Bait Camp Legend Lives On

By Ruth Ann Ruiz

The Post Newspaper Features Editor

“I’m proud of Galveston. The people just pull their bootstraps up and take care of themselves,” shared Pam Goff, owner of Galveston Bait and Tackle. 

Pam is one of those who has pulled herself up through many storms sent by Mother Nature and several storms that life sent her way. 

Hurricane Ike was moving in September 2008, and people were securing their business and personal property as best they could. Pam Goff was one of those indivuduals. “My husband was elk hunting in Canada. I called him and told him to get on a plane and come home because the storm was coming,” said Pam

While she was busy pleading with her husband to fly into the direction of the coming eye of a storm, she managed to pack up all the bait and tackle from his business and move it to higher ground.

He arrived and they did their best to shore up their house and business, grab some belongings and left the area before the storm made landfall. 

The sight they saw when allowed back on the island was what they expected but dreaded seeing. Every physical structure they owned was destroyed in Hurricane Ike’s furious assault.  They were heartsick and headed to Oklahoma thinking they might just get out of the fishing business and to start anew near her family. 

“We were only in Oklahoma for two weeks and we realized we were coming back and rebuilding,” said Pam. When they returned, her husband who she remembers with a grin, had laughed at her efforts to save all the product they sold and was grateful that she had.

He built one little shack, painted it turquoise and reopened their bait camp. The lone shack was stocked with what she had managed to rescue before the storm. With time and a lot of help from friends and family, they rebuilt the entire business.

Their house, which was onsite at the camp, was destroyed and they decided to relocate to a home off the water but close enough to get to their business in 10 minutes. 

Decades before Hurricane Ike, Pam, together with her first husband, had set sail for the Gulf of Mexico from Fort Smith, Arkansas. They came in a sailboat by way of rivers and intercoastal waterways. After arriving in Texas, she built a career as a real estate agent, which grounded her in the Gulf Coast.

Her first husband passed away in March 1990; their daughter lives in Houston.   

Pam was blessed with a second chance at love. She and Glenn Goff were married in the fall of 1991. Together in Jamaica Beach they raised his two sons who she adopted.  

It was 1998 when her husband, Glenn was offered the chance to take over the lease for the boat dock just over the causeway on the west side of Broadway in Galveston. 

Tucked away from the unknowing tourists seeking the joys of the beach or the nightlife of The Strand, is Galveston Bait and Tackle along with a boat launch, boat docking and fish cleaning tables. 

Glenn loved his work and his customers; he became legendary.  Customers were drawn to his business, it is rumored, for the great stories and jokes he offered to everyone. 

Pam was still focused on real estate when Glenn passed away. It became obvious that she would be stepping into his shoes and running the bait camp. “I determined I was going to keep his business going,” said Pam. 

Operating a bait and tackle business on the shores of storm ridden Galveston Bay is not a task for the fainthearted.  

“If I didn’t love it so much, I wouldn’t keep putting it back together,” said Pam. She is not alone in her love of the business. Her customers and staff are very fond of her and the bait camp. 

“I look forward to coming to work. It’s like being with a family here. If one of us is out of town or out sick, we look after each other’s pets and homes,” said Mason, who has worked at the camp for four years. 

Billy has been manager of the shop for numerous years. During the summer the staff numbers about eight, dropping off to four during the off season.  

They provide their customers with various bait options both living and nonliving along with other fishing supplies and a few minor concessions, like chips, soda, beer, and water. Plus, they run the boat launch. 

“Saturdays are really busy here and summertime Saturdays the cars are parked all over,” said Pam. She has customers who come in from the region and many from all over the nation who have heard of her bait camp. 

Pam is winning over new customers and continuing the legendary status of the business. “She’s awesome, she’s tough as nails and sweet as can be. When you come around here it’s like you came home. All the staff and customers we just get along well,” said Greg, who runs a fishing charter business. 

It’s a two-way street in relationship building, as Pam also admires her customers, “I love them all. They are really good and decent people,” said Pam. 

Though she is becoming legendary, she continues to attribute the business’s success to her late husband, Glenn.