stdreb27
Active Member
http://www.caller.com/news/2010/apr/...r-of-survival/
COASTAL BEND — Local kayak angler Joey Ramos invited a longtime friend on a Nueces River adventure Saturday to catch a few redfish. The trip turned into an unforgettable night of terror.
The pair of experienced kayakers agreed to launch from Labonte Park and paddle downstream a short distance to Rincon Bayou, a partly enhanced channel that runs though the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program’s Nueces Delta Preserve. This 5,500-acre private preserve hosts free educational programs for area schoolchildren and teachers. If you’re there without permission then you’re trespassing.
Ramos simply knows the waterway as a slough south of the park where he catches redfish. He’s fished there at night once before and many times during daylight. This would be the first visit to Rincon Bayou and most likely the last for his friend, who asked that I not use his name.
The pair launched before dark, around 7 p.m., with a few bottled waters, snacks, some extra tackle and their cell phones. Their fishing rods were fixed with glow DOA shrimp imitation lures.
Ramos had fished here several days earlier. He easily had caught a limit of redfish and wanted to share his good fortune with a friend.
The sun was setting by the time they reached a railroad trestle spanning the bayou. But there was enough light to see four young men on the tracks above the bayou. Each was holding a can of beer. One of them had reddish hair and a goatee. They appeared to be in their early- to mid-20s, Ramos recalled.
“They didn’t look particularly friendly,” he said. “Nobody said anything, not even hello. They just stared at us with an empty look.”
Ramos paddled under the trestle first then waited for his friend on the other side.
After the pair rounded a bend in the river, they commented to each other about the strange encounter and the unfriendly group.
“We just got a weird vibe about those guys,” Ramos said.
Within 10 minutes it was nearly dark. Their plan was to fish near a set of big black culverts that had been installed to allow the bayou to flow under a caliche road, which is on the Nueces River Preserve. The bayou just before the culverts gets a little deeper and often holds redfish, Ramos said. The pair stood up in their kayaks and began casting lures into the gut. The bayou was quiet except for an occasional mullet splash. The moon was bright.
Suddenly the crack of a high-powered rifle broke the silence and buckled the anglers’ knees.
“It sounded like it broke the branches near my face,” Ramos recalled. “I told my friend that I thought somebody was shooting at us, but he didn’t think so. He said it was probably just an innocent misfire or a ricochet.”
As a precaution they immediately sat in their boats and began to paddle out. Bad plan.
COASTAL BEND — Local kayak angler Joey Ramos invited a longtime friend on a Nueces River adventure Saturday to catch a few redfish. The trip turned into an unforgettable night of terror.
The pair of experienced kayakers agreed to launch from Labonte Park and paddle downstream a short distance to Rincon Bayou, a partly enhanced channel that runs though the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program’s Nueces Delta Preserve. This 5,500-acre private preserve hosts free educational programs for area schoolchildren and teachers. If you’re there without permission then you’re trespassing.
Ramos simply knows the waterway as a slough south of the park where he catches redfish. He’s fished there at night once before and many times during daylight. This would be the first visit to Rincon Bayou and most likely the last for his friend, who asked that I not use his name.
The pair launched before dark, around 7 p.m., with a few bottled waters, snacks, some extra tackle and their cell phones. Their fishing rods were fixed with glow DOA shrimp imitation lures.
Ramos had fished here several days earlier. He easily had caught a limit of redfish and wanted to share his good fortune with a friend.
The sun was setting by the time they reached a railroad trestle spanning the bayou. But there was enough light to see four young men on the tracks above the bayou. Each was holding a can of beer. One of them had reddish hair and a goatee. They appeared to be in their early- to mid-20s, Ramos recalled.
“They didn’t look particularly friendly,” he said. “Nobody said anything, not even hello. They just stared at us with an empty look.”
Ramos paddled under the trestle first then waited for his friend on the other side.
After the pair rounded a bend in the river, they commented to each other about the strange encounter and the unfriendly group.
“We just got a weird vibe about those guys,” Ramos said.
Within 10 minutes it was nearly dark. Their plan was to fish near a set of big black culverts that had been installed to allow the bayou to flow under a caliche road, which is on the Nueces River Preserve. The bayou just before the culverts gets a little deeper and often holds redfish, Ramos said. The pair stood up in their kayaks and began casting lures into the gut. The bayou was quiet except for an occasional mullet splash. The moon was bright.
Suddenly the crack of a high-powered rifle broke the silence and buckled the anglers’ knees.
“It sounded like it broke the branches near my face,” Ramos recalled. “I told my friend that I thought somebody was shooting at us, but he didn’t think so. He said it was probably just an innocent misfire or a ricochet.”
As a precaution they immediately sat in their boats and began to paddle out. Bad plan.
