Part 1
Tompkins: Bay gigging has roots in ancient tradition By Shannon Tompkins | August 13, 2014 | Updated: August 14, 2014 1:04am
The rising moon on a recent night silhouetted a patch of what passes for high ground in the half-water/half-land world of a bay-rimming estuary. The slight elevation, covering an area about the size of a bedroom and maybe a couple of feet higher than the surrounding marsh, was perhaps 100 yards away and at least a couple of hundred years removed from where Wyatt Lang, Dylan Motley and I stood ankle-deep in salty water, squaring our gear - gigs, stringers, lights mounted on lengths of PVC pipe, packs bearing the batteries to run the lights - in preparation of engaging in an activity with which the folks responsible for that little mound would have been quite familiar.The high spot is a midden - basically a trash heap holding discarded oyster and rangia clam shells created by generations of aboriginal Texans (Karankawa, almost certainly) who lived along the Texas coast and drew their livelihoods and their lives from the bay waters.Middens mark ancient camps where the people hunted and fished and gathered, and they picked their spots well. Archeological research of coastal shell middens turns up hundreds, sometimes thousands, of otoliths, the tiny ear bones of fish. Because ear bones of each fish species have a distinct shape, researchers can tell what the ancient people caught and ate from the adjacent waters.Flounder - specifically, southern flounder, the largest and most common of the dozen or so flatfish species inhabiting Texas coastal waters - were, archeologists learned, regular featured guests in the Karankawa version of a Crock-pot.Archeological and historical evidence also indicates those ancient Texans procured their flounder using the same method we three employed on that recent summer night: gigging.
Tompkins: Bay gigging has roots in ancient tradition By Shannon Tompkins | August 13, 2014 | Updated: August 14, 2014 1:04am
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Picasa As Wyatt Lang hunts in the background, Dylan Motley strings a flounder he gigged after using a portable, submersible battery-powered light to locate it.
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle Wyatt Lang and Dylan Motley use portable, battery-powered, submersible lights to sweep the bottom of a sandy flat as they hunt flounder on a summer night. Nocturnal flounder gigging is a traditon along portion of the Texas coast, and can be very effective. Because state fisheries crews conduct their angler harvest surveys during daylight hours and seldom encounter giggers, fisheries manages have only rough estimates of participation in the recreational flounder gigging fishery and the number of flounder those angler take. Thsoe numbers are of great importance to fisheries managers looking for ways to improve the state's struggling flounder population. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle As fellow angler Dylan Motley hunts in the background, Wyatt Lang prepares to gig a flounder he located as the fish lay in ambush on the bay floor on a shallow flat. Nocturnal floundering is a tradition on the Texas coast and can be an incredibly effective way to take the popular, tasty flatfish. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle A submersible, battery powered light illuminates a flounder "bedded" on the sandy botom in inches of water along Texas bayshore. Flounder giggers using the portable lights hunt shallow flats at night, often taking their five-fish limits of the tasty, hugely popular marine fish. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle Dylan Motley reaches to subdue a flounder he gigged on a recent nighttime trip to a shallow flat on a Texas bay. Clear water and low tides produce the best conditions for giggers who stalk the flats using lights to illuminate the bottom and show outlines of flounder waiting to ambush meals inthe shallows. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle As fellow angler Wyatt Lang hunts in the background, Dylan Motley strings a flounder he gigged after using a portable, submersible battery-powered light to locate the flatfish as it lay in ambust in shallow water. Flounder gigging is increasingly being done from boats that can float in very shallow water and are rigged with high-tech air-drive motors and high-intensity light. Gigging on foot is the tradtional method, and is much harder and slower than floundering from a boat. But the wading flounder giggers are in much more direct connection with the bay and the fish they pursue. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle A southern flounder, taking advantage of its compressed body and ability to camouflage itself, lies on the sandy bottom in inches of water, waiting to ambush small finfish, shrimp, crabs or other forage that wanders too close to the efficient predators. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins.
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle As his portable light illuminates a bedded flounder, Wyatt Lang carefully uses marks on his gig to make certain the fish meets the 14-inch minimum length requirement before he attempts to gig the flatfish. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle Wyatt Lang strings a flounder he gigged after using a portable, submersible light to locate the fish as it lay in ambush on the bay floor. Nocturnal floundering is a tradition on the Texas coast and can be an incredibly effective way to take the popular, tasty flatfish. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle With three flounder already on his stringer, Wyatt Lang sweeps his portable, battery-powered light on the bay floor looking for other "bedded" flatfish. Flounder, which hold in deeper water during the day, move to the shallow flats at night where darkness gives them protection from (most) predators and puts them in position to ambush small finfish and other forage found in the shallows. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle Flounder aren't the only thing giggers are likely to encounter on noctural fishing forays. Stingrays hunker on the same flats as flounder, and the rays, with their toxin-carrying barbed "spikes" can present a danger (and certainly an adrenalin surge) for flounder giggers. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle Carrying gigs, Dylan Motley, left, and Wyatt Lang use battery-powered, submersible lights to hunt flounder on a shallow coastal flat. The battery-powered submersible lights, often with brilliantly bright LED bulbs, have replaced the cumbersome, hard to maintain, sometimes dangerous gas-powered lanterns coastal flounder giggers long used to locate "bedded" flatfish at night. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle Spray flies as a gigged flounder frantically flaps in a vain attempt to escape. The fish was the fifth and final flounder angler Dylan Motley collected on a recent nighttime gigging trip on a Texas bayshore. Texas anglers are limited to taking no more than five flounder per day during most of the year, with the limit dropping to two per day (and gigging prohibited) during November. Beginning this year, the two-flounder daily limit will be in effect during all of November and the first two weeks of December, the peack of the annual flounder migration from bay to Gulf and the period when the fish are most vulnerable to hook-and-line and, especially, gigging. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle Dylan Motley strings a flounder, one of several he and fellow angler Wyatt Lang, looking on, collected on a recent night of using portable, battery-powered submersible lights to locate bedded flounder in the shalows of a Texas bay. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
- http://www.chron.com/default/article/Tompkins-Bay-gigging-has-roots-in-ancient-5687677.php#next"][/URL] Photo By Shannon Tompkins/Houston Chronicle On nights when conditions are right - a low tide, light wind, clear water and a shallow flat adjacent to deeper water - skilled giggers often take their five-fish daily limit of the tasty flatfish from Texas bays. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins
The rising moon on a recent night silhouetted a patch of what passes for high ground in the half-water/half-land world of a bay-rimming estuary. The slight elevation, covering an area about the size of a bedroom and maybe a couple of feet higher than the surrounding marsh, was perhaps 100 yards away and at least a couple of hundred years removed from where Wyatt Lang, Dylan Motley and I stood ankle-deep in salty water, squaring our gear - gigs, stringers, lights mounted on lengths of PVC pipe, packs bearing the batteries to run the lights - in preparation of engaging in an activity with which the folks responsible for that little mound would have been quite familiar.The high spot is a midden - basically a trash heap holding discarded oyster and rangia clam shells created by generations of aboriginal Texans (Karankawa, almost certainly) who lived along the Texas coast and drew their livelihoods and their lives from the bay waters.Middens mark ancient camps where the people hunted and fished and gathered, and they picked their spots well. Archeological research of coastal shell middens turns up hundreds, sometimes thousands, of otoliths, the tiny ear bones of fish. Because ear bones of each fish species have a distinct shape, researchers can tell what the ancient people caught and ate from the adjacent waters.Flounder - specifically, southern flounder, the largest and most common of the dozen or so flatfish species inhabiting Texas coastal waters - were, archeologists learned, regular featured guests in the Karankawa version of a Crock-pot.Archeological and historical evidence also indicates those ancient Texans procured their flounder using the same method we three employed on that recent summer night: gigging.
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