Lake Majure made a winding journey to Dallas after graduating from the University of Alabama. Once here, a series of events led him to fishing the Trinity River just outside of downtown.
“I graduated during COVID and moved to Colorado to be a ski bum for a while,” Majure said. “I got a sales job but got laid off in a month. It was so shut down there, I loaded up and moved home to Mississippi. It was pretty shut down there, too. Then one of my buddies in Dallas called from a bar, around a bunch of our friends. The next day, I packed up and moved here.”
Majure found a place to live while on the drive west.
“Another friend called with an apartment to sublease,” he said.
It turned out, the apartment was in the St. Thomas area of east Dallas, not far from downtown. Soon, Majure’s fishing adventures began.
“I was skateboarding the Katy Trail and saw a guy fly-fishing Turtle Creek,” he said. “He caught some bream and a bass and I decided I needed to start fly-fishing here.”
The next fishing adventures began by chance, while grilling on the roof of the apartment complex.
“A buddy told me there were big gar in Texas,” Majure said. “I had shark-fishing rods and looked it up online. I saw a guy holding a 7-foot gar with a skyscraper behind him. From the roof, I could see that building downtown. The next day, I drove over there, went to the bridge on my skateboard and found a fishing spot.”
While most of his friends are still hanging at the bars, some like to tag along.
“You can drink at a bar with your friends,” Majure said. “But it’s better to do it and possibly catch a monster at the same time.”
Majure uses both of his new fishing experiences to catch big catfish and gar.
“I fly-fish Turtle Creek and catch bream,” he said. “At the river, I put a hook in them and toss them out there with a bobber.”
Majure usually fishes evenings, often on the weekends.
“I catch mostly gar because I target them the most,” he said. “I catch all the different types, but mostly the longnose gar, usually fishing about 6 feet deep. When I target catfish — they tend to be on the bottom — I catch more numbers.”
Majure said the fish at the creek and from the river aren’t on his list of fish to eat.
“Some of them look a little weird,” he said. “I don’t eat them. I do figure out which drainage tunnels are the bad ones and fish above them.”
Majure also sustained a chemical burn while fishing.
“The mud and silt gets really deep after it rains,” he said. “One day, I caught a gar when I was fishing alone. I sunk down to my knees but got the gar in, but I left mud on my legs for 30 minutes before going to the car and washing off. Then my skin was peeling off my feet. I called my brother who is a doctor, and he said it probably was a chemical burn. It kind of freaked me out.”
Majure’s biggest gar was a 5-foot, 9-inch fish, and he has caught some large cats.
“You lose a lot of hooks fishing for the catfish,” he said. “There are trees on the bottom and the cats hide underneath.”
The angler plans to give the carp and smallmouth buffalo in the river a shot.
“I see buffalo all the time,” he said.
Majure, who now lives in Mesquite, works in Fort Worth at Lockheed, but only has to commute a few days each week. Now married (at the courthouse), a ceremony is planned at the Carribean island of St. Thomas in a few weeks.
His wife actually has fished the river with him, but more when they were dating.
“She used to come a few times, but not so much anymore,” he said. “She gets a little nervous down there.”
