Valentine’s Day Dinner at Blue Lagoons

It has been an unusually chilly winter here, and many of the restaurants are still closed while undergoing repairs from hurricane Harvey. Luckily every year, our rv park, Blue lagoons, hosts a Valentines Day dinner. Its organized by the activities director,

Zita, and her husband Alan. Zita sets the whole dinner up and with the help of volunteers, and decorates the hall, while Alan, a Kansas City Pit master, smokes Texas quail, Atlantic salmon, and prime rib.

Others volunteered to host, and Della took Valentines photos, (I will add ours when we get it), of all those whom wanted images of the night’s festivities. The downside of this year’s feast, was the raging flu epidemic that was running through the park.

The places at the tables were all set, but there were many no shows, couples who took deliveries instead of spreading or risking catching another bout.

We sat at a table with Pam and Roy and Mary and Rich. Thankfully, Pam and Roy had both just recovered from the flu, while we hoped that we wouldn’t catch it again, (many are)! After a brief prayer of thanks, tables were called up for serving, with the quail and fish served first.

Getting served we enjoyed a delicious meal and pleasant conversations with friends and family. I did forget to bring my own camera but went back home to take images of all of all those attending.

Afterwards we visited with friends at other tables, before calling it a night and retreated to our warm rv. It was a good night, with my own Valentine, Renita. Clear skies

Blue Lagoons Arts and Crafts Show 2018

The setup was supposed to start at eight but by seven thirty members of our rv park were already arriving to set up their displays. It was time for our annual Arts and Crafts Show at Blue lagoons Rv park! This is the first year we advertised the show outside the park!

Our small rv park isn’t just a fishing park, but also has many talented people who spend their winter painting, quilting, and crafting. Each year we hold an Arts and Craft Show in which we encourage everyone to get out of their rvs and show what they make. Each year new people and new crafts come out and this year was no exception.

One of the new displays this year was by our next-door neighbor Sue. She displayed one of her beautiful quilts and demonstrated how she coils wire and beads and makes bracelets. She is offering a class in the park and had quite a few enrolled!

Another new crafter/artist is Dave. He has been in the park for a long time and has started to make steak turners, used in barbecuing. He makes them in both right and left-handed models and uses different woods, including walnut harvested from his family farm.

There are quite a few people here from Michigan and Al’s specialty is making Maple syrup! Each year he collects about three hundred gallons of sap a day, using plastic tubing and a gravity pressure vacuum system, (no carrying buckets)! He then boils the sap, reducing the volume about thirty times, before filtering and bottling his home-made maple syrup.

Evelyn had a busy year with her water color painting, and I made the mistake of not buying a beautiful yellow painting of a hibiscus in full bloom! Her specialties include birds, flowers, and pets/animals. One of her more unique paintings was one of a camel! She also displays her work in the clubhouse and takes commissions.

Diana brought and showed some of her knitting and jewelry, along with Jim who crafts rosaries, wire wrapped pendants, and does lapidary. Joe displayed and sold his fish scale jewelry! Finally, we of course showed our lapidary and jewelry objects.

This year we have added knifes and letter openers with scales, (handles made from dinosaur bone, Wyoming black and green jade, and blue and gold tiger eye.

Unfortunately, several others were unable to make the show as the flu has hit the park hard, (as it has everywhere). Pam and Roy had brought some of their lapidary and jewelry collection from their artist coop in Iowa but stayed in their rv recovering and regaining their strength.

It was the most people that have ever attended, and it was a fun show! Thank you to all who shared their work and thank you to all who came and enjoyed looking at our work! Now, we have a brief respite before getting ready for the Gulf Coast Gem and Mineral Show at the fairgrounds in Robstown, Texas). (March 3^rd and 4th. Clear skies

Three Days of Fishing with Dave, Rich, and Roy

The day Pam and Roy arrived, I had the chance to go fishing with Dave and Rich. Dave took the three of us went to a place that had been full of feeding black drum, (there are a lot of black drum this year). The first two hours were slow, but things picked up briefly and we managed to catch five black drum. I caught my largest of the winter, a twenty-six inch fish.

Two days later the wind calmed a bit, and Roy and I went kayak fishing in St Charles bay. After paddling a long way, we finally reached a back bay full of mullet, (bait fish). The presence of bait is usually a good sign but not today. The fish didn’t cooperate, and I missed the one bite I had. After a few hours of exploring we headed back and leap frogged along the shore looking for active fish,

I caught an undersized red, and Roy caught a keeper, twenty-one inch fish! A few more leaps and it was nothing but undersize reds, but still it was fun. Reaching a point, I cast out and caught a keeper black drum. A bite developed and both Roy and I caught more blacks. Many had been undersize but the largest was nineteen inches and they would all make nice fillets.

The wind had picked up and w it was a struggle to return to the truck. Waves occasionally splashed over the side and both of us were tired from the long three-mile paddle. It was a struggle for two seniors to climb out of the yaks but neither one of us slipped and fell in the mud, while getting out, (I fell last year at the same spot, providing those along the shore with some entertainment).

The next day was too windy for kayaks, but it calmed down in the evening and we loaded the kayaks and returned to the same spot. Nothing bit at first, but a slow bite eventually developed, and I caught four under size reds, rat reds, before catching my first slot sized red of the year!

Again, we leap-frogged along the shore looking for more fish but we never had another bite. Still it is always fun, and we had been rewarded in the morning, with the sight of three whooping cranes, feeding in a field alongside the road. It was another day to remember. Clear skies

Ps Everyone should be using circle hooks! They make a safe release of the smaller fish as they are usually hooked in the edge of their mouth. The key is to put your rod in the holder and do not set the hook as the fish will set it for you.

Back to the Sailboat Channel

Sometimes they bite and sometimes, well nothing is happening, ( I did catch a stingray, always fun to take off your hook when you are sitting in a kayak). This was one of those days. We had gone kayaking to the sailboat channel last Sunday and we had a blast. Our first spot didn’t produce anything, but the second spot was as hot as it gets.

Renita had found the fish and she caught one on every cast. They were under size reds and blacks but talk about fun. We were moored together, and she kindly moved over so we both could catch fish. The fish moved so close that you could see them tailing, (feeding nose down on the bottom with their tails sticking partially out of the water), just ten feet away from her kayak.

To top the day off, a rosette spoonbill landed next to Renita, and she was able to get a great shot with our small waterproof camera. It put on a show, moving its paddle shaped bill back and forth feeding on crustaceans, before finally flying to another feeding spot.

So, a few days later we decided to head back and hopefully find some bigger fish. Launching at the usual put in spot, we paddled to our first spot and nothing, and I mean nothing! It was a very high tide and the fish must have been in the black mangroves.

Moving to the other spot didn’t help as the only bites were blue crabs stealing our bait. There were quite a few boats up the smaller channel that led to a gas well and paddling up to them, we watched as they caught a few small speckled trout.

They were casting jigs and lures and of course I hadn’t brought any along, only dead shrimp and a few mullet. We ate lunch before moving into a small opening in the mangroves. The tide was so high that we were able to paddle through to the next accessible area.

Backtracking, we had noticed that the high walls had eroded from Hurricane Harvey. Shells were all over the place and while we didn’t care about the shells we decided to try to find a path through and look for other fossils.

Finding a narrow opening I beached my kayak and after a few muddy steps reached dry land. We had heard that the islands often contain rattlesnakes and so I gingerly walked along looking for Pleistocene bones or teeth.

Not finding any fossil or rattlesnakes, I decide to climb the man-made berm and see what was inside the triangle shaped area. Someone had left an easy chair alongside the narrow l-shaped pond. A duck flew away and I snapped a few images with my phone, before returning to the kayak.

We tried a few more spots but never did find the fish. Renita mentioned that it had been fun exploring a new place and I had to agree. Sometimes the fishing, or lack of catching takes second place to the days fun. Clear skies

Birding at Port Aransas, After the Hurricane

The news reports said that over four hundred whooping cranes, (a record number with sixty-five young), arrived at Texas this year, and that they are expanding their territory. So, when we read that two were now feeding in the marshes at Port Aransas, on Mustang Island, we knew we needed to take a birding trip.

The hurricane had devastated the Port, but we were pleased to see how much had been restored. Crossing the ferry, we turned into the access to Charlies Pasture only to find that the road was closed. There wasn’t any parking so turning around, we headed to another of our favorites, the Leona Turnbill Birding area.

The boardwalk had been destroyed but a group, (flock), of other birders crowded the one small piece that still remained’ Two had set up their spotting scopes and invited us to look at a black necked stilt and an immature white ibis. Meanwhile a beautiful green heron stood nearby, and a nutria chewed on marsh grass.

Common yellowthroats were everywhere, and a yellow romped warbler posed in the brush, letting us take a brief image.

An osprey was perching on one of the remaining post and it took off hunting for a fresh meal.

It made several dives and finally catching a large mullet. It was a huge fish, and the osprey labored to fly back to its feeding spot.

An alligator’s nose peered out from the reeds looking to see if one of the birders were close enough for a meal, but we all remained safely on the walkway.

An adult bittern hunted for a lizard, and the usually reticent bird put on quite a show (you can see the birds eye swiveled forward in the first image and the second image shows a lizard impaled on its beak, blurry).

Northern shoveler’s, great blue herons, snowy egrets, and a common gallinule rounded out the birding.

We never did see the whoopers, even after two different people gave us directions. Still the bittern had made our day, it wasn’t a new bird, but it still had posed in such an open place!

Later we drove to one of our favorite restaurants, Virginia's, and as usual had excellent meal of fish and shrimp. From there it was a short drive to the south Jetty. There wasn’t much being caught but a huge flock of black skimmers rested in and next to a shallow pond.

While there is so much work to be done we were happy to see so many places open! The people of Port A, and all the surrounding areas still need help and one of the best way to help is to visit and spend  some money. The birding is certainly worth the trip!  Clear skies

ps That evening, next to the rv park, a flock of black bellied whistling ducks flew in to their nightly roost and I was able to catch them perching high up in an oak tree. Have you ever seen ducks in a tree?

Black Drum!

My pole doubled over, and I lifted my pole out of the holder and starting to fight the fish. As sometimes happens, my other pole went off as another black drum decided to join the party. Somehow, I managed to lose both fish, which is unusual as I was using circle hooks. It didn’t matter as I was soon fighting another fish.

We had returned from Florida to near freezing temperatures, rare for the Coastal Bend of South Texas. Combined with strong northern winds, it was just too nasty to go fishing. To make matters worse many of our friends were recovering from the flu

Thankfully, everyone recovered from the flu and so when the weather warmed up, John invited Dwayne and I to go fishing. His boat ran great as we headed to one of his favorite spots. Casting out dead shrimp, Dwayne caught and released several small rat reds, (under size red fish), before John and then I also caught one. John also caught an undersized black drum, so we decided to move to another one of his spots.

Our friend’s Dave and Terri, were also fishing near there and so we anchored some ways away, making sure we wouldn’t spook their fish. John cast out and before long hooked and landed a legal black drum! As the water warmed, the fish became more active and we were all catching black drum.

Now I think that black drum is one of the best eating salt water fish, but I say that about almost every fish that I catch, (except bluefish which are ok when cooked right). All of us were thinking of a fresh black drum fish fry, and as the day wore on we caught more fish!

We caught our limit of nice black drum, now all we had to do was fillet them. John rinsed his boat as Dwayne and I filleted the fish. The electricity is still out on our dock and, so we had to resort to using small Rapala fillet knives, (our truck was in the repair shop and my good Dexter Russell Fillet knife was under the back seat).

John returned to help us to finish filleting the fish, and we bagged the fillets into three bags, one for each of us. Later I fried the fish using a southern crispy fish recipe, and Renita and I enjoyed an all you can eat fish fry. A day doesn’t end much better!  Clear skies