Dee Wallace stands on the deck outside his office at Fisherman’s Wharf. He says he has the best possible office space as he can look out over the harbor and the ship channel on a daily basis. Staff photo by Vivian Carlson
“My deal has always been seeing people catch fish,” said Dee Wallace, recently named to the Boatmen Hall of Fame. “I don’t want to reel them in, I want to see happy people catching big fish and having a blast.”
Those words reflect his thoughts about his life as a boat captain and taking folks out fishing all over the world.
Wallace was born at Tinker Airforce Base near Oklahoma City in 1955. He said his family moved to San Antonio a short time after his birth.
The family moved to Port Aransas in 1963. They owned Spanish Village on Alister Street.
“ Growing up here everybody’s ambition was to be a boat captain,” Wallace said. “Everyone was always on the water. That’s what there was to do here, it was always about fishing.”
He went to high school in Aransas Pass as Port Aransas did not have a high school back then.
Wallace said he started out hauling things for tips on the docks at Woody’s for a couple of years. When a deckhand didn’t show up one day he got his chance and was a deckhand on the original Mustang, which he said was the first head boat in Port Aransas. He worked there for nine years.
This blue marlin catch won the Texas International Fishing Tournament (TIFT) in 1983 or 84 for Dee Wallace. They fished aboard the Pilsearay. Pictured with the catch are Frank Pillsbury, middle and Wallace at right. The man at left is unknown. Courtesy photo
Wallace got his captain’s license when he was 20 years old.
During the mid- 1970s he went to the oil fields to work. “ There were no fishing jobs here anyway,” he said.
Wallace said he was always back and forth, working as a fishing and hunting guide six months a year then the oil fields for six months.
He joined the Boatmen organization in the mid-1970s. Doyle Marek was his sponsor. Marek was a boat captain, Port Aransas ISD teacher and eventually would be the namesake of Port Aransas High School’s gym, which was built in the late 1970s.
“Not just anyone could join. You had to have a sponsor, and you had to run a boat in Port Aransas to be a member,” he said.
Between 1982 and 2002 Wallace travelled the world. He said that for five to six years he didn’t even come back to the U.S.
Dee Wallace won the Mansfield Tournament in 1982 with this swordfish catch. From left are Wallace and Jim Hughes. Courtesy photo
In addition to fishing, he also worked in Trinidad, Venezuela and Brazil captaining 195-foot boats to move big oil rigs.
“The rigs were not nearly as big as the ones we have now,” he said.
His next “biggest deal” as he said, was round-the-world fishing expeditions.
Wallace went on a three- year expedition where 11 world records broken, he said.
He spent two years in France building a 165-foot mother ship for a French industrialist.
A 42-foot sport fishing boat was carried on the back of the ship.
“The mother ship was built to be self- contained, to go where there were no facilities, marinas, to fish where no one had ever fished before,” Wallace said.
While on the expedition, they fished primarily for blue marlin.
The expedition set the record for the most blue marlins weighing more than 1,000 pounds, he said.
All of the fish were caught in the Atlantic Ocean. They fished off the coast of Africa, near the Canary Islands, the Azores and others.
“We were out of touch with the rest of the world, we didn’t know what the records were or that we were setting records,” he said.
He said the biggest blue marlin he ever caught was a 1,214-pound fish.
When Wallace talks of his travels, he shares some of the experiences he had in remote locations.
“In the Fiji islands the elders of the island are the officials. We had to get permission from them to fish there,” he said. “First they had to have a Kava ceremony to grant permission.”
Wallace also has taken folks up rivers in Panama.
“ We would take them up the rivers to these stone-age villages. They hadn’t seen a lot of white people there,” he said. “You would have to ask permission from the elders to come ashore. I don’t have any photos because they didn’t like cameras or photos.”
Wallace said that after 20 years of travelling the world, he was ready to return to the U.S. and have a home address, telephone number and post office box.
He returned to Port Aransas where he was a captain and continued to take folks out fishing.
Wallace has fished in many tournaments, not always finishing in first- place but often wining the money in the fish pots.
He won money in the Texas International Fishing Tournament ( TIFT) twice and won the Poco Bueno in 2015.
“ This place was built on boats, we have a great industry here,” he said. “The beach was always here. For a few years it was all about the beach and the focus was not on fishing. But now, I imagine there is not a slip available in town for a 50-foot boat.”
He said he never won the Deep Sea Roundup but has worked the tournament for more than 20 years.
Speaking about the Roundup, he said it is a great asset to the community. The Boatmen organization that sponsors it helps out other organizations and sponsors many events every year.
Wallace is a billfish judge each year at the Roundup.
He introduced the video- release format for the tournament.
“No one else had done that here,” Wallace said. “First we were doing Polaroid pictures and then digital photos. Then the digital photos were phased out and we went to video.”
He said being able to show the audience the fish that were being released instead of killing the fish and bringing them to the dock is a big deal.
The Roundup now has a production company that sets up a big screen so the audience can see the video at the same time the judges review them.
Wallace thinks that is a great thing for the crowd to be able to see the fish at the same time judges are judging.
“Dee has been volunteering for the Port Aransas Boatmen’s Association and the Deep Sea Roundup as the billfish release judge for decades,” said Michelle Sowers, Boatmen member.
She said that as a captain, Dee recognized the need to protect billfish populations and helped write the rules on how to properly document the release during tournaments. Those rules are used in many tournaments, she said.
“ Dee’s experience and expertise have proven invaluable to the success of the Deep Sea Roundup’s Billfish Release division,” Sowers said.
When asked how he felt about being named to the Hall of Fame, Wallace said it has not really sunk in yet.
“ I was blown away. I feel really humbled,” he said. “When I was young everyone looked up to the Boatmen. It was a driving force in the town. They were the ‘political party’ and had a lot of influence on what went on in the town.”
These days, Wallace is the tournament director at Fisherman’s Wharf. It is the headquarters for many tournaments. He also is a broker for Fox Yacht Sales.
“ Fishing is a great way to bring people together. Everybody in the family can be involved,” he said.
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