Port Aransas waters had never seemed so dead as in the summer of 1950. I couldn't buy a bite anywhere . . . surf, piers, jetties, passes or bays. So I went to see Bill Ellis, the owner-in-residence of the historic Tarpon Inn.

I couldn't have felt sorrier for myself as I sat on the long veranda of Tarpon Inn at Port Aransas, Texas, brooding over my bad luck. This was the big fishing trip of the season for me. The one I'd planned and saved for all summer, and it was a bust. For two days, the last two of my visit to this famous fishing spot, I'd been skunked. It wasn't the weather or the water or the scarcity of fish. Conditions were O.K., but I simply couldn't connect. Somehow I always missed being in the right place at the right time.