Holts’ work on shore earns honors

Hall of Famers STAFF PHOTO BY DAN PARKER Scott and Joan Holt will be inducted into the Port Aransas Boatmen, Inc. Hall of Fame during the 73rd Deep Sea Roundup July 9-12. Both have been volunteers at the Roundup for more than 30 years. It’s not what Scott and Joan Holt have done offshore, but what they have done onshore that has earned them places in the Port Aransas Boatmen Hall of Fame.

The Holts are only honorary members of the Boatmen, but they have served for many years as important volunteers with the Port Aransas Deep Sea Roundup, by far the biggest event sponsored by the Boatmen each year. The Holts have done a ton of judging and helped revolutionize the tournament’s scorekeeping through computerization.

“I don’t think it would be overstating it at all to say that without the Holts, the Deep Sea Roundup would not be what it is today,” said Mike Nugent, president of the Boatmen. “ … There’s just not enough things in the world to say what they do for the Roundup.”

Scott is a fisheries biologist who retired from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute May 1. Joan is associate director of the UTMSI Fisheries and Mariculture Laboratory.

“I really appreciate the recognition,” Scott said of his and Joan’s induction in the Hall of Fame. “I thoroughly have enjoyed working with and for the Boatmen on this (Roundup) project, this activity.”

Joan said Scott deserves the induction the most. “He works so very, very hard. I’m just there to support him,” she said.

Added Scott: “We’re a good team.”

Scott has been involved with the Roundup since about 1976. He started off as a routine dock helper, but, over the years, he has taken on more important roles. Fifteen or 20 years ago, he took charge of organizing operations at the dock and served as weigh master. (But he pointed out that he hasn’t done it alone, and that he always has relied on Georgia Neblett as a co-organizer.)

Under Scott’s direction, the Roundup has made the transition from handwritten and typed scores to the establishment of a computerized system.

The Roundup this year is switching to a new computer system programmed biologist Jim Tolan, with input from Scott. For perhaps 15 years prior to that, though, the computer programming was all Scott’s.

Joan became a judge in the early 1980s and has served in that capacity ever since.

After so many years helping out at the tournament, the Holts have plenty of anecdotes they can tell. Joan recalled the story behind a rule Scott made about 15 years ago concerning how anglers are to bring their fish ashore for weighing at the tournament.

“Somebody in a boat at the landing handed to one of the judges a very large, slippery ling, and it slid right into the water,” Joan said. “We were devastated. This fisherman lost his fish. After that, Scott initiated a rule that the fisherman has to put the fish on the dock, and no one will grab it from him.”

The Holts have been “just critical” to the success of the Deep Sea Roundup, said David McKee, a Corpus Christi resident who has been a judge in the tournament for more than 30 years.

“Scott, over the years, has taken us from everything being kept on clipboards to everything being pretty much computerized and updated just continually,” said McKee, a Texas A&M University Corpus Christi biology professor who was inducted into the Boatmen Hall of Fame himself two years ago.

“We’re much more efficient than we were in the old days,” McKee said. “(The Holts) are a real tradition around there.”

Having backgrounds as marine scientists offer some advantages in working at the Deep Sea Roundup, the couple said.

“You tend to be very careful with data and make sure it’s correct,” Joan said.

Having scientific knowledge of fish species helps, too. Almost every year, Scott said, various questions come up about the species of one catch or another. Scott and Joan can provide the needed clarification.

Scott said he believes he and Joan have had influence on how the Boatmen have structured the Roundup to make it more conservation-oriented, with catch-and-release rules involving billfish now.

“I remember days when they would have to 20, 25 sailfish on the dock, and just destroyed them,” Scott said. “And now none are brought to the dock. It’s all catch and release.”

Billfish anglers were already interested in catch and release, Scott said. But the Holts played a big role in figuring out ways to confirm catches and develop a scoring system for catch and release.

The Holts said they have taken part in the Roundup for so many years simply because it’s fun and rewarding.

“There’s a lot of responsibility in taking on the organizational part of it and making sure it all works out right,” Scott said. “But it’s a lot of fun, and I see the good work the Boatmen do with the money they raise, so it’s personally satisfying to help them.”