The Great Outdoors
Go fish: Angling opportunites abound in the Bayou City
Mark Marmon gets ready to pull his catch from a popular spot on Brays Bayou.
Just one of many fish caught on an afternoon
An angler shows off his prize hooked in one of Houston's waterways.
Back before he made his living catching fish, Mark Marmon would grab his tackle almost every day after his nine-to-five job. A few minutes’ walk from his house, he’d take to the water’s edge and cast away a relaxing hour or two before dinner.
Marmon’s home isn’t in the wilderness, on the Gulf or even in a swanky lakeside subdivision.
He lives in Bellaire.
And like many Houston anglers, he pulls his catch from a popular spot on Brays Bayou – one of dozens of Houston waterways teeming with fish just waiting to be caught.
“Many of your neighborhood retention ponds have fish in them…you’d be surprised,” Marmon says as he ties flies for curious shoppers and staff alike at the Pearland Bass Pro Shop. He goes on to list the species he’s seen prowling the city’s bayou system: Ospreys, egrets, bobcats, crabs, turtles and even a python. Then there’s the fish: carp, Rio Grande perch, sun fish, white bass, gar, tilapia and pleco catfish more than two feet long.
Sure, some of those are invasive species. Yes, pollutants make eating bayou fish a risky prospect and, as Marmon puts it, “You have your run of homeless people under the bridge and that sort of thing.”
All the same, he says Houston is a great town for urban fishing. Marmon would know. He’s fished in Iceland, the Caribbean and across the United States during the last 40 years, catching several record-breaking fish along the way. He runs Metro Anglers and offers professional guide services, as well as group classes.
Many of his European clients are particularly fond of the feisty grass carp that lurk in the bayous.
“Carp to them is like Atlantic salmon,” he says, noting that continental business men regularly pencil-in guided urban fishing outings around their business meetings.
The Bass Pro guys and I stare intently as Marmon winds delicate tufts of material around a tiny hook as he answers their questions with an encyclopedic knowledge of the best ways to trick a fish into swallowing a piece of metal.
Theirs is a devoted clan. Fly fishing is one of those hobbies that can overtake a person. I’ve seen it – their rhythmic casting and laser focus on the water are more akin to yoga than to what I used to do with my dad at 5 a.m. in his beat up john boat. Starter fly fishing gear costs about $100. It’s easy to learn but hard to master, and lessons from outfits like Metro Anglers, Texas FlyFishers of Houston and Bass Pro offer plenty of opportunities to learn the basics.
That’s not to say us worm-and-bobber enthusiasts have fewer opportunities for urban fishing in Houston. Texas Parks and Wildlife stocks several lakes and ponds around town with trout that are safe to eat and often easy to catch. Any day now, the department will post a list of what it will stock, when, on its Web site. I also put together this map of more than two dozen stocked lakes and bayou access points in the greater Houston area.
For better luck, Marmon suggests checking the Weather Channel before you go, as fish only feed in certain conditions. Likewise, books like Lorraine Leavell’s Family Fishing Holes Within 120 Miles of Downtown Houston, Danny Hicks’ Texas Blue-Ribbon Fly-Fishing and Phil Shook’s Flyfisher’s Guide to Texas are a great way to better understand the fish species that ply East Texas waters.
Fishing in a concrete river? Casting a line in Hermann Park? Organized fishing float trips down Buffalo Bayou in sight of downtown? Am I serious? Well, consider this: The next time you have a couple hours of free daylight, you can wistfully flip through photos of your last camping trip. Or you can pick up a rod, spend a few minutes in the car and attempt to slay some metropolitan fish.
I know which sounds more fun to me.
