Fishing, Birding, and High Humidty

Upon arrival at the rv park, we were greeted by friends and during happy hour our friend John, invited me to join him and two others to go fishing. He has a large boat, and his plans were to go to the North Jetty, ( I have never fished the end of the North Jetty). There, the target was large redfish. Launching at Aransas Pass we quickly made it to the jetty and arrived to see a large number of other fishing boats. Most were equipped with a trolling motor, that had an anchor lock where the boat would automatically hold in a set spot, (it does an amazing job and prevents being swamped as large boats pass nearby. (anchoring with a set anchor is extremely dangerous as a large wave a can flood and sink a boat. (This happened to a friend of mine several years ago but luckily he was pulled from the water by another boat. His boat sunk).

As soon as we arrived we saw several boats fighting large redfish. Most were caught and then safely released. It didn’t take long before our friend Bob hooked up to his own redfish. I helped to net it and it was a slot limit fish, (the slot limit for redfish is from 20 to 28 inches. Soon after the bite stopped, and John decided to move to another location. Two other spots were also not producing so John headed to one of his favorite places. Arriving at the next spot, I caught a small redfish and then another! Before long everyone was catching fish. Making another cast I hooked a larger fish only to discover it was a legal flounder! It went into the live well! It was only the third legal flounder I have caught in all the years we have been wintering in Texas.

On my next cast I caught a keeper sheepshead, also a good eating fish. The bite quit as fast as it had started and so we headed back to the dock. I had plans for the flounder and while we normally share the fish we catch, I told everyone that they could have the sheepshead but the flounder was all mine, (I filleted it and stuffed it with shrimp, oh my)!

A few days later Renita and I decided to head over to the Lamar Peninsula, looking for whooping cranes. We didn’t see any but there were other birds to photograph, and Renita caught an argument between an osprey and a great blue heron. The heron won and retained its perch, going back to sleep. Other birds we spotted included a northern shrike, cardinal, an eastern peewee, a flying rosette spoonbill, and a small flock of sandhill cranes. Of course, there was large funeral of vultures, including both turkey and black/Florida.

Our next stop was at Goose Island State Park. We first stopped at an elevated walkway where we watched several scissored tail flycatchers catching and then eating their lunch.

A huge spider waited on its web but no flies were caught and so it ignored us and stayed motionless.

Walking out on the fishing pier we talked to several fisherpersons, none of whom were catching any fish. As we walked along the pier,

Renita spotted a Moon Jellyfish, (also called cabbage head by some locals), and managed to get great shots of it as it jetted its was through the water, (we don’t know what the red fringe means).

The wind picked up and we decided to head to our rig. The rest the week we caught up on our chores, which included caulking two leaking windows, stopping a pesky sink leak and cleaning our kayaks. Now we have been waiting for the wind to go down along with the temperature and humidity. Clear skies