EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

We got a hell of a swell comin' in from hurricane Irene over the next few days.... I've been surfing these storms for enough yrs now I got it figured out when the best and baddest swell is gonna come thumpin' in...  When a storm is tracking just off the east coast, just north of center you get hard, onshore wind that makes for short interval, kick-yo-ass conditions... JUST as the eye passes to the North of you, the wind switches to offshore... cleaning up and spacing out waves of EPIC proportions....

It is at this point that one, as a Florida surfer, can find the ultimate adrenaline fix... waves big enough to either make the ultimate ride or kill you...

.. I about drowned a few yrs back when I tried to push the envelope as a storm was pushin' by... the wind had just switched offshore... waves were jacking up and pitching just unreal... 8-12' of short interval swell... BAD DANGEROUS... 3 of us went in, no one else in the water... everyone else was waitin' on the swell to spread out... but I just had to push the envelope....

... We made a drift session... started out at St. Augustine Beach... within' one hr we were several miles North, comin' up on a deep channel so we had to get in... my two buds caught easy waves and skipped in to shore... I caught a monster and it took me down...

.... I remember sitting on the bottom, feeling the sand in my hands... When a wave that big crashes it forms massive amounts of whitewater.... whitewater is, basically, water and air mixed together violently... when enough air is mixed into water, that which was previoulsly bouyant, no longer is.... and neither was I.  I tried to pull on my leash(cord attaching myself to my surfboard), which ordinarily would have led me upwards to the surface... but not this time...  My board fell in my lap without effort... I was now holding my surfboard, sitting on the sand in over 12' of water, quickly running out of air...  :-\

...Finally the bubbles began to subside and I again became bouyant... as I broke the surface, had not even got a breath when I saw the next wave hit me... it rolled me bad... at this point, I was fading in and out of consciousness from lack of air... I felt "it" close... not a good feeling.

... somehow I made it to the surface, it took me another half mile to get on the beach... but when I did, I just laid there in shock, realizing how close "that" had been.

... didn't surf for over a yr after that...

BUT  ;D  Surf's up again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Who want's ta come get some with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :D

In stead of noah going to have to start calling you "bay watch". Lol

I surfed in the wave pool at White Water Bay in Branson Missouri once. Does that count?!!!  :D ;D

Yeah, i never got into surfing myself, me being 5'10 245lbs I've tries a long board in small surf a couple times.

But I work at a boat rental place, and have gone out in some nasty hurricane swell doing tow ins.

And let me tell you when you are on your boss' $8000 wave runner in 10' swell and you get sea weed in the intake in a very nasty Jupiter inlet there is just no other feeling.

Wind is suppossed to be off shore Friday, so hopefully it cleans up and spreads out a little, and I can sling some boys into a few from way out.

Noah, You know how to stand on your board in the water, so I can come drag the tow rope by you when you are inside?

We'll have to get you down here for one of these storms.

Only thing im surfing is the internet. LOL.
Always wanted to try it when I was younger. I would drown for sure if i tried it now. LOL

 You are lucky Noah. We dont have good waves around here often enough to learn to surf. I do love to knee board though!  ;D

HAHA!!  I've had that one close call but I got to save a kid one time that was WAAAAAY closer call than that...  ;D

...Was a bad cold nor-easter(basically a badass cold front that had slipped down and built VERY large surf up along the east coast)... another one of them days that noooobody else was gettin' in the water... just too dangerous...

....WELLL.... guess who just HAD to make a round.... ;D

Me and the only other friend I could muster up to go with me, if for no other reason than to tell the story of my epic death...  :o ;D

... well, the air temp was in the low 50's that day... water temps were just about the same.... COLD conditions to say the least... we were both suited up with 3mill full suits, but were still terribly cold...

... I remember the paddle out... making it out past the shore break then the long, tedious paddle towards the impact zone, where the 6-8' storm surf was closing out.... (I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about it..)

....SO... For those of you that have never surfed in big waves... the most dangerous point is what's called the "break point", the spot at which the swell peaks and crashes... the impact zone...  as a surfer, your biggest fear is not being able to get past the "impact zone"... you get caught in it, well... you can get worked over real bad... you make it past, and it's all smiles and rainbows... you sittin' on the "outside" at that point and can "drop" back into the "impact zone" when you ready...

.... JUST as my partner and I committed our traverse through the impact zone... I heard a faint "help"......  :-\

.... now, not having seen ANY other people in the water up and down almost 5miles of beach on the way in... I thought I was imagining things and continued to paddle frantically as a massive breaker was about to demolish me if I didn't get under it....

.... as I popped up from a duck dive, I/we heard it again...."help".... my bud turned to me... neither of us wanted to acknowledge what we knew we had heard... we were in straight up self protection mode, just flat out trying not to get hurt ourselves...

... I remember saying "did you hear that"... the blank stare I got back confirmed that I had... now what to do about it...

...As the next breaker was heading towards us, I took a brief moment and turned to my left and saw a head and arm come up and go down about 200yds away... not good....

....In the middle of the impact zone I turned sideways and began to paddle, parallel to the beach, towards the person I no longer could see...

..He never did come back up.

...I got to the spot that I thought he was close to when he went down, kicked my board out and dove for the bottom.... made two dives feeling my way across the bottom as the waves crashed above me... pitch black, zero visibility with all the sand being kicked up by the waves...

....all of a sudden, I felt a foot.

...Snatched his ass to the surface and he was out out.... gave him a good smack and he started coughing as the next wave rolled us both and sent us back to the bottom...

...got back up and he made eye contact with me... spoooky... I told him to grab aholt of my board but he was done... pulled him up and threw him on his belly onto my surfboard(in 10' of water with waves kickin' my ass) and realized... HE WAS BUTT NAKED!!!  rolleyes  .... "this just keeps gettin' better" I remember tellin' myself...

...about that time my bud finally came draggin' up, beat to chit from the breakers and saw the mess I'd gotten into.... we limped towards the shore(we were over a quarter mile out at this point).... every time a breaker would hit us,(at this point, the dudes ass was basically in my face...) I'd have to bear-hug the passed out neckid dude on my surfboard as we got swept end over end under water as the wave passed... good times.... good times...  rolleyes ;D

... Finally got to shore and a crowd had gathered, everyone was bundled up in winter clothes... strange mental image still...

...Drug his ass up on shore and he was finally coherent enuff to realize he had no clothes on... apparently, he'd tried to go surfing, lost his board and his shorts in the storm surf...

... I ran and got him a pair of shorts from my truck... he asked me "what can I do to ever repay you"....  "don't ever get in the water again" is what I said as I headed back into the water to finish my day in the surf...

...That was one lucky son of a bitch right there...

JD, sounds good man, sometimes these hurricane swells get hard to catch when that wind switches around out of the west!!! A tow in would be sweeeeet!!!  ;D

I used to surf. Learned in Galveston. Got Stationed in Southern California and surfed up and down the coast. Broke a board in Hawaii. But I suffered a tramatic brain injury and while for the most part I have my balance I have not been able to surf again. I really miss getting air and shooting the tubes. In Galveston we surfed anytime a huricane got in the gulf. The cops or beach patrol would grab us if we came back to the beach and make us leave. ;D

I've always wondered if there were any breaks in Texas... always thought it was just too shallow on that side of the Gulf to hold a swell

Sounds like a wild ride for sure, and after that in depth description, uh...... you can definitely count me out of hanging..5, 10 or whatever it is. LOL.
   The good LORD was definitely watchin over that ole boy. Good read, when you gonna write a book? The misadventures of Noah.  ;D

Haha, thanks Hillbilly... but I'm just gettin' warmed up!!!  ;D  ... These old bones of mine, all 35 years of them, got a lot more near death stories than you could imagine...  ;D

You think I could sell more copies than the "Hog Dogger's Bible" lol!!!  ;D ;D

Good story Noah,

Sounds like a lucky man.

Search for Jupiter inlet boat accident, that will give you an idea of how it gets over here. It's a 40 something foot sportfish in some good swell we were doing tow ins into last year. The captain fell out, hit the gunnel and ends up dying. And that was at the end of the swell.

The worst thing I have had happen to me is my own feet hitting me in the back of the head, and the wind getting knocked out of me, while body surfing in the shore break.

 :o ..... wow... I'm gonna look that up... They were usin' a 40' sportfish to tow people in???

I never have surfed Jupiter, always heard about the wedge there is unreal....  but the crowd has always kept me away... I've got my own local breaks up here that hold good swell without that insane crowd...

Yeah Noah you've sure got some stories. I enjoy them a lot.  It's always fun to read your stories, and get a few laughs. Between this one and the water cow herding story i've been laughing all day. I'd for sure buy the book.

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LOL!!!!!!! Guarantee it. I'd buy one, and I hate to read books, not necessarily the reading, just Cant sit still that long.

i used to surf in charleston alot when i lived there, ive also surfed a bit in savannah

had the opportunity to do it in st augustine but backed out seein a boy get ripped open by his fin, just was a major buzz kill

My favorite place to surf in California was on a restricted military base. That and off a point that had rocks all along it. So only people that came to surf would even think about going. You learn to time the waves getting back up on the rocks ;D

Thanks J.Prince,  problem is... the way my brain seems to work... I don't remember most of the stories I been through until one of yall jog my memory and I mentally vommit my recollections onto here....  :D

... one of those things, I'm afraid...  I'd have to piece together off of what I've put on here to get it at all lol!!!  I can't imagine sittin' down and actually writing a book out...  :P ;D

... To tell you the truth, I'd like to write up a documentary of what's left of traditional Florida hog/cow hunters... I know enough of them that it would be easy to make several books documenting all the different ranches, history, dogs....

Dub, I got some baaad memories of tryin' to time the entry/exit off of a rock break...  :-\ :o ;D   Would sure like to surf Cali one day

Either way send one this way.  ;)

Seen the sea, ocean, bay, whatever 2 times in my life and the urge to hail myself in on a big surfboard never crossed my mind. I am gonna fish it in a boat someday, hopefully.

Getting off the rocks is the easy part. You just throw your board in after a set and then dive out flat. But surfing there you had to bail off the wave before you got to the rocks because there was no beach they just crashed into the rocks. A new guy was on the second or third wave of a set and when the wave in front of him crashed into the rocks it was too late and he hit hard. It was some big waves that day and he was out cold and getting hammered by each wave. So I just took my leash off and went in. Normally you want to time the top of the wave. I had to get slammed to get to him. I used my body to try to shield the waves and then pulled him up just beyond the top of the waves even there the life guards would not even come down because it too close to the waves but I did not want to move him any more. They lowered me the collar and board for me to strap him in and pulled him up. Then I showered and went on duty with a few bruises and my board was saved by another surfer who gave it back the next day.

 :-\  ..... yeeeaaaahhhhh.... I don't like rocks  ;D  I like my beach breaks  ;) ;D

i dont like piers either

No posers allowed on the rocks ;D It is not for the weak, meek, or easily intimidated. You better know what you are doing because the cost of failure is high. I knew guys that like shooting the pier. They would weave in and out of the pile-ons under the piers. Oh, and they would do it at night.  I hung out with a bunch of crazy guys. The last time I talked to them I still have the record for the most different broken bones of us, they counted the dislocations too. Another guy has the most broken bones at one time and the most stitches. My wife says only guys would compare such stupid stuff. I have lost count of how many bones I have broken. I know it is more than fourteen because I said it was lucky to get passed unlucky thirteen ;D

Scars are better than trophies because you can't lose them ;D

Chicks dig scars...  and it means you actually did somethin' in your miserable life HAHA!!!   :D

x2 the best are the surgical scars

And I got some goodin's...  :D

Oooohhh... that reminds me of another story  ;D  .... have to save that one for another night though, I'm whooped! 

Oh come on not another cliff hanger. ;D

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ahh come on noah im at work all night dont leave me like this