A Great Fishing Guide and Coast Guard Captain Page 3

Article written by:
Outdoor Writer Jerry LaBella: Saltwater Fishing Articles

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

With the speed and grace of an old-time movie, Gipson rigged his rod with a weighted popping cork, two-feet of mono leader and fresh shrimp before all else aboard could open their tackle boxes.

2facefred.jpg (42971 bytes)"This is all you're gonna need here," he casually muttered as he cast his cork near a broken bank of canebrakes. After the cork slapped the water and settled down, Gipson whipped the rod tip upward and his cork made a walloping gulp. But before he could repeat the procedure, the cork darted below the surface, viciously arching his rod.

"I got him," he retorted in an undertone. Without the assistance of a landing net, he manhandled the nine-pound, golden redfish onto the deck, where it garnished itself in remnants of broken canebrake leaves scattered about the deck.. Thirty minutes later, the 98-quart ice chest flaunted a limit of arm-length reds. Not a bad way to silence skepticism.

Gipson's strategy is simple: Clean water equals fish. The key, though, is knowing where to look. "Those Roseau canes, sandbars, and water lilies," he explained, "filter the muddy sand out of the water so by the time it reaches the Gulf it's pretty much clean. It acts like a big filter. And, if you can find a place that has one-and-a-half foot to four-feet of water, you are going to find redfish. They'll just be all up in there."

On the way back to Main Pass, Gipson noticed a cluster of anglers sitting bored and fishless. Idling slowly past them, he inquisitively inquired, "Y'all doing any good?"

Without uttering a word, they all shook their heads to the negative.

"Got our limit of reds back on the other side of the canebrakes ...left them biting," Gipson replied, pointing over his shoulder to the place we had just left. As if miraculously resurrected, some proceeded to pull up anchor to check it out. Gipson smirked and shook his head, seeing only one or two making the move. It was as if the others though he was bluffing. But their reaction didn't surprise Gipson, he's witnessed the scenario many times before –anglers unproductively fishing dirty water.

No matter how preoccupied with storytelling or catching fish, one thing you can bank on, Gipson keeps one ear glued to his VHF radio. Case in point: The next day, while battling arm breaking redfish at the mouth of Southwest Pass, Gipson responded to an emergency call from the Venice Coast Guard for assistance with a heart attack victim aboard a nearby shrimp boat. The angler of two faces went swiftly into action, from expert fisherman to Coast Guard auxiliarist –the transition comes easy.

In no time, Gipson was on the scene where a twin-rigger sat anchored with panic-stricken Vietnamese fishermen aboard. In the near distance a bright-red Coast Guard helicopter sped toward the location. Tension was running high as Gipson radioed the copter and arranged for the Coast Guard paramedic to be lowered to his boat and transferred to the shrimp boat.

The operation was tricky, as the helicopter pursued Gipson's boat while still slowly underway. During its menacing descent, tempestuous winds instigated by the swirling blades turned stillness into havoc, sucking up Gulf water and spraying it aboard. Finally, after several unsuccessful attempts to lower the paramedic to Gipson's boat, a Coast Guard cutter arrived and successfully intervened.

For Gipson, such challenges are all in a day's work; and he's always ready to handle them the only way he knows– like an angler with two faces.

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