The Oyster boats are out in force in Aransas Bay! We decided to check out the Fishing at Goose Island State Park and as we crossed the Copano Bay Bridge, we counted thirty-one boats. Each boat drags a small metal cage which scrapes up the oysters off their oyster bed.
The boats turn in hard circles and every so often lift the cage and dump it on the working table. There the deck hands pick up the oysters and chop off, (using a small hatchet), old shells along with any under sized oysters. These are returned to the sea. If a boat is caught with over twenty percent of undersize oysters the boat has to dump all their sacks of oysters into the sea, is given a large fine, along with fines for the deck hands.
The oystering was closed for two years due to the overharvest that took place and has just recently been reopened.
Let’s hope that this does not happen again!
Once in the park we drove to the fishing pier and were surprised to see how close the boats were to the pier’s end. We have never seen them this close before. In one of the pictures, you can see a colored flag attached to a piece of PVC pipe stuck in the oyster bar.
Before I took the picture there were ten more boats but all but three soon left. In another of the pictures you can zoom in and see lots of boats in the distance. WE look forward to holding an oyster Happy Hour this winter! Clear skies and Happy Thanksgiving
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