< Previous30 COASTMONTHLY.COM | ApriL 2023 FEATURE nervous because he was one of the oldest ones.” Becky jokingly attributes her back pain to four decades of air-steering her husband away from rampaging bulls from her seat in the stands. “It never worked,” she joked. “I’m very fortunate to have walked away from it,” Mark added. EXTRA-LARGE LONGHORNS A few years before metaphorically hanging up his rodeo boots, Mark decided to add a bit of rodeo to his backyard in the form of two six- month-old Watusi steers. “They’re probably some of the only Watusi cattle in all of Galveston Coun- ty,” Mark said with palpable pride, speaking about Rojo and Rio. Along with thicker, sometimes lon- ger, horns, Watusi cattle can grow to be about a hundred pounds heavier than a Texas longhorn. Gawkers often ask Bennett what kind of longhorns Rojo and Rio are, as the two are commonly mistaken for their Texan cousins. “The blood is also in the Watusi’s horn, so if something were to happen to the horn, they could bleed out,” Becky said. “It’s like a radiator.” Bennett bought the pair from a Houston-area breeder 15 years ago, making Rojo and Rio as old as their “sibling” Baylee. The aptly named Rojo wears a rich, coffee-red coat, while his brother Rio is a live Jackson Pollock painting. The mellow behemoths meander about their pasture peacefully most of the day. They weigh from 1,500 to 1,600 pounds, their horns are more than 9 feet wide and 25 inches around at the base. But they’re mostly a quiet, social pair — immediate- ly hoofing their way toward the fence when humans approach. NOT KIDDING “Baylee would hardly ever walk out in that pasture until we started build- ing that goat pen,” Mark said, alluding to the pen he built with Baylee to house her first interest in rodeo life. Mark never pressured Baylee into barrel racing, showing animals or any other recreational rodeo activity. But after sitting inside during the pandem- ic, she became restless. Baylee was in fine arts, she excelled in her choir, but two-and-a-half years Mark Bennett, a retired professional bullfighter, spent his 20s and 30s touring the country to entertain crowds of rodeo enthusiasts. COASTMONTHLY.COM | ApriL 2023 31 ago, she asked her father to buy her a show goat to raise. “And Dad was like, ‘What?’” she remembered. The Bennetts knew absolutely noth- ing about goats at the time, but set out to educate themselves before adding a kid to the family. With the cheapest goat the Bennetts could find, Baylee entered a show at the Galveston County Fair & Rodeo and won third — over animals worth thousands of dollars. “All the livestock animals are treated like bodybuilders,” she explained. “Bodybuilders are all high protein and exercising; I’m like their personal trainer. We go to a show and we get placed by weight classes. My first year, my goat was 120 pounds. And that’s the max weight allowed in a show in Galveston County.” “Dog shows are about genetics, it’s about structure and how they move. It’s kind of the same thing with goats, but they kind of put the market spin on it. So, livestock judging is imagin- ing what they look like on a hook.” Rio and Rojo now live with new pasture pals, Boer goats Razor and Rambo. The confluence of bleats and occasional moos creates a cross-spe- cies quartet befitting any rodeo. An ever-curious Labrador next door regu- larly joins the chorus when any of his neighbors stir. Show goats Razor and Rambo are far more rambunctious and lively than their steer siblings. Razor uses affection to sneak a nibble of clothing, or whatever he can get his mouth on, while Rambo seems more interested in climbing the bars of his pen. “I love animals, and some people are like, ‘You are so cruel to do this,’” Baylee said. “But that’s what they’re for. They think I’m a cold-hearted per- son, but I do cry, I do care, I do get sad. In the end, it’s what I love to do.” ROPED BACK IN Mark was out of bullfighting for 10 years, which felt like 10 minutes to him, when his daughter’s spark of (From top) Mark Bennett’s championship belt buckles; a photograph of Bennett in his bullfighting days. It’s almost like playing professional sports. If you make it up into your 40s, it’s an exception. I’m very fortunate that I did get to fight bulls for so long.” MARK BENNETT32 COASTMONTHLY.COM | ApriL 2023 FEATURE inspiration rekindled his own interest. “I had been out of fighting bulls for 10 years and out of rodeos, and, all of a sudden, boom! I’m back in it, but from a different angle,” Mark said. “There was a little lull, but I’m excited again. I had almost that same feeling when I was going to rodeos. “I’m just as equally excited; I get all worked up. And I get that same inten- sity as I did when I was fighting bulls.” While loading up the trailer at 2 a.m. to leave for weekend rodeos inspires comparable feelings of joy and anticipation for Mark, watching his daughter do what she loves — and earn accolades along the way — fills him with far more pride than when he was on the rodeo circuit, he said. “She’s won more belt buckles in two-and-a-half years than I won in my whole 25-year career,” he said. “She’s won 21 buckles.” Baylee spends seven to eight months with each goat, preparing to show them off at rodeos across the state. Her next goal is to win grand champion. “We’ve learned a lot in these two- and-a-half years of this goat thing,” Mark said. “If you would’ve asked me five years ago, I wouldn’t know a good goat from a bad goat. Now, after being around them, I can see the differences.” SALT ON THE RIM Boating and fishing provide quieter alternatives to the Bennetts’ list of outdoor pastimes. Their surf-and-turf mindset led the Pasadena natives to seek land in Galveston County, where they could have steer 20 miles from the pier. “Even when I was fighting bulls, I always wore Hawaiian shirts,” he said. “I’ve always liked the coast and the coastal lifestyle, but I rodeoed, too. Everybody knew when they saw a cowboy with a Hawaiian shirt, it was Mark Bennett.” While the Bennetts aren’t tending to their two goats, Watusi steer or one dog, they’re somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, likely fishing. And, as she’s swift to point out, Becky holds the title of the Bennetts’ best angler. She’s completely undaunted by reeling in sharks, something for which the Ben- netts regularly enter tournaments. “I’m either in flip-flops or cowboy boots, bottom line,” Mark said. “I hav- en’t owned a pair of tennis shoes for 40 years. It’s either cowboy boots or flip-flops, man.” Mark Bennett offers a treat to rojo, one of his two Ankole-Watusi bulls.MELISSAREKOFF BROKERASSOCIATE melissa@onyxrealtygrouptx.com melissa.onyxrealtygrouptx.com 409-996-9838 ForEducators FeaturedListing 4.8ACRESWITHPOND FRONTHOUSE BARN&STABLES BACKHOUSE 3602ScottSt,SantaFeTX77517 Rusticcharm,locallycrafted designsandmoretosee! LindseyRichison,REALTORScanformoreinfoCaring for children of all ages knows Pediatrics The University of Texas Medical Branch is in-network for most major insurance plans. Call our 24/7 Access Services team at (800) 917-8906 , visit our website at utmbhealth.com/pediatrics or scan the QR code to find a provider and schedule your next appointment. UTMB Health knows that nothing is more important than the well-being of your children. 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That part of the bay complex offers an array of hotspots for targeting specks in both shallow and deep water. Nothing brings me solace quite like scooting my wading boots along a stretch of sandy bay bottom east of the Texas City Dike. East Galveston Bay is where I cut my teeth inshore saltwater fish- ing during my late teens. It’s a great place to hone skills because there are opportunities for success, both wade fishing and drift fishing from a boat. In April, I prefer to get out of the boat and wade fish. But I’ve brought many solid fish to hand while perched atop a fiberglass craft. The best shallow flats worth leaving a good boat for are along East Bay’s south shoreline. Stretches with hard, sandy bottoms both east and west of Sievers Cove make for easy wading. They often are teeming with decent sized-trout during this time of the year. There are some small pockets of shell along part of the south shoreline as well. If you stumble across them, stay put and cast in all directions. Fish regularly use the edges of these small reefs as ambush points when they’re feeding. The little reefs are dynamite honey holes when you target them at the right time. Farther along the south shoreline, toward the back or eastern half of East Bay, sand flats on either side of Stingaree Cut also should be loaded with gamefish right now. Fat Rat Pass, one of my favorite flats in the entire bay system to wade fish, is there. When trout are in the shallows gorging at Fat Rat, the action is as good as it gets anywhere on the Texas Gulf Coast. The key to choosing the right stretch of wade-fishing water along the south shoreline is finding the highest concentrations of baitfish. Anywhere there are large rafts of mullet darting in all directions as if chased by predators is worth targeting. During warm April after- noons, swarms of glass minnows often cover the flats. You can bet that schools of speckled trout won’t be too far from those stretches. Sometime in April, the water usually gets warm enough to bail out of the boat into the brine without waders. There’s nothing like feeling the cool tide against your legs at sunrise on a beautiful spring morn- ing. It gets my blood pumping better than any morning cup of coffee. I almost exclusively use topwater baits wade-fishing East Gal- veston Bay in April. The water usually is warm enough to get the COASTMONTHLY.COM | ApriL 2023 37 Wade fishing along the south shore- line of East Galveston Bay is a great way to stay hooked up with quality specks during the month of April.38 COASTMONTHLY.COM | ApriL 2023 HOOKED fish in an aggressive enough mood to ferociously strike at the surface-walking fakes. At the same time, it isn’t hot enough to cause the surface ac- tion to die off as the sun rises. That’s right, it’s not uncommon to enjoy a consistent topwater bite all day long in April. Smaller profile topwater lures seem to produce more strikes at this time of year, compared to magnum-sized plugs. This is probably because the flats are covered with a lot of smaller, fin- ger-sized baitfish. The angle of your cast with topwater lures, in relation to wind direction and surface chop, can make a big difference in how many bites you get. It’s better to cast and retrieve at a 45-degree angle to the wind and chop, rather than directly down- wind and working straight back against the waves or current. Experiment with different angles and you just might end up catching more fish. On deeper water in East Galveston Bay, drift-fishing from a boat can keep you hooked up with solid specks, especially on days when winds are light and open bay waters are safely fishable. Shell humps surrounding Hanna’s Reef and other charted mid-bay oyster reefs will be holding plen- ty of fish from now through the summer. Stretches of shell litter along the bottom of open East Bay waters will be especially busy with hordes of speckled trout immediately after significant rains funnel fresh water into the Galveston Bay Com- plex. When salinity drops in the upper bay system, speckled trout will stack up along the bottom in the middle part of East Bay, because that’s where some of the saltiest water will be found. Shrimp also will be moving across the bay during this time of the year, and it’s common to see flocks of seagulls working over schools of feeding trout that are pushing swarms of the crustaceans from the depths to the water’s surface. Sunny afternoons usually afford the best bird action, and when the fish are feeding under the birds, you can throw just about anything to catch them. Soft plastics rigged on a 1/4-ounce to 3/8-ounce jig head are the best lure option while drift-fishing from a boat out deep in East Galveston Bay. This presentation will allow you to cover the entire water column in a hurry, and it’s hard to beat once you find a school of specks. East Galveston Bay always will hold a special place in my heart, and April gets me excited about spending some time on its waters. Make plans to fish it, both shallow and deep. Grab your favorite topwaters and plenty of tails, and let’s go east. April is the perfect time of year to begin focusing on targeting speckled trout in East Galveston Bay. (Above) Soft plastics rigged on a jig head are the best option for catching trout in the open bay waters.Exquisite Homes Laffite’s Cove, Galveston TX 13243 Binnacle | $1.7+ mil. 13538 Stewart | $900,000 13823 Doubloon | $435,000 New Listing New Listing Coming Soon 281.773.3477 bjennings@greenwoodking.com BET JENNINGS 2022 Real Trends America’s Best Real Estate Pros in Galveston & Texas Specializing in the Pirates communities: Laffite’s Cove, Pirates Cove, Pirates Beach & Pirates Beach West A long-time resident of Laffite’s Cove Director of Laffite’s Cove Board Pirates POA & UTMB Development Board GREENWOOD KING PROPERTIES a place to find your homeNext >