Back in Rockport, 2018

We arrived early in Rockport and set up our rig for the winter. The drive had been uneventful and as we entered the area, we noticed that much of the hurricane damage had been repaired. Terry and Evelyne had arrived a few days earlier and Terry had already been fishing.

Renita and I went down to the dock and I threw out my cast net hoping to get some mullet for bait.

The first cast yielded nothing but small jelly fish. Moving a little further out, I made another throw and caught a few nice size mullet. I also caught some pin fish, another good red bait, and so we made plans to go fishing the next day.

Plans change, as does life and the next morning I took Molly out for a walk. She was barely able to walk a few steps and was in pain, so we took her to the vet. The outlook was not good, and we left in tears without her, we both never want to have another dog again.

A few days later I went fishing with Terry and while I caught quite a few fish, none were big enough to keep. Terry had caught several keeper speckled trout, (Terry is amazing when he is fishing for speckled trou), and we decided to go back the next day. Terry again caught several keeper trout, but I was stymied catching lots of undersize reds, sheepshead, and small black drum.

At the last spot I cast out a live shrimp and my bobber slowly started to move. The next moment it disappeared, and I was onto a large fish. During the first run the hook came out, it wasn’t meant to be. Throwing back out to the same spot nothing happened for a bit and then the bobber disappeared.

It was another large fish, perhaps the same one, and it took me awhile to fight the fish in to the shallows. I finally saw that it was a large red and the fish finally tired and I was able to beach it. I did have a measuring tape and the fish measured just under twenty-eight inches, a legal red!

As I had been fighting the fish Terry set the hook on another and he skillfully beached his fish. It was another keeper red, these one twenty-five inches long. Returning to the our rv park we stopped and showed our wives before heading down t the fish cleaning station.

There is nothing like fresh fish for dinner and one fillet was enough for both of us. I made it using the crusted parmesan recipe but I modified the recipe using quite a bit more of the tabasco sauce. It was very good!

Yesterday a strong cold front moved in, with heavy rain, high winds, and temperatures in the fifties. It will be awhile before we go fishing again so any more fishing plans will have to wait. Perhaps a movie is in order!  Clear skies