Say hello to the new face of saltwater fishing coverage. It is, quite literally, about time.
It’s not every day that a person can lay claim to a bona fide epiphany, so when one hit me in the head like a jumping mullet bonking an unsuspecting wade fisherman (yes, I have seen it happen, but that’s another story) I thought it wise to pay close attention.
A friend of mine, better known as a “confidential source” in the arena of fisheries management, did me the kindness to make me the first outdoor writer in Texas to learn of the taking of a new state record tarpon.
Jeremy Ebert’s 210-pound, 11-ounce silver king did more than allow me a great news story, and better yet, the meaty kind of news story valued by journalists, one that entails a huge fish and a huge challenge, teamwork among anglers, an unlikely and arguably amazing place for such an event to happen and other such uniquely qualifying attributes. That 7-foot, 7-inch “sabalo” was the head-bonking mullet that made it finally dawn on me that, if only I had a blog … a dedicated “Weblog” geared specifically toward saltwater fishing and saltwater fishermen … I could have led the pack in breaking that news piece.
As it was, I gladly shared it with my buddy J.P. Greeson at www.texasfishingforum.com, a site I heartily recommend for … well, every Texas fisherman. Check it out, and you’ll see why. TFF lets you visit with thousands of other fanatical fishermen; here, instead, you share your comments with me, and we hash them out … sometimes to pinpoint a prime fishing locale, sometimes to determine the “right” boat, tackle or lure, and sometimes just for the heck of it
Blogging is, more than anything else, timely. One minute you learn it. The next minute, you publish it. No other medium can do the same thing in exactly the same way. Heavens knows, magazines can’t. That is why, in editing most of the state’s larger fishing and hunting publications at one time or another, I focused on magazines’ strong points … in-depth coverage of stories that digs far deeper than the traditional news well, splashy photographs and catchy columns. The really great thing is that all of these elements can be, and will be, incorporated into the blog you are reading, and will hopefully encourage you to make it a regular part of your reading routine as time goes by, and as the project expands through continuous hard work and no small amount of trap-running with reliable news sources. I aim to demonstrate to you and others that the CoastalAnglers.com blog is a worthy bookmark that bears steady revisitation.
I am jazzed about this project, my friend. Saltwater fishing, particularly saltwater fishing on the Texas Coast, is the domain of a selective and particular bunch of people who are bound to have extra-high traces of saline in their blood. I have been one of us since roughly the tenth grade at Pearland High School.
At the University of Houston, where I majored in Journalism with a focused minor in Photography and Cinematography, I was “the fishing guy” … the dude who always brought his rods and reels into the Communications building for safekeeping while attending classes (and believe it or not, I stashed more than a few deer rifles, too … all, of course, in locked gun cases), since out of sad experience said guy did not feel comfortable risking his gear inside the cab of a pickup truck on the dimly-lit UH parking lot.
I was told, right after I elbowed my way into the Houston Post back in 1976 (a great newspaper, one of the best; may she rest in peace in that last-edition refuge where more and more daily papers have gone to their final printing) that bass fishing was the way to go. These were, bear in mind, the pre-heydays of the BASS Circuit. Any “thinking man” back then knew that if you weren’t covering largemouth bass you were wandering down the wrong trail.
By that measure, I reckon I was not a thinking man. Because all I was thinking about then, and most all I think about now in terms of recreation, is coastal fishing (okay, plus fishing the lakes and hunting for deer and shooting ducks and doves … you get the picture). So, I stuck with the salt the same way it so stubbornly clung to my fishing reel housings and pickup undercarriage.
It has treated me well, and I have never regretted making it my primary focus.
I’ve built more than a few magazines since becoming the first editor of the CCA TIDE back in August of 1979, walking into the office off of Southwest Houston’s Woodway Drive at Loop 610 West with a three-day-old journalism degree. I moved from CCA to become editor of Texas Fisherman Magazine in December of 1980, and afterward the editor/and/or publisher of a steady progression of publications that I worked hard to build so that they could eventually be sold to the highest bidder, at which point the highest bidder would ask me to do the same thing again so that several years down the road he could do the same thing as the previous guy, clearing several hundred thousand dollars in the process.
That, I came to learn, is just the magazine business. If I had wanted job security, I would have gone to work for the government.
No wonder the process of blogging, of building an online publication uniquely my own, make that one of our own, excites me so. Because, as our visitors and input continue to increase, as more and more ardent coastal casters learn that they can find much of what they need right here, and ask for that which is not here and get an answer, the CoastalAnglers.com blog will, God and readers willing, eventually grow and evolve to the point that it is truly unlike anything else on the Web.
I’ll always remember what the late Bob Stephenson, Sr., better known as “Pappy” to his loyal host of radio listeners, told me one morning long ago as we were standing outside between top-of-the-hour news breaks from the network. “You don’t have to know all the answers,” he said. “You just have to know who to send folks to so that they can get them.”
That’s a principle and practice I have lived by ever since. In doing so, I’ve been privileged to learn from the best.
About this blog and from a personal standpoint, what is jetty-rock solid to me is the fact that there is no one who might someday decide that the product I work extremely hard to produce and create on a near-daily basis be sold for a quick profit by an investor or majority partner. Long as I am around, long as I continue to live saltwater fishing … in other words, until my ashes take to riding the breeze around the Post Oak Savannah of Lavaca County and the southern shores of Galveston and San Antonio Bays … this incredible new medium known as a “Weblog,” in the form you see and gradually expanded, is going to be around to serve as your most timely, most responsive and most highly-focused source of saltwater fishing coverage on the Texas Coast, and for that matter, the entire Gulf Coast.
It costs you nothing to register, and if you don’t like what you see, it’s just like the TV in your living room in that all you have to do if you don’t want to read it is change the channel (or, in this case, “unsubscribe”). All I ask is that you give me a realistic shot … say, the next four to six months … to develop the content and prove to you that the CoastalAnglers.com blog is something we salty anglers need. Working in tandem with guides and recreational saltwater fishermen, industry representatives, associations, state agencies and yes, you, it is something that will proffer fresh and useful (and hopefully, entertaining) content and images on a regularly updated basis.
I am dedicated to doing this because blogging allows me to chronicle my chosen sport and passion, saltwater fishing, like no other medium, and it allows me to do so while constantly in direct contact with you and others like you. I’ve been answering hundreds of personal e-mail inquiries a year since the debut of CoastalAnglers.com some seven years ago, back before the term “blog” had a meaning or the software existed to create one. I get asked some great questions, and more than a few of them have led to the development of magazine feature stories. Your inquiries will help consitute substantial and high-quality salt-specific content for this venue, and I will respectfully share them with other readers (last names, for anonymity purposes, will be limited to the first initial, for example, “John D, Houston, TX”).
Despite 30 years of intensively covering the outdoor sports as a full-time outdoor writer, photographer and broadcaster, I learn something every time I go out on the water or in the field. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be much of a reporter. Likewise, every time you drop me a question or offer a comment or opinion, I learn something as well. I can only hope that the experience is as meaningful for and valuable to you as it is for and to me.
More detail on this later, but at this point, my primary focus will be a mix of breaking news, resource and industry developments, “Where to Go and What to Throw” suggestions, Reports on Area Conditions, Personality Profiles, Humor and Recently Made Trips … and, here’s a unique one: Objective New Products Coverage based on actual field tests and experience. You will also find Upcoming Events, the occasional Editorial piece (to which I welcome and invite your response, whether you agree or disagree) and plain-old fun anecdotal fish stories that are just too much fun to ignore.
Like all publications, this one will find its own direction, or more specifically, directions.
Sources and input aside, I am a one-man show here. Still, I will use all of the resources I have at hand, and all the time I can make, to keep this online publication firmly anchored in the loop of saltwater fishing.
It’s my sincere hope that this humble blog, beginning with this simple message, will blossom into what I already know it can and will be … a unique and distinctive voice and a reflective sounding board for those of us who gauge “good days” in terms of gently-blowing southeast winds, green water, rising tides, working birds, weedlines, freshly-popped slicks, mud boils, bottom contours, color changes and the priceless company of fishing buddies old and new.
Welcome to the new face of CoastalAnglers.com.
And, more than anything, please accept my sincere thanks in advance for agreeing to be a part of it.
Larry Bozka - Friday, October 13, 2006
Howdy. I am 
Great to see that you are moving into the next generation with more of your unique and always interesting writing! I’ve followed your career and work since you were first starting out in the business and can honestly say your writing has always struck me as genuine and from the heart. Good Luck and good fishing!