Galveston Fishing Blog

Not much in the way of fishing activity Tuesday; however, we continue to get reports from the few anglers on the water last weekend.

Sam James and Danny Brady fished the Galveston Channel area Sunday where they landed a 22-inch flounder. James did not mention the bait used; however, I am somewhat certain it was Flounder Pounders knowing his close friendship with Phil Ortiz, the manufacturer.

Sunday night, trout action turned on around the Crash Basin off of Offatts Bayou. Gerald Moorhead used live shrimp to take seven specks from under the lights of a friend’s boat dock along that harbor.

An interesting question was asked by Johnny Helstrom several weeks ago that took some research on my part. Helstrom asked if I knew when the center console boat was introduced and who was the first manufacturer. He and a friend were in a friendly argument over who designed it and when the first of the popular fishing boats was built. His friend swears that Boston Whaler was the first and Helstrom had read somewhere that another company introduced the design.

Thanks to the wonderful world of the Internet, I came up with the following: In 1952, the Scopinich Family of Long Island, N.Y., built what was likely the first center console boat, a wooden skiff called the Scop Cruiser.

It is likely that Boston Whaler introduced the first of that design in this area and their model was advertised as unsinkable with all of the foam insulation inside.

You might recall from a few years ago I answered a similar question about who introduced the fiberglass boat.

The answer is that it likely was Ray Greene, an employee of Owens Corning Fiberglass. Greene also was a boat builder and wanted to experiment with new fibers invented by Dow Chemical.
The first manufacturer of fiberglass boats was Glastron Boats in 1956.

It has been said that before entering the boat business, Bob Hammond, the owner, was manufacturing fiberglass caskets that did not go over well in the market place.