Happy Hour at the Beach: A Day Trip to Padre Island National Seashore 2014

When I was a teacher I used to take my classes on field trips to the Black Hills, Thirty years of field trips and I retired happy that I had never had anything serious happen. So here I was with six trucks following me to the Padre Island National Seashore and as usual worried about them all.

Not six blocks into the trip and I realized I had forgotten my fishing and drivers license. They were still in my kayaking gear so I pulled over and asked John to lead the group to the park and sped back to the fifth wheel for my gear. Luckily everyone was fine and waiting for us at the visitor center.

Driving south on the beach I realized my gps had lost all of the fishing waypoints I had locked in over the years, so I ended up driving past the spots we had fished last year. Picking a new spot where the surf was different I pulled in and all the rest of the group was soon parked and setting out their lines.

Quickly, both of our lines fouled up with seaweed, never a good sign, and I wondered if it would be one of those days. The surf was muddy and brown, from the passing front, but to my surprise one of our poles bent and Renita soon landed a nice whiting.

Others were also having weed problems but several groups of ladies were shelling and today’s beach special was washed up starfish. Just then I noticed that Reva, the best fisherperson in the group was fast onto a really large fish and it was giving her a heck of a fight, (She is eighty and still wading out in the surf, generally out fishing us all).

Watching her closely the fish broke off and she mentioned that she should be using her other pole with stronger line. A little further down Pete caught a hard head catfish, (one of the few ocean fish that tastes bad), and I could see the disgust in his face as he released it back into the water.

John caught several more whiting and we added some more to our cooler, when Sharon caught an almost twenty inch redfish, the first one she had ever caught. Unfortunately it was a hair to small and so Pete told her she had to release it. She looked around to see the joke but we all glumly told her it was so and so she finally let it go. You could see she had caught the bug, so it was still good.

Later the grills fired up and we all gathered round for the beach picnic, with lots of homemade goodies to round out the hotdogs and bratwurst. The fish keep biting and so we added more to the cooler all of which were destined for out happy hour fish fry, (which always follows soon after the day at the beach).

The fishing however didn’t really matter; it was a beautiful day on the beach, with low surf and temps in the upper sixties. It was a perfect day for snowbirds from the upper Midwest and the Northern Rockies. That’s what it all was about, a fun and safe day on a deserted beach. Clear skies.