Last week’s story ended with all of our group leaving the jungle for San Pedro Sula. Upon arrival we checked into an old but elegant looking hotel. I kept thinking I had seen this hotel before somewhere in my past. We all got to our rooms, showered and went straight to bed. Everyone was too tired to eat and just wanted to get some rest.

I laid down in my bed exhausted but for some reason I couldn’t go to sleep. I tossed and turned for about 30 minutes and finally got up, dressed and went downstairs to the lobby. I walked outside for fresh air and one of the bellboys came up to me and asked if I wanted some female company. I thanked him and said no thanks. He then asked if I wanted to try my luck at gambling as he said they had a casino in the basement. I was so young and had not ever seen a casino before so I went down to the basement to the casino. I walked in the door and there were about 20 workers all dressed in white shirts, and black jackets. The ladies wore very nice uniforms. The room was very bright, unlike the dimly lit hotel above but I was astonished that there was not one client in the room; just casino employees. I then remembered where I had seen the old hotel before; It was Rick’s place in the old movie Casa Blanca. I looked at my watch and it was 9 PM and I thought “something just isn’t right.”

The greeter asked me if I wanted to come in and I nervously said “Okay.” He then asked me for my passport and I said “no way.” He explained that it was hotel policy and I couldn’t enter without giving him my passport. I finally agreed and proceeded to walk around looking at all the games. I finally stopped at the roulette wheel as that was all I knew how to play. I figured any dummy could place a bet on red or black or odd and even. I put down a $10 chip on red and won right off the bat. I continued to win until I got up to about $100 ahead. I should have walked out right then but of course I didn’t. I think I had about $350 total dollars with me and before I knew it I had lost it all but maybe $150. They had suckered me big time and it made me mad as h— but I left and went upstairs to my room and went to bed.

I was so mad at myself and the crooks downstairs that I couldn’t sleep once again. I just laid there getting more and more angry until I decided to go back and get my money back. I had figured that they could control where the ball was going to stop so I decided I would place several bets all at the last second, not even knowing what I was picking. I would place down 4 chips not knowing if I was betting odd and even at the same time. In other words I had no plan and didn’t know what I was betting on so I knew they sure as hell didn’t know. As crazy as it may sound I won all my money back that I lost and I quit and went to bed satisfied that the crooks didn’t get my money then slept good all night.

The next morning we all met for breakfast except for Ed Weaver. Ed had left the night before and didn’t say good-bye as I guess he was so sorry about the bad trip he had talked us into taking. The captain invited us to fly over to his place on Roatin Island and stay a few days as his guest. Since we had a couple days to kill, we took him up on his offer.

We bought airline tickets at the airport and waited for our plane to start boarding. When we walked outside on to the tarmac to board our plane there sat an old DC3. Yep, there it was as big as I left it in the mountains of Mexico. I hollered “No way, Jose! I am not going. Period!” Joe, Chuck, and the Captain all begged and pleaded with me, telling me it was just a very short flight and perfectly safe. I still said no and hell no I wasn’t getting on that plane. I fought a good fight but finally I went with them but prayed all the way to the island.

We arrived safe and sound at the Captain’s Reef House hotel. He had about 10 guests who were all divers. The water was crystal clear and we chose to go swimming right away. Chuck didn’t go but Joe and I went in the water after the captain assured us there were no sharks in these waters. We were beginning to have some fun for the first time since we had left Dallas. Joe and I were both raised in the country and had never spent any time around the ocean or for that matter anywhere else except Kerens, Texas and Round Prairie, Texas.

We finally had enough swimming and started wading out of the water when Joe let out a big howl and grabbed his foot. He had stepped on a sea urchin and was in some kind of pain. It had stuck him in his big toe and he was rolling around on the ground asking everyone around what had bit him and what to do about the pain. Some guy about 20 years old told Joe to pee on it and that made Joe very angry and he told the guy to go to hell and if he cracked another smart ass joke he would deck him. Then the fellow told him he worked for the Captain as a dive instructor and that the urine would stop the pain. Joe then went into the bath and sure enough the urine stopped 90% of the pain.

The next day was our last, so the captain arranged for a boat to come take us out for some saltwater fishing. We first went into the mangroves and chummed with some fiddler crab and began to catch a variety of fish which included small snook, and I think a bone fish or two. I had taught Chuck how to fish a Garcia reel some 10 years before but he developed a very bad habit of letting the mono line run on his left index finger right in the bend. He of course turned the reel handle with his right hand. Even though I had told him 100s of times not to do that he said he had a better feel using his finger. Well, you guessed it…. A big barracuda grabbed his bait and in less than a second had run off 10 feet of line before Chuck even knew he had a fish. The only problem was the fish had smoked Chuck’s left index finger, cutting it all the way down to the bone. Oh my did the blood flow and Chuck’s clothes had turned a bright red in only a few seconds.

Chuck never said a word as he sat holding pressure on his finger. I wanted so bad to tell him “I told you this would happen” but I didn’t. We returned to the Reef House for some first aid and to get the blood stopped. We went ahead and had lunch and then the captain said we would try something else in the afternoon. I know that he was thinking these country bumpkins are just plain stupid and I will be glad to get rid of them before they kill themselves.

That afternoon we went out on a bigger boat and started trolling. I don’t know what kind of fish we were after but I didn’t care as long as they would bite and I could have something pull on my line and bend my rod. I got my wish just 5 minutes after we started fishing. Something smacked my lure hard and I set the hook and the battle was on! At least it was on for a good maybe 10 seconds. Then I couldn’t feel anything pulling, just some kind of heavy feeling with no rod bend. I kept reeling until I pulled into the boat a head of a fish with my lure in his mouth. Something bit that fish half in two and we all just stood there silently looking at this fish head. Joe said it must have been a shark that bit the fish in two and I said “No, the Captain said there are no sharks in these waters.” Chuck then told us he had seen about 15 sets of shark teeth and jaws on a fence at the reef house. Joe and I just looked at one another thinking we had been swimming in the water with those toothy creatures all around.

We started trolling again but with less enthusiasm than before as we were getting the feeling it might be time to go home. We trolled for about another hour when Joe came up to me with a big smile on his face and asked me how I felt. I said just fine; how about you? Then Joe turned around and started upchucking over the side of the boat. He just kept on heaving and heaving over and over and I thought here is this tough rowdy ranch foreman, who breaks horses for a living and bulldogs cows, pale as a sheet and down on his knees. At that very moment I knew it was time to put this bad adventure to an end as soon as possible

The next morning we caught a flight back to San Pedro Sula where we departed for Dallas about noon. We all were completely worn out, disappointed, and glad to be heading back to the good OLE USA.

I hope you enjoyed this Ron Speed Misadventure. It goes to show that not all fishing trips are successful. But do you think I’d trade this experience for the comfort, safety, and boredom of a week back home? Forget it!

Good luck with your fishing and wear that lifejacket.

When was your last fishing ADVENTURE or MisAdventure?

This week I am going to tell you another fishing story that was full of crazy but — believe me — real events. Lets call it Jungle Baby Tarpon.

It was about 1981 when I got a call from Ed Weaver of Dallas. Ed owned Dallas North Taxidermy and I had taken him on a charter trip of 24 to Cuba a couple years earlier to catch the world record black bass. Ed called me to see if I was interested in catching hundreds of baby tarpon and some big snook in a remote jungle river. I asked him where this fantastic river was located. Ed said it was in Honduras and a friend of his had fished it a couple years ago and it was loaded with baby tarpon and snook.

Even though our primary business was Mexico bass fishing I had been looking to getting into the tarpon business. I had made a tarpon fishing trip to Costa Rica with my friend Chuck Pearce in 1977 and really liked it so I wanted to find a great place to take clients. Bill Langford of Ft. Worth had owned Karawalla Tarpon camp which was the best in the world until the communists confiscated his camp and ran him out of the country. He left the country with only the clothes on his back, but at least he made it out alive. That’s a great story for another day.

I told Ed I was ready and would invite a couple of friends plus pay his expenses to go with us. I invited Chuck Pearce of Corsicana, who had made several trips to Canada and Mexico with me and his ranch foreman, Joe Graves of Kerens. All of us left Dallas together and flew to Honduras. We landed in San Pedro Sula and were met by Ed’s friend who we called “Captain.” This man was an American, maybe in his 60s, and owned the Reef House on Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras. He had left the USA some 40 years prior and had never returned. Chuck, Joe and I guessed he had fled for some reason or another and couldn’t return.

We left the airport and got a hotel room for the night as we were to leave early the next morning for this secret jungle river. We left the dock just after daylight the next morning in the Gulf of Honduras for a 1 hour boat ride to the mouth of the river. The captain was a former ship captain and he said we must leave early to the river and return to the mouth of the river by 2 pm to avoid rough seas when the Easterlies began to blow. The boat was an old wooden boat that the captain said had a lot of dry rot and couldn’t take much pounding. He didn’t tell me that detail until we were half way to the river or I might not have gone!

We made the trip to the river with no problem and we eagerly started fishing for the hundreds if not thousands of tarpon and snook. After about an hour we hadn’t even had a strike and had moved quite a distance up the river. I asked the captain what he thought was wrong and he replied he simply didn’t know. Finally, Joe caught a baby tarpon — about 4 pounds — and that picked up our spirits. We kept going up river without a bite but we were enjoying the beauty of the jungle and all the animals, especially the monkeys and all the brightly colored parrots and other birds. The river was also beautiful with its clear water and occasional alligator and hundreds of funny sounding frogs.

Sometime after mid morning we came upon an old coconut plantation that was deserted save for a couple of men hacking on some coconuts. We waived to them as we fished on by them going farther and farther up river. Finally the old boat captain said we must return to the mouth of the river and begin our trip back to the dock before the Easterlies came up. We all were super disappointed as our long journey from Dallas had produced only one small tarpon.

When we arrived at the mouth of the river the Easterlies were already blowing a gale and the ocean was very rough. The captain said it was just too dangerous and we would have to spend the night in the jungle. Man oh man was I upset, but the anger turned very quickly to a mood of survival as I knew the jungle was full of big cats and lots of poisonous snakes. I suggested that we return to the old plantation and seek the advise of the two men cutting the coconuts. We fired up the engine and went up river as fast as we could to talk to the men.

We arrived to find them still hacking on the coconuts with machetes. Pulling the boat up to the bank, the captain got out and explained our situation. He found out that these men were from a village about 10 to 15 miles away and that they walked into the jungle and cut coconuts all week before returning to their village. The only way out was to walk, which would take several hours. They said that they would let us sleep in the jungle with them but they only had 2 hammocks and we would have to sleep on the ground. I didn’t like that idea one little bit.

I started walking around looking for a suitable sleeping place when I stumbled on a set of very narrow rail tracks that were covered with tall grass and weeds. I asked the men about the old tracks and they explained that many years ago the tracks were used to transport the coconuts out of the jungle when the plantation was still in operation. I then walked over to an old junk pile of cans and everything you can imagine and there was one of the old pump carts turned upside down. It had not been used in 15 to 20 years. I got Joe Graves and Ed to help me pull it out of the junk pile and turn it back upright. The wheels were rusted so badly they were froze up and wouldn’t turn. We got everyone to get in their tackle boxes and take out their reel oil and we began putting it on the wheels until we got them freed up.

We put the cart on the tracks and tried out the pump handle and — guess what — it worked! What comes next is beyond my imagination…. I hired the natives to pump us out of the jungle. Then we placed one igloo ice chest (24 quarts), Chuck, Ed, the “Captain,” and myself all on this very small cart. That is 6 grown men plus tackle boxes, rods and reels and the ice chest. There was no room for Joe, so he offered to jog along behind. I agreed to take his place when he got tired. We were headed for the jungle village about 10 miles away. It was probably 3 pm when we left the plantation.

Joe and I took turns jogging beside the cart, but we began to get tired after maybe 2 or 3 hours. By that time the 2 native men were exhausted and couldn’t pump anymore. I paid them some money and Joe and I began to pump the cart, stopping every now and then for a rest. Ed pumped a little but not much. The “Captain” and Chuck were just not physically able to pump.

Just as darkness set in, we arrived in a small village which looked almost like heaven to us. We were saved! There were a few cars parked on the street and one or two driving down the dirt street. I ran out into the street and stopped the first car that came along. Guess what! It was a yellow Chevy II just like the one I stopped in Obregon, Mexico a few years before.

I told the driver I would give him $50 dollars to take us to San Pedro Sula. He said he couldn’t fit us all into his car, but I assured him we were experts at fitting into small spaces. We all crowded into the car, sitting on one another’s laps for the one hour ride to the city.

This ends part one of our Honduras adventure. Next week I’ll wrap up this story. We were still in for some adventures that were pretty funny–in retrospect!

Good luck with your fishing and wear that lifejacket.

When was your last fishing ADVENTURE?