1/2-inch pipe with 15-inch wheels with baby moon hub caps.
It is funny how many friends you can develop when you are the only one in a trailer park who owns a boat, even if it is old. Finding a fishing partner willing to cut morning classes in exchange for a trip to Lake Pinkston was rarely a problem.
Everyone used to marvel at the wooden boat, mainly because of its unique styling. One of my best friends nicknamed it "Waldo," because it reminded him of Darwood Kaye's speedboat in The Little Rascals.
Anyone who took a spin in Waldo was shocked by the power of the 1958 model 35-horsepower Johnson Sea Horse that hung off the transom. The motor cowling was maroon and white with two fuel adjustment knobs on the face. It ran best with the knobs dialed to the center numbers. The bushings were worn out, so we folded six-pack boxes and wedged them behind the knobs to hold them in place.
It handled great, too. Not only would the boat turn on a dime, it plowed through waves like a bulldozer.
Waldo lived with me until the mid-1980s. That's when I sent her home and got myself a real fishing boat -- a 10-foot aluminum V-bottom powered by a 1955 Johnson 10-horse outboard. I painted the rig blue with Krylon.
Ol' Blue was probably worth less than the tools I kept on board to work on it, but it was the perfect multispecies boat. I used it for bass and catfishing by day, then turned it into a bow-fishing rig about four nights a week.
Ross Fairchild was my official spotlighter in those days. But a guy named Dale Jaresh was manning the Q-beam on that fateful August night at Sam Rayburn Reservoir when I arrowed a 150-pound alligator gar out of the swimming area at Shirley Creek Marina. It was a big battle in such a little boat, but somehow we managed to win it.
My next boat was a vintage Skeeter Hawk given to me by an old college friend, Kirk Wolfe. The fiberglass boat was equipped with stick drive steering at the front and an early-1960s model Mercury 50-horse that would not run.
Rather than spending the money to repair the engine, I robbed the 10-horse off Ol' Blue and strapped it to the transom. The boat was great so long as you were not in a hurry. Plus, it fished like a dream, particularly in super skinny water.
I ran the Hawk until the engine broke down miles from the boat ramp on a blustery winter day with my bride on board. We exhausted the trolling motor battery bucking the stiff north breeze and finally managed to get towed to shore three hours later.
Cold and wet, my wife suggested I sell the boat and borrow the money to buy something more dependable. Otherwise, she was hanging up her rods.
So I sold the Hawk in 1994 for a whopping $700 and used the money as a down payment on a 15-foot Alweld commercial flatbottom. The metal boat was powered by a '94 model 40-horse Yamaha with a tiller control.
It was the first boat I owned that was not an antique. Better yet, I didn't need a mechanic on call to keep it running.
I liked the boat so much that I still own it. I use it primarily for trotlining, bream fishing and navigating the Sabine and Angelina rivers during the height of the annual white bass run.
The flatbottom sits beneath a lean-to I built at the rear of my shop. It used to live inside until the parking spot was taken over by a 2000 Triton TR186 bass boat. That rig was replaced by a 2006 Ranger 521VX during the spring of 2007.
What's next?
My guess is the Ranger and I will be together for a long time after it is paid for. Perhaps one day I'll buy another old Yellow Jacket to stick in an open corner, just to remind me where I got my start.
Matt Williams' e-mail address is mattwilliams@netdot.com.
Share this story:
Google
Yahoo
digg
del.icio.us
facebook
Slashdot
