Competitive fisherman Richard Drake was stalking bass on southern Texas’ Falcon Reservoir in May when he heard someone yelling over his left shoulder.
He looked up and saw three men, waving their arms and coming up fast in a beat-up fishing boat. Then he saw their military-style guns.
“They were yelling, ‘Hey, hey, hey, pull over, pull over.’ I thought for a second, ‘What do I do, pull over and let them have their way with me? I just hammered it,” said Drake, a San Antonio dentist who fishes Falcon regularly. “They chased me for about a mile. Almost kept up too. It was scary.”
Drake was fishing in a bass tournament, plying the deep waters along the binational reservoir’s buoys, which mark the border between the United States and Mexico. The lake is renowned for its monster bass. And since late April, it’s also become famous for its pirates. Drake had heard reports of armed brigands lurking around the reservoir. He knew not to venture onto the Mexico side. But he was close to the border.
“A couple weeks before we were there, I think these same guys who chased me had apparently robbed a couple people near that same spot,” Drake said. “Word was out. I’m not sure really what went through my mind. I just reacted. I wasn’t going to stop.”
Drake had heard that the bandits — thought to be members of a Mexican drug cartel — had been posing as Mexican cops, or federales. These were not federales, he said.
“These guys were thugs. They had tattoos. You know, druggie-looking guys,” Drake said. “They never fired their guns, though. They kept trying to hit my boat and push me over to the Mexican side, but fortunately I had a fast boat.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com
