LEGACIES: FELIX COX: The challenges of commercial 
fishing ... on Passport to Texas Legacies ... 
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Passport to Texas Legacies from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Felix Cox is a commercial fisherman from Aransas Pass; 
he recalls the early days of November 1985 when he and 
his son, out on a new boat, got caught in a norther. 

At some point my son opened the back door and said, 'Dad, 
there's an awful lot of water in this boat. I think we're in 
trouble.' And I said, 'Well, hold the wheel just a minute.' And I 
slowed the engine down and I opened the back door and looked 
out myself, and we were half full of water. And I told him, 'Son, 
we're going to lose this boat.' I said, 'Hang on. I'm going to hit 
it. I'm going to try to drive it up on the beach if I can.' And so I 
turned it straight in shore - we were probably three to four 
hundred feet off shore - and I hit the throttle and goosed it, and 
when I did, the seas came over the stern of it and buried it right 
there. And, there we were, sunk. And there was enough air in 
the fuel tank that it held the bow afloat, but the stern was sunk. 
And so I told my son, 'We're going to have to go out these front 
windows. Put a life jacket on and get the hell out of here; and 
I'll be right behind you.' And he scooted out the window, and I 
put one on, and I scooted out behind him, and we made it to 
the beach. And lost that boat. Two days later we had to charter 
a plane, and we found the boat in the surf, and tried to raise it 
and couldn't. And I ended up selling the boat for a dollar - just 
the relieve myself of the liability of it. 

Our show is produced in cooperation with the 
Conservation History Association of Texas.

Visit them at texaslegacy.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti.