http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100528/D9G02PU80.html

Sounds like Americans on this lake should pack guns when they boat.
Solution is simple, open season on pirates.

Pirates threaten boats on US-Mexico border lake

May 28, 4:52 PM (ET)

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN

ZAPATA, Texas (AP) - The waters of Falcon Lake normally beckon boaters
with waterskiing and world-record bass fishing. But this holiday
weekend, fishermen on the waters that straddle the U.S.-Mexico border
are on the lookout for something more sinister: pirates.

Twice in recent weeks, fishermen have been robbed at gunpoint by
marauders that the local sheriff says are "spillover" from fighting
between rival Mexican drug gangs.

Boaters are concerned about their safety, and the president of the local
Chamber of Commerce is trying to assure people that everything's fine on
the U.S. side of the lake.

At the fishing camp his family has owned for 50 years, Jack Cox now
sleeps with a loaded shotgun at his feet and a handgun within reach.

In the American waters, Cox said, "you're safer, but you're not safe."
Mexican commercial fishermen regularly cross to set their nets
illegally, why wouldn't gunmen do the same? he asked.

Two weeks ago, the Texas Department of Public Safety warned boaters to
avoid the international boundary that zig-zags through the lake, which
is 25 miles long and 3 miles across at its widest point. Authorities
also urged anyone on the water to notify relatives of their boating
plans to aid law enforcement in case of trouble.

Since issuing the warning, most boats have stayed on the U.S. side.

"That's a good indication. It means they're getting the message," Texas
Parks and Wildlife Capt. Fernando Cervantes said Thursday as he
patrolled with two other game wardens. "They're still coming out, but
they're not going across."

The border is marked by 14 partially submerged concrete towers that mark
the Rio Grande's path before the lake was created in 1954.

Game wardens and the U.S. Border Patrol watch over the lake but do not
cross into Mexican waters, and no Mexican law enforcement is visible.

Men armed with assault rifles robbed fishermen on the Mexican side of
Falcon Lake on April 30 and May 6. They traveled in the low-slung,
underpowered commercial Mexican fishing boats that are familiar here.
They asked for money, drugs and guns, and took what cash was available.
No one was hurt.

A third incident happened a couple of days before the warning was
issued, but Cervantes said the fishermen were able to escape without the
thieves boarding their boat.

The attacks "were really unusual," Cervantes said. "We had never seen
it, and then they started up."

Violence on the Mexican side of the lake has been climbing for several
months.

A fractured partnership between the region's dominant Gulf Cartel and
its former enforcers, the Zetas, plunged many of the area's Mexican
border cities into violence. Police stations were attacked, officers
killed and rolling gun battles between the gangs and with the Mexican
military became commonplace.

"To me, this is spillover violence," Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo
Gonzalez Jr. said. "I don't do the Chamber of Commerce talk. I talk
reality."

Still, the sheriff says, boaters should safe provided they stay on the
American side.

Cox, 81, says it was only a matter of time before the violence from
Mexico crept onto the water. And the idea that gunmen looking to score
easy cash from fishermen would not cross the lake's imaginary boundary
doesn't make sense, he said.

That perspective is what worries Chamber of Commerce President Paco Mendoza.

"What's keeping our town alive is our lake," Mendoza said. In recent
years, drilling in the county's oilfields has virtually stopped, and the
wells are no longer producing like they once did. In those days,
oilfield workers packed Zapata's restaurants and hotels, he said.

So Zapata increasingly looks to the lake for economic growth. Five
fishing tournaments are scheduled between now and July, and a few big
ones are set for next year.

"As far as we know, all of our contracts are still in play," Mendoza said.

Falcon Lake landed on the national map of fishing destinations after the
2008 Bassmaster Elite Series tournament, where bass-fishing world
records were broken.

The pirate warning could hurt businesses that depend on the lake, "but
anglers will continue to come to Falcon because of the great fishing,"
Mendoza said.

Norma Amaya, who runs a tackle shop with her husband, insists there is
plenty of good fishing in U.S. waters. She points to a photo taken in
December of a woman holding a 13.2-pound bass and smiling broadly.

Amaya said her husband's guide service had had a couple cancellations
since the pirate warning, but they are still booked solid for next
year's peak season, which runs from December to March.

They've stopped selling Mexican fishing licenses because no one is
fishing over there now. Robert Amaya stopped taking clients into Mexican
waters back in March, when violence was peaking in Mexico.

"It is dangerous over there (in northern Mexico), I wouldn't advise
anyone to cross," she said.

Norma Amaya said the reports of pirates "have been blown out of
proportion. It's probably just some hoodlums. I don't think the cartels
want the exposure."

As he helped launch his cousin's bass boat from Falcon Lake State Park,
Ronnie Guerra said he hadn't heard much about the pirates. But he knew
enough to stay on his side of the lake.

"We already know what's going on on the other side," he said. "It's been
going on for a long time."


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Trouble is there are not that many smart socialists.