# In memory of Boomerang Billy



## TrueblueTexican

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 an old 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. These boomerangs are very valuable now.

My first impression of Billy was that he was insane. We bought him breakfast in a local eatery, where he told us some tall tales at 90 miles an hour, pestered the waitress to share some round steak time 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, 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 fifty-five year old man.

We were to go shark catching with him that night. We were admiring his beautiful custom rod works. Having loaded our truck with Billys beautiful works of rod art, we were making appreciative comments about the 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-airconditioned 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 liquor 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, jump 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 saltwater catfish 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 Byron 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 verticle to the concrete and Byron was unable to get 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 shot as it broke at spools end -- the drag on the reel was actually smoking !!! Billy was rolling on the concrete laughing his *** off !!! Tears were streaming down Billys face in the pier lights as he stood back up giving condolences to Byron.

Wasn't no shark he said, it was a big stingray, nothing runs as fast as those buggers in saltwater. We continued to soak 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 Billys reel clicked once. Billy looked like a birdog coming on point as he quickly focused on his rod. Click, Click, then about two minutes later, Click , Click, Click. Billy was getting into a stand-up fighting harness. Click ,Click, raaaa, reeeeeeeeeee, eeeeeeee, reeeeeee sounded the Big 8/0 Penn reel as something big ran with the whole ten pound bonito. 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 toward 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 fish finally had enough of going toward port Mansfield and turned back in the ship channel heading back toward the jetties and the open Gulf. 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 an hour 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

Screamin drags all !!!

John Kenneth McMahon passed away in 1985 -- a true character I was privledged to fish with, learned a lot from him -- Rip in peace Billy

Some of his everyday non- works of art Boomerangs he sold and demonstrated to tourists at SPI

http://www.flight-toys.com/boomerang/collectable/mh03.jpg


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## SARGENTTX

Good story thanks!


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## wareagle1979

*Cool Story!*

Cool story, thanks for sharing. I find myself looking back and wishing I had spent more time listening instead of talking, to men like "Billy"; they just dont make MEN like those ol' timers anymore. Thanks again!


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## boater71

Great read...thank you


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## james79

cool story thanks you


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## Trouthappy

Anybody ever get a picture of Billy? I remember him on the beach near the SPI jetty, pretty much by himself. Walking around in the blowing sand. Didn't have an extra ounce of fat on him. Back then we stayed in the cinderblock cabins near the jetties, cost was $12 for the four bunks. And Matamoros only a half hour drive...We spent every day during spring break, driving our Volkswagon Thing up to the Mansfield jetties to fish. Got as sandy as the Afrika Korp...Some of the guys there before us, back in the 60s, said that if surf fishing for redfish was no good at night, they'd cast a mullet over the nearest sand dune and hook coyotes instead.

Billy sounds like a duplicate of the character Dean in the book On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. Very manic all the time, never stopped talking, looking for kicks. They drove across the country a few times in about 1957 before there were Interstate Highways. Lots of adventures. Lots of close calls...


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## TrueblueTexican

*I have a picture*

Of four of us in 1978, with Billy in the middle hands across shoulders , in shorts no shirts and barefoot, standing on the north jetty. I need to get that scanned into a digital file someday to post. Wish I had a few of his Boomerangs, the guy was an artist with one --

Ah such fond memories of SPI when it was still a two hotel beach !!!

There was an old wreck of a dude who used to live out on that jetty - slept on the rocks, we would pass by him sitting at the entrance to the rocks, he would always ask, hey man gotta match? Same question anytime you walked by, burned out hippie from the crazy days


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## Trouthappy

Back then they said Billy got cancer from using chemicals, while making his boomerangs...Not sure if that was true. We should have brought him with us to Matamoros, for our one night of cultural exchange...Back then during Spring Break we only had money for one meal a day, always a Gut-Buster at Burger King.


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## dreamer

Nice story, reminds me of Papa Earl up on lake Conroe.


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## aggiemulletboy

That was an amazing story. Very well written. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks a ton!


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## Swells

Never met John, although the locals still talk about him quite a bit. He hung out down by Pop's surf rental shack down at isla Blanca Park and there's a famous picture of him there - his surfboard is on display at the 'One the Beach' surf shop on the island. 

He was an expert shark hunter, and held the lemon shark record until Jim Blackburn topped it at over 450 pounds in 1987. After the movie 'Jaws' came out out, the sold a bazillion shark tooth necklaces and pendants, all from fish he caught.

His boomerangs were quite popular but he was also noted for being a very good hurricane forecaster - if you dismissed his tall stories about being blasted to smithereens that is. "This is the year of the big one" he always said according to local historian Rod Bates. This was before the days of the internet but they say he could predict a hurricane better than anyone, bar none. He could recite every hurricane going back to 1867. They say you could tell him a latitude and longitude of a tropical storm and he would chatter about it for hours. 

When I first came down to SPI he must have been in in a bad way with the cancer because I never saw or heard tell from him. All the little rental shops on the beach like Pop's were gone. They named a beach bar after him, Boomerang Billy's or "Boomies" for short, a place I hang out quite a bit. Us locals think fondly of a time that is now lost to history and high rise condos.

Great story of the man, sir.


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## Torpedo

Article is here...
http://robnixon.blogspot.com/2008/10/boomerang-billy.html

With pic


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## kenny

I remember Billy showing up but can't remember what year.
I started surfing SPI in 1964 or '65. My great Pop thought it was a good idea to take me and some buddies down for a few days of surfing and nights in Matamoros. The old Texas bar was a bar, bar! Then we started driving ourselves. If you went back then you remember the huge dunes and the campgrounds!! 
Later in the 60's there were the Easter contests......now that was some crazy chit there too! Going to Charlie's and leaving as the cops or federales showed up. I believe that's where me and the Mrs. had our pre-honeymoon one of many Thanksgivings on the island. LOL
A lot of good friends still live down there.


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## Sea-Slug

Great Post! Thank you for sharing!


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## iridered2003

thanks


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## dolphinslayer1

What a cool story!!! Makes me wish I was older, I missed out on so much neat stufff and interestiing people.

I have never een to Port Isabel, and have never heard of this man before, but (different time/ different place) he woulda been a great friend.

"Billy was the real deal, the more you listened to his craziness the more you believed him." I love this quote. It reminds me of one of Port Aransas's colorful characters (who i will not name because he has family and friends on this boar, and although I love and respect him, I dont want to offent those hes close to)

Anyway this man came back from Vietnam with some serious mental issues. However anytime I see him alone at a restraunt, I always invite him over {he's known me since I was 3 and never recognizes me  ** because he has some of the coolest stories, tales, and theories....

I remember as a child, my mom saying at a party, "I dont want to go talk to him. Its bad enough hes crazy and will talk your ear off, but what really bothers me is after 10 minutes i understand!!!"


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## coogerpop

Trouthappy said:


> Anybody ever get a picture of Billy? I remember him on the beach near the SPI jetty, pretty much by himself. Walking around in the blowing sand. Didn't have an extra ounce of fat on him. Back then we stayed in the cinderblock cabins near the jetties, cost was $12 for the four bunks. And Matamoros only a half hour drive...We spent every day during spring break, driving our Volkswagon Thing up to the Mansfield jetties to fish. Got as sandy as the Afrika Korp...Some of the guys there before us, back in the 60s, said that if surf fishing for redfish was no good at night, they'd cast a mullet over the nearest sand dune and hook coyotes instead.
> 
> Billy sounds like a duplicate of the character Dean in the book On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. Very manic all the time, never stopped talking, looking for kicks. They drove across the country a few times in about 1957 before there were Interstate Highways. Lots of adventures. Lots of close calls...


Born and raised in Brownsville,my father,grandfather and I used to fish the SPI jetties long before there was a causeway over to the island. We took a ferry boat from Port Isabel....My father later bought a permenant room in the old hotel that was down by the jetties...I have heard about folks "fishing for coyotes" before but never actually met anyone that had done it....we have shot them in the light of the moon and reflection of the fire as they attempted to raid our garbage or scraps thrown away from the bonfire...Old times for old guys....


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## WWWCoyote

*Pop's and Billy Boomerang*

I ran across this thread and your comment about "Billy", and would like to share my brief encounters with the characters of south Padre.

In the late 60's, my brothers and I were landlocked, military-brats exiled from Oahu to San Antonio. Port A and Port I were weekend surf destinations whenever we could scrape together a little cash and a willing driver with a van. We became aware of Pop's surf shop soon after it opened. A friend and I bought single fin Tanaka's from Pop in 1970 before a road trip that summer to southern California.

Pop was just the coolest guy over 60 we had ever met. He would let us sleep in the shop after the long haul from SA, before we had a chance to set up camp near the beach.

My first recollection of Billy Boomerang was probably early 70's. He'd show up at the beach in late morning and throw his hand crafted boomerangs for hours, occasionally making a sale. Always up, always chatting up the babes.

I've attached a pic of Billy and Pop standing in front of Pop's shop in town with a couple of my surf buds from January 1972, Christmas break. A front had just passed through and it was freezing. The surf was huge; waves broke in the harbor channel, probably 10' faces. There was enough swell to turn the corner north and peel along the rocks inside the harbor next to what is now Bait Shop Rd. Perfect peelers wound down the rock shore to a little sand bay. This was before leashes and losing a board meant certain destruction. We surfed the little beach inside the harbor next to what is now Dolphin Cove Rd. at 3-4'. Clean, offshore and peeling, but the water must have been in the 50's or 60s, air temp in the high 40s. The only insulation we had were "sleeves" - the upper portion of a wetsuit with the elasticity of an old bike tire. The sesh was brief, and it wasn't long before we were chowing down on chicken fried steaks at the Jetties Restaurant.


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## Trouthappy

Anybody ever hear what might have happened to Billy in Vietnam? I only remember rambling comments from him, a lonely figure in the sand next to the jetty restaurant, throwing his boomerang way out there towards the water, where it always returned. Man, South Padre was *quiet* during Spring Break in the early '70s. We went back in 1988 and Jefferson Starship was playing on the beach, fer Chrisake....

On a happier note I took my two sons to Spring Break there in 1995, and camped in Capt. J.R. Ellis' back yard in town, then hit the scene on the beach. At the big Ramada pool where we snuck in, there were hundreds of thongs...My kids were eight and 11, but knew how to handle themselves...we saw 10 years worth of flesh in one day. Whoops! Good thing the wife was back in POC.


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## reeltimer

Thanks for sharing that story! Cool read.


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## SargentfishR

Back in the late 60's , early 70's , my cousin and I spent every weekend at SPI. We first met Billy at Pop's and he taught us how to throw the boomerang, which he always had with him. Quite a Legend then and now. Those were the days.......


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## Tiki Cindy

Well my Uncle Gene owned Pops Surf Shop He inherited it from his Dad. Back in the 70’s Uncle Gene and my Aunt Faye wanted me to meet Boomerang Billy, they were trying to fix me up with him, after my divorce. They cared a lot for him. But me. Being a Banker, did not fish or swim was not a match for the fast talking Boomerang Billy. They spoke of him being a legend. We enjoyed Dinner with my Aunt and Uncle but although they cared for both of us they understood why we were not a match. My Aunt divorced Gene, so I really don’t know what happened to him or the shop.


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## Freddy Cavazos

I bought my first surf racks from Pops Surf Shop and it was always our first stop for wax . I have been searching for a picture of the front of the shop but no luck. Well I finally found an original Pops Surf Shop Tee from there, which was so awesome to get . It don't fit me but just to have brought back many memories . I even had a 8mm video with the surf racks on my Dad's 72 Ford station wagon which we used to go surfing at SPI .


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