The bright blue waters of the Laguna Madre can look calm and relaxing and be just the place to get away from it all.

Tranquility can turn into worry – and quickly – when something goes wrong with a fishing boat. It won’t start. The boat is running low on gas or is out completely. The vessel has drifted into being grounded on the bay’s soft and shallow waters.

“You never know what’s going to happen out there,” said Lou Ann Strader, who with her husband, George, owns TowBoatUS locations at three ports in the Rio Grande Valley. “It’s easy to lose track of time and even the most experienced captains can have trouble reading the waters of the bay.”

When troubles arise, the 12-boat fleet of TowBoatUS in Port Isabel, Arroyo City and Port Mansfield are ready to ride out to provide the necessary assistance to boaters in distress. The goal is simple, Lou Ann Strader said, and that’s to get boaters home safely and be the team they can count on when it matters.

“We’re like the triple AAA on water,” she said.

‘Took The Risk’

The comparison to the roadside assistance club for automobiles is spot on when considering the range of services TowBoatUS provides to its members on water.

Operating out of the RGV ports, the captains of the rescue boats that Strader and her husband oversee are at the ready to help with towing, fuel delivery, jump-starts, soft groundings and general recovery services. And they’re kept busy with hundreds of calls yearly from their 5,000 members.

Strader and her husband started the business from scratch in 2021. With one boat, they began initially in Port Isabel. They started with 36 members and a general guess of how many boats fishing in the bay would need their help.

Going to boat shows and numerous fishing-related events in promoting their new company proved to be successful. Three dozen members quickly grew into the hundreds, as fishing enthusiasts saw the wisdom of having a lifeline if something went wrong on the lower Laguna. The Straders expanded their services to Arroyo City in 2023 and then to Port Mansfield in 2025.

“We took the risk,” Lou Ann Strader said of the tow boat business. “We’re a family-run operation, and we take a lot of pride in serving the communities where we live and work.”

Understanding The Waters

The Lower Laguna Madre is nearly 60 miles long and its water depth is shallow, averaging 3-to-4.5 feet deep.

The lower Laguna waters are tricky to navigate and fish due to their extreme shallowness, extensive seagrass flats, soft bottom mud, and hidden hazards. Sections of the flats are under two feet deep. Stepping outside of marked routes can easily run a boat aground. TowBoatUS captains on its 12 rescue boats are Coast Guard-licensed captains and knowledgeable when it comes to recognizing dangers on bay waters.

“Our team understands these waters and the needs of the boaters who use them,” Lou Ann Strader said. “The conditions here can require specialized local knowledge and equipment.”

The success of TowBoatUS on the lower South Texas coast is particularly satisfying for Strader, a Venezuelan immigrant. She came to the United States as a child and grew up in Port Lavaca, giving her a firsthand knowledge of life along the Texas coast. Strader is a speech pathologist by training and education who’s now a boat captain in her own right.

Strader is enthusiastic about the business and how she and her husband have grown the RGV club to having the most memberships sold nationwide of any TowBoatUS market for four consecutive years.

TowBoatUS services offer $215 yearly memberships. It is a wise investment given that out-of-pocket costs for towing and rescue services can easily run into the hundreds of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. For Strader, it’s a business with the fulfillment of being able to help people every day.

“We’re able to make a good day out of a bad day,” she said. “It’s a customer service we enjoy providing to our members.”