"Life can change in the blink of an eye, then change again….
In August of 2021 my son Jax, good friend Jay and I went down to the border of Mexico on a fishing tripThe lake we went to is part of the Rio Grande, Lake Falcon, and is part USA, part Mexico, also largely ran by the drug cartel. Awesome. We had some grand plans for shooting some monster alligator gar with bow and arrow, exploring for arrowheads and overall having a good time for 5 days.
Day 1 we spent time on the lake researching a couple strategic areas and we're confident that our plans for big gator gar were going to have a high percentage of success judging by the amount of alligator gar we saw rolling. The park closes at 10pm, unless you pay for overnight camping, and given the lake was very low at 9.4% capacity, the risk of being on it and hitting trees at night was high. So, we decided to call it early and get some rest for day 2’s big adventure. Little did we know, day 2 would be bigger than I’ve ever imagined.
Day 2 started out smoking hot. Our boat launch started by putting in at a rocky beach since the lake was 54 feet lower than its typical pool. Our target was a distant cove that was loaded with monster gar of up to 7’+ long. Within minutes we were into the action with gar rolling everywhere, but with no fish in the boat and searing hot temps, we opted to take a break and hit the beach to look for fossils. The wind was out of the west and pushed the boat to shore, so I didn’t tie a line. First mistake.
30 to 45 minutes went by and we had some interesting discoveries, but as I looked up the boat was drifting into the lake. Without hesitation, I told Jax and Jay that I’d get it and immediately stripped down to my boxers, dove in and went for it. At that second it was only 100 to 200 yards away, winds were nominal, drift seemed easily achievable. The swim should have only been 4 to 10 minutes. The only thing I remember saying to Jax is to stay with Jay as he wanted to go with me. From there I was swimming. Now keep in mind, we’re remote, this lake is ran by the cartel at night, and we didn’t see any boats on the lake that day, so I swam. Additionally I’m a strong swimmer, 2 time ironman, spent tons of hours in the pool, but it’s been 6 years since I’ve actively trained. So I may have miscalculated how strong I was!
Within 5 minutes or so of being in the lake, a storm blew in out of the east, the winds began to pickup, and things just instantly became problematic. Roughly 30 to 45 minutes in and I’m within 20 yards of the boat thinking I finally was going to pull this off, but around that time frame is when the winds hit full throttle. The boat drifted at a rate faster than I could swim and at an angle that added major distance to the recovery. The current seemed to hit me in two directions and the waves were around 3’ tall and crashing over me. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to use the back float to regain some composure. I believe it was somewhere around this point where Jay and Jax saw me roll over, being sure that I drowned, and left to get help.
Though I did keep swimming, I was to far off the beach to be seen, and the boat was going in a completely opposite direction of my position. Capping it off, lightening, rain and wind were at full throttle. It was at this juncture that I altered course for the shortest distance to the shore and landed with 20 to 30 minutes of light left. I assume it was at least an hour, maybe 2+ once I swam clear across the lake.
Upon reaching shore I only had on boxers and the boat was a long ways away, beached, 2 coves over. Now the boxer only fashion wasn’t a big deal, but not having shoes sucked a big ol tub of turds. I was so excited about completing that swim that I really didn’t even care. The broken sea shells and fishing lures everywhere were sketchy though, and as luck would have it a board was on the beach that had a big piece of foam rubber on it. I ripped it off, cut a hole for my big toes, and instantly had flip flops without much more than 30 seconds of engineering. Now I was able to run for the time being which worked awesome until a huge wind gail blue one flip floppy rubber thing off my dang foot. Then a wind breaker appeared on the beach full of some sort of little scorpion bastards, but I shook it well, crossed my fingers and tied it around my other foot. Shoe 2 complete. Now I ran for the next 20 to 30 minutes to the boat, and yes I still have my bad ass shoes.
Once I got to the boat I was stoked! But, the boat was fully stuck on the dang beach. My boat is a 19’ Lowe Roughneck with front and rear decks, and a 90hp motor. It weighs about 1900lbs. So moving it isn’t like moving around a canoe. After wrestling around with the bow for a while I got it pointed towards the angry lake then dropped the trolling motor in the water. Now my trolling motor has a foot activated on/off switch. It has a lever that would lock it on, but that’s been broken for about a year. Note to self, fix that. It was really important to get the trolling motor to stay powered as I had to push from the stern with it running to have any chance of getting out of the sand. So I rigged a rubber elastic thingamajig that I have to compress against my anchor on the foot pedal and boom, freaking power on! At this point I straighten out the motor, move to the back and push like hell. It took a bit, but I began my way out into the open lake. I was maybe 50 yards off shore the first time when I made the leap to the gas motor, but just like in a bad movie, it didn’t start until I hit the shore. So I repeated this maneuver 3 times until I actually began my gas powered directive to retrieve Jay and Jax.
When I got to the beach my clothes were neatly in a pile and there was no sign of the two. At this time it was dark dark, probably 9, storm raging, lightening big and unpleasant, and winds rocking. This time I anchored the heck out of my boat, two anchors in fact and jammed my motor into the ground. Fortunately I had 2 headlamps, 3 batteries, a backpack, my phone, pistol, and safety gear on the boat so I was feeling pretty good. But the problem, is that the boat had everything when it blew off, and that meant Jay and Jax had nothing but their clothes and shoes. No water, no phone, no lights, and to top it off, they thought I drowned. I knew for them to leave they had thought the worst possible scenario and the thought of your 10 year old child thinking they watched their dad die is beyond words to describe. Jay is like another father to me too. I kept looking around thinking they must have been just too far away on a hill and running my way but it didn’t happen. I just couldn’t process this logically.
I jumped back in the boat and ran out to the main body of the lake searching the shore all the way, beaching my boat 2 more times in a shallow island as I was running the shore line too close searching for them. I called 911 during this trip, and since we were so close to Mexico, a 911 operator in Mexico answered and said she couldn’t help me and to call 911 USA. Perplexed, I asked how do I call 911 USA, when I dialed 911 while in the USA? Still don’t know the answer to that. So I hung up and googled the Zapata police department. Once they answered I was immediately put on hold for like 16 hours, ok it was probably a couple minutes, but it seemed longer. I don’t remember her exact words, but it was something to the effect of “we don’t have many resources late at night, let me see what I can find.” Not the message you want to here. Fortunately the park ranger called me back pretty quick and after dropping a pin to my location, he made it to the beach with another officer around 1.5 hours later. By this time I’d thoroughly searched all beach areas, ran 3+miles searching for tracks, and fired 14 shots into the air despite the hard wind.
The park rangers were great. They listened, took action, were very open in communication, but did give me a brief lecture about picking up arrowheads in the state park. Note taken. They arrived with a thermal and explored all the shore lines and cove on the way in. From there they asked about what tracks I found which were zero. Now at this point I did feel the rangers were a bit confused as I was probably too calm given the circumstance, and they even asked something like, “you swam after the boat while they stayed on the beach, you rescued the boat, got back over here and they were gone with no trace of them?” I can see how they would be suspect, especially since I wasn’t crying like a hysterical loon at this point, but to me I was 100%….ok, 99.8% confident that Jay would take the ridge-line toward the windmills to get help as they have red blinking lights and were a solid visible object around 5+ miles away. Jay is a rock solid outdoorsman, and even though he’s a grumpy cane banger (his words not mine….) at a young age of 68 he’s tough as nails and skilled in the outdoors. He sucks at swimming too so I knew he wouldn’t have gotten in the water. There were no shoes on the beach, and given they saw me strip down I knew they’d take note to do the same should they enter the water.
Once no tracks were found, no trace on thermal, and there was a chance they both drowned, human tracking dogs were called in from Laredo, a thermal drone activated, thermal scope truck, Mexican border patrol, American border patrol, believe I saw police out there somewhere, border patrol blimp was to be activated at sunrise, helicopters were being contacted but couldn’t fly at night due to the storm, and I saw a couple agents on horseback at one point. There were probably others I’m forgetting. I have nothing but great things to say about how fast all the first responders took action. From here the ground search begins. This area had numerous natural gas wells, deer blinds, and hunting cabins around. So finding a road for them would prove to be easier than I had anticipated, but finding a road that led out was not as easy as many are overgrown, rough, and dead-end. Most was all private land so I was not allowed access and the park rangers kept an eye on me and reminded me to not go in on foot. It’s a challenge at this point since my child and friend are lost, but thinking as rationally as possible, I didn’t want to get the search team irritated with me given the amount of resources they had on the ground and again their communication was as transparent as I would hope for. So I stayed put for the time being. A major piece of the puzzle, as well as a major tipping point to calm me down or freak me out, was activating the tracking dogs. Due to the time to get them there, load in the boat and motor to the cove, it wasn’t until around 4am that they were on location. I was confident the dogs would pick up a scent track in the area and anxiously stood by the ranger to hear the good news. Around 4:30 or 5am he got the call, and though the dogs picked up their scent on the beach, they couldn’t find them leaving the beach. After asking about the type and quality of dogs, and hearing they are specifically trained to track humans, I did break down and this was the lowest point thus far. My only hope is that many hours had passed since they were there, the beach was wet, winds were high, light rain could have washed the tracks off, and hopefully the dogs ate something bad for dinner and weren’t thinking straight.
From here it was a waiting game till sunrise. After looking at the maps and determining where the wind mills are in correlation to where their last location was, I choose a dirt road named Los Lobos that ran perpendicular to their walking path for I’d guess around 3 miles. I pulled over at a gate and waited till sunrise.
As the sun came up, I began my slow roll down the road. My thoughts were to cover the entire length, examining each cross road as far as I could see for an hour, then go in on foot as the winds had died down. Still, with no thermal imaging or dogs being able to pick them up, I was losing hope. But, as luck would have it, the place I parked my truck was about 3/8 of a mile away from where they slept, and upon seeing them walking down the road, both of us thinking we were seeing ghosts, I flew up there jumped out and gave both of them the biggest hug ever. Time was just after 7am. This is a moment where I began questioning my own mortality, I wondered if I was dead and seeing ghost, or vice versa. The entire situation was just too wild and to be the one to find them too was unreal. Without a doubt a moment that will forever be permanent and one that makes me appreciate life, friends and family more than I ever knew.
Now Jax and Jay’s story was an adventure too. Little did they know that a calvary was looking for them. They thought I drowned and believed no one would be looking for them for at least a day. So shortly before dark they went off on foot to get help. They left the beach and immediately went up the ridgeline in the direction of the windmills with red lights. Not long into their bushwhack they found a red barn that didn’t have water or access, but had a rough road leading out of it. Now they had no lights, no phone, no map, so navigation wasn’t quick, but with the dirt roads they were able to move forward, hit a dead end, regroup, repeat for most of the night. Jay was convinced I didn’t make it, but kept assuring Jax I was fine. The two held it together amazingly well and we’re figuring they hiked around 5 miles that night.
While on their hike they saw a truck’s taillights, but it was too far away to make contact. The rangers were all over these roads with sirens blazing, but they did not hear nor see them due to the wind. Stepping on a rattlesnake was one of their biggest concerns, but there was a full moon that night that at least helped to see better. They crossed around 20 fences and after getting chased by a horse, they found a metal building with a hose out front and a Polaris Ranger parked next to it. Upon scouring the ranger looking for keys, they found an empty water bottle which was clutch. The cabin they were at was locked, but a concrete pad provided a safer environment to sleep on to avoid snakes and scorpions. They didn’t sleep much that night, but felt it was best to wait till sunrise to move. At first light they headed to the main road, where I’d discover them just minutes after they began heading north to the windmills.
To me this is one of the biggest impacts of my life. Having my son and friend think they watched me die is terrifying. I tell this story so all can stop and think about what can happen in the blink of an eye anywhere, not just on a boat. I don’t feel what I did was reckless at the time that I hit the water, this was simply a situational change that I couldn’t have predicted. If put in the same situation, I’d expect to do the same thing again.
On a happy ending, we’re all doing great, this built character with all of us, and we took the third day to look for some arrowheads and regroup. The 4th day we landed a massive 6’ long gator gar which was the icing on the cake and one that took the three of us working as a team to achieve. Mother nature gave us another wild story for the big fish, but that’s a story for another time. Be safe out there, be prepared, don’t let this happen to you. -Josh"