Flipping burgers, mowing grass and working in an office building is the typical summer job for college students. They work to earn a few bucks to help pay for books and tuition, save up for a new cell phone or maybe to just have spending money for the fall. Each year is the same all over the country-- 18 to 21-year-old students hit the streets looking for work, usually taking what they can get.
Captain Bob "Red"
Van is a fishing guide out of Rockport, Texas. He is not your
everyday fishing guide; he fishes for flounder. He also doesn’t
fish for flounder with hook and bait-- he gigs them. Van's NightStalker
Guide Service has been one of the only guide services of its kind
along the Texas coast for many years.
Insert college student here. Rick Hammond is a student at the University of Texas at Austin. For years during his high school career, Hammond spent the summers and every holiday assisting his Uncle Van on night flounder gigging trips.
Hammond loves fishing the coast. His years working with his uncle's guide business and fishing every extra moment in-between made his college job a no-brainier. When Hammond turned 18, he had clocked enough time on the water to take the test for his captain’s licenses. Satisfactory completion is required for all fishing guides along the Texas coast.
"My instructor told me I was the youngest person he had ever given the test to," Hammond said smiling. He passed the test first try, and in June of 2001 he was issued his license.
Now working each summer, holidays and weekends, he clocks hours on the water and gives his uncle some well-deserved time off without having to cancel or just not book trips.
What do Hammond’s parents think about his outdoor obsession?
"My parents told me as long as I did good in school, it was fine with them," he explains. Hammond is majoring in business management at the burnt orange campus.
"I work for my uncle every chance I get. He is a great guy, and I love gigin'."
It is not uncommon
for Hammond to guide until 2 or 3 in the morning. As the sun comes
up the young captain transitions out of the custom flounder boat
to a small flat bottom for chasing trout and redfish along the
reefs of San Antonio bay or any one of the many shell beds or
grass lines along the Rockport, Fulton, Texas, coastline. 
"I can't help it; I love to fish," he beams as he fillets a limit of flounder.
NightStalker Guide Service launches from Goose Island State Park just east of Fulton, Texas, at about sundown almost every night during the year. In the winter you can find them launching out of the Port Aransas, Texas, area. Come February, the middle of the Texas winter, they typically don't fish.
"It is just way too cold to fish then," Hammond explains as he holds his elbows and shakes.
So while most college graduate wannabes are taking orders at a restaurant, interning in office buildings or cleaning up a construction job, Hammond is breathing the salty air of the Texas coastal waterways. His nights consist of watching stingrays and giant redfish ambush their prey under the day-bright custom lighting system of the gigin' rig. Here, at night, floating the warm waters of the bay, Hammond is the teacher. The subject, flounder. In his class his students learn how to fill their freezers with one of the most delectable fish available.
Copyright: T.J. Greaney, Country Line Magazine, November 2003
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Copyright: Capt. Rick Hammond, NightStalker Guide Service 2004