Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo weighmaster Grady Lloyd closing out 58 ...

If a Saints fan happened to catch a touchdown ball thrown into the Superdome stands by a Drew Brees receiver, his next steps would be automatic: He'd have No. 9 sign the pigskin, then place that piece of football history in a shrine inside his home, where all visitors would be welcome to worship.

With that in mind, here's some advice for anyone weighing in a fish at the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo this week: Have weigh master Grady Lloyd sign that finned wonder, then mount and hang it on your living room wall. You'll be saving a precious piece of local sports history.

When the scales close at 8 p.m. Saturday on the 89th edition of the event, Lloyd will bring 58 years of fishing and family history to a close.

"I'm tired of smelling fish," Lloyd said last week with the same sawdust-dry affect that has greeted anglers for decades. "This will be my last Grand Isle Rodeo."

That news will hit local anglers the way Cal Ripken's retirement struck baseball fans; it's hard to imagine this game going on without him.

Lloyd became weighmaster at Grand Isle in 1974, taking over for his father-in-law, Marion Higgins, who had held the post since 1951, and whom Lloyd had worked under as an assistant since 1961. And like Higgins before him, Lloyd quickly became the weighmaster-of-choice at most other fishing tournaments across southeast Louisiana for decades, a span shared with tens of thousands of anglers, and probably hundreds of thousands of fish.

That's a lot of fish, and a lot of stories, about fish and people. That's because local fishing contests feature simultaneous competitions in social as well as angling skills, and although trophies are only given for fish, bragging rights for the best partier are just as coveted by many participants. They call them rodeos for a reason.

Ringmaster

The weighmaster serves as ringmaster for these multi-day fishing celebrations, the lone figure who must remain focused and functional at the eye of the storm. Grand Isle has always been the biggest challenge, because it's the biggest in terms of fishing, and parties.

Lloyd has been an eyewitness to how this event has changed over the years, from a pure fishing event to a sort of bacchanal on the bayou, and back to fishing again.

"Originally, it was just about fishing," he said. "I got involved in 1961 because when I married Kathy Higgins, I married into the rodeo. I immediately became Marion Higgins' assistant. No questions asked.

"In those days, the weighmaster weighed every fish brought to the scales. If a guy came in with three ice chests of specks, sheepshead, snapper, whatever, we weighed each and every fish."

By the late 1970s the rodeo was becoming legendary for its nightlife as well. Tales abounded of politicians and wealthy businessmen arriving on the island with boatloads of professional female entertainment. Apparently two types of rodeos were being held at the same time.

Then one year Lloyd got a call from a Jefferson Parish judge angry about stories of lewd shenanigans taking over the event.

"He wanted names and places, but I couldn't help him," Lloyd recalled. "I'd hear all these stories, but they were just stories to me because we were at the scales from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., then I was back at the hotel with the wife and four kids."

But the judge didn't give up.

"Next year (Jefferson Parish) deputies were all over the island, wearing black outfits, patrolling the beaches, the roads and the marinas," he said. "Funny thing, after that year, those stories became a lot more infrequent."

The party scene has changed. The spread of modern, expensive fishing camps, second homes and hotels means much of the social scene is confined to personal dwellings. But the island is still overwhelmed during rodeo days with its 7-mile stretch of Louisiana Highway 1 often turning into a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam featuring beer-swilling drivers and passengers baking in the summer heat.

Change happens

Other changes over the decades have been more obvious.

Fewer anglers now come to the scales, a factor likely due to improved communication.

"They can find out (the weight) leading the category, and they don't bother making the trip if they don't have a fish that can make it," Lloyd said.

"And unlike those old days, we don't weigh every fish in an ice chest. If it's going to make the board, we'll put it on the scales. If it has no chance, we don't bother, but neither do the fishermen."

The size of the tarpon fleet has shrunk from dozens to less than 10. The tuna fishing frenzy seems to have drawn anglers away from the silver kings.

But the biggest change has been the best: A move to conservation.

The days when mounds of tarpon, sharks, billfish and reds lay rotting in the summer sun are over. Today anglers release, or filet, fish they know won't make the board, while big game species such as tarpon and billfish are no longer killed for the anglers' ego but entered in a catch-and-release division.

"Thank god for that," Lloyd said. "Back in the day, they'd leave those big fish hanging up until the body rotted and fell down leaving just the head on the hook.

"What a waste -- what a stink!"

And, clich?s to the contrary, Lloyd said most of the anglers he met were not liars or cheaters.

"You hear stories about people shoving lead weights or rocks down the fish's throat to make it weigh more, but I can't recall ever seeing that," he said. "First of all, it's just too easy to catch, because all you have to do is squeeze the fish's stomach, which is something we always did if the fish was going to make the leaders."

That isn't to say some didn't try to cheat.

"The frozen fish is the most frequent attempt," Lloyd recalled. "A guy catches a big one weeks before the rodeo, puts it in the freezer, then thaws it out a day or two before the rodeo and brings it in opening day.

"Now, the gills are always the giveaway. The paler the gills, the older that fish will be. Now, over the years, some of these guys got pretty good at thawing 'em out so the gills still looked OK. But we found a way around that."

Which was?

"That's one secret I'm taking with me when I leave," he said.

He leaves Saturday at 8 p.m. when the scales close, a move that probably won't strike anglers until next year, when Lloyd isn't standing behind those scales. Grandparents taking their grandchildren to their first weigh-in this week can probably remember when a younger Grady Lloyd was there, helping Marion Higgins as they weighed in their first Grand Isle Rodeo fish.

"That's been the best memories - watching whole families grow up, like my own family" Lloyd said. "I can remember weighing in fish for little kids, who then grew up to go off to college, and then come back married with their own kids.

"And all these people I might see only once a year. It was like a reunion every year with a big family.

"I'll miss that."

And the family will miss him.

Source: http://www.nola.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2011/07/saturday_will_cap_grady_lloyds.html

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