In my early twenties we made annual pilgrammages down to Port Isabel Texas to fish till we dropped for whatever we could catch. We got hooked up with a retired coastie who went by the name of Billy Boomerang. Billy was quite a character, a local ladies man, and always wore an open unbuttoned shirt, shorts, sandals and a captains hat set at a rakish angle on his head. A REAL Popeye in the flesh. Billy was in-famous or famous depending on your point of view. He made his living catching huge sharks, making custom surf rods, jewelry from sharks parts and his trademark boomerangs. His trademark boomerangs are very valuable now.

My first impression of Billy was that he was insane. We bought him breakfast in a local diner, where he told us some tall tales at 90 miles an hour, pestered the waitress to share some round steak with him, farted as loud as he could and in general caused the tourists to shrink away from him.

We were driving him all over Port Isabel to take care of things since he did not own a car at the time. I think we stopped at every lonely housewifes home, every bank, and every bait stand that first day with him. The energizer bunny could not have kept up with this thirty something man.

We were tapped to go shark fishing with him that night. Billy made his own custom 10' shark rods which we admired greatly. Having loaded our truck with Billys beautiful works of rod art, we made appreciative comments about Billys handiwork. The rods were fitted with big custom Penn 9/0 reels spooled to the brim with 100# mono. Loaded for bear, no doubt about it. Billy thawed to us and we were invited into his one bedroom, un-air-conditioned home. A real spartan bachelors pad, it was cluttered with beach combed flotsam and jetsam, jewelry in process, partially finished rods, boomerangs in various stages of completion, empty colored bottles and nautical charts of the world. Billy was also an accomplished weather forecaster and many of the Port Isabel captains relied on his forecasts, he was usually spot on in forecasting bad weather.

After hearing his constant chatter , I came to the conclusion he was mad as the mad hatter, probably slightly autistic, and an idiot savant. Billy was the real deal, the more you listened to his craziness the more you believed him. I believe he may have been one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, in a crazy sort of way.

Just before it was time to go fishing Billy had us stop by a grocery stand on Padre Island. Billy came running out carrying two three foot long packages under his arm, he jumps in the truck and said GO. Hot on his tail was the store proprietor, screamin at Billy to pay for the bait !!! Well we scrammed as directed, Billy remarked "he wouldn't charge what I paid last time so I ain't payin," laughing like a Hyena.

Anyway that night we went out to the end of the former Queen Isabella causeway that had been turned into a fishing pier after the new causeway was built. We had brought with us what we thought were sufficient rods for sharking. Billy looked at our ten foot Striper Ugly Sticks and Penn 950 spinning reels and laughed. Well if you boys want to break some rods it ain't no skin off my nose. We proceeded to the end of the causeway, at which point the Intercoastal waterway channel was some 50' deep. There had been numerous holes drilled into the roadbed to provide for vertical rod props at the end of the concrete tarmac. Billy unwrapped one bait package and there were two ten pound Bonito laid head to tail. Billy says I will fish with one whole bait and cut up the second for you guys. Billy got out one of his custom 13' pool cue stiff rods, attached a whole Bonito with three of the biggest hooks I had ever seen to a 14' piano wire leader. I was wondering how in the heck he was gonna cast all that when he tells us to stand back about twenty yards. Billy walked out laid the bonito at rods length away behind him, took a running start and heave with the rod and gets the bait flying in big helicopter circles before finally flinging it off the causeway and some fourty yards away. Man that was impressive !!! It took strength to do that and a large amount of experienced technique !! We stood there gaped jawed at what we had just witnessed. Billy settled the rod in a hole and says OK bring your pop guns. We were pretty inexperienced sharkers back then, never having caught many over 100#. We got rigged and casted out just as it got dark, then sat back while Billy danced a sailing jig, farting , laughing like a maniac and tellin one crazy story after another about his Coast Guard service.

One of the guys with me was in the "yea sure" mode with Billy on most of his stories, and even more in doubt he was gonna catch anything. It was slow, about the only bites were from hardheads pecking at the cut bait. As luck would have it the "skeptic" among us was the first to get a real bite, and what a bite it was. The Penn spinner was propped vertically in the hole, when we saw the rod do two quick shakes. Billy stopped his antics and told David to get ready. At almost the same instant he said that, line went screamin off the reel, faster than I thought a fish could run. So fast in fact that the rod was almost horizontal to the end of concrete roadway and David couldn't pull the pressure locked the handle free of the hole. There was around 350 yards of 30# test Big Game on that reel - and it evaporated in less than a minute !! - KERPOW, it sounded like a .38 caliber pistol shot as it broke at the spools end -- the drag on the reel was actually smoking !!! Billy was rolling on the concrete laughing his [censored] off !!! Tears were streaming down Billys face in the pier lights as he stood back up giving condolences to David.

"That wasn't no shark, Billy remarked through the laughter, it was a big stingray, nothing runs as fast as those buggers in saltwater". We continued soaking our baits after that first period of commotion, the Penn Reel just abused was out of commission, the drag had actually melted down !!!

We had been sitting through a slack tide and it changed to an outgoing about an hour later, going on midnight I was thinking about a warm bed, when Billy's big 9/0 Penn reel clicked once. Billy came on point like a birddog as he quickly focused on his rod. Click, Click, then about five seconds later, Click , Click, Click. Billy was quickly getting into a stand-up fighting harness. Click ,Click, raaaa, reeeeeeeeeee, eeeeeeee, reeeeeee sounded the Big 9/0 Penn reel as something big ran with the bonito bait. Billy waited a twenty count and threw the reel into gear. Well you might as well have tried to stop a Ford Truck with a snoopy pole attached to the bumper. We could hear a monstrous splash in the darkness below the causeway as the big fish tore up into the shallow flat just off the edge of the ship channel heading northeast towards Port Mansfield. Billy calmly let the fish run aganst a tight drag till about half the 800 yard yard spool had evaporated off the reel. The shark finally had enough of going toward port Mansfield and turned back in the ship channel heading back toward the Coast Guard Station and South Bay entrance. As the fish passed the causeway, we got a glimpse of a HUGE dorsal fin as the shark breached the top. Billy says its a Tiger, got real agitated, and asks us to call up a Mexican Shrimper he knew. We tried to call for boat help as the battle raged on out in the darkness. That big shark was waaay out there between the causeway and the Coast Guard station out toward the Gulf. Billy kept the pressure up but he wasn't making headway as the stubborn shark took fifty feet for every five that Billy managed to gain. Billy really wanted that shark, his idea was to get someone to harpoon it, which was why we were calling all over town to get boat help. Never did get in touch with anyone who would help. After around thirty minutes we were pouring beer onto the reel to keep it cool. Billy was complainin and muttering to himself, about all I could understand was "don't get a second wind" -- which was what the stalemated shark finally did - it left town with 600 yards of Billys line after the TAIL of the shark whipped the mono ABOVE the 14'wire leader and it parted. I had NO idea such big sharks came inshore of the barrier islands on the Texas coast.

We fished with Billy many times when we went down there over the following years -- he was quite a town celebrity, seems every town has one

Rip in Peace John --

Screamin drags all !!!

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Tony, is this Billy Sandifer that you are referring to?

No Billy was a local South Padre legend - He used to have a stand next to Pops surf shack on the beach where he sold custon shark tooth jewelry and boomerangs, he holds the Guiness World record for most boomerangs aloft and caught -

His real name was John McMahon - they named a bar on South Padre after him - a bit of Texas history - he passed away from cancer a few years ago --

Those who were lucky to know and fish with Billy might find this excerpt interesting

http://www.spislandbreeze.com/articles/history-9947-bit-new.html

That story brings back memories. I never fished with Billy becaues I never went that far south, but i had heard of him. I used to fish off Bob Hall Pier, mostly for small shark and spanish. Watched the guys with 9/0 reels send their baits out in a similary way. They would block off the end of the pier, pull off about 50-70 yards of line set out in order on the pier deck. They used a nail in the leader/line loop to "twirl" the bait and send it flying. I watched a guy fight a huge hammerhead for about five hours with only what we referred to as a jewfish rig (probably a penn 309 or such) The first run they poured fresh water on that reel to cool it down, by the third run the drag was just about shot. Finally, the shark decided to swim back towards the pier after the last run. He swam around a piling and broke off. That reel was toast. I don't know how he was able to control that fish the last hour, the drag was shot and the bearings were going. Having fought decent sized tuna, I can't imagine fighting a very large fish that long from a stand-up position without a harness or belt.

Great story!