When I tell my kids about the "good old days" I try to have on hand evidence to back me up. Here is my contract to teach high school in San Antonio. The salary comes to about $3 per hour and I was a happy camper. I had been making 75 cents an hour while working my way through college. The other picture is of a student in my physics class. His name is Sul Ross Thorward. He is now teaching at Ohio State University and a practicing psychiatrist. This is Sul Ross now.

I always wore a tie in those days because I had grown weary of being asked for a hall pass by veteran teachers. Here is another of me in those days with student Bill Lundell.

The entrance to the motel is taking shape. This shows the ingress and egress lanes as well as the gazebo being built by Rob.

I have been looking over the 2008 final budget and expenses report. Again we went way over budget, $62,525 to be exact. Our revenue over expenses was a negative $115,800. We started the year with an association equity of a negative $4,599. That has now risen to a negative $120,399. I hope this trend doesn't continue. The biggest budget breaker was repair and maintenance of buildings. Nothing was budgeted and $35,015 was spent. Another big item was security. Most of this was Pop's salary. We were $4,657 over budget. Justin tells me that Phase II paid 25% of Pop's salary because Pop makes patrols of Phase II. He said it was paid in one lump sum. I have no idea how Heather shows that entry. It is not under revenues. I'll check with her when I get a chance to she where she accounts for it so I can more fully understand the finances of our HOA. I'm not sure that anyone really fully understands our finances. I know at the annual owners' meeting no one had much of an idea. We have always had a board treasurer, but I don't know that now we do.

Here is another great post from Jim Jacobus.

A Day on the Water With Jay Watkins!
“A Lifetime of Lessons Learned”

As I shared in my last post … I have been fishing the Texas gulf coast for a while now. From Galveston’s West Bay all of the way to Port Mansfield and the waters south of there. I have been fortunate to fish with some of the best of the best guides along that coast as well. With all due respect to Dave Posey, Dan Poffenberger and others, I would have to say that our day on the water with jay Watkins was something special!
Not that Jay was any more fun or knowledgeable than the others but because he opened up a whole new world of fishing to us! Up until now, the majority of my fishing has been done from the boat, with bait. It was just last summer that we made the move from the comfort and security of fishing with live bait to chunking artificials. Add to that the purchase of a new Majek Illusion that could take us places we had never been before and we were primed for a whole new world of opportunities. Jay opened those doors as we booked him for our first ever saltwater wadefishing trip!
Having bought all of the prerequisite wadefishing equipment (a lot of which was a waste of money I learned after fishing with jay) we met Jay at the launch at Goose Island and headed out for our adventure and lesson #1 began immediately as he navigated his way to our fishing spot almost 100% by GPS! Because it was dark? Nope! Because of the dense fog we encountered on the late December morning. Watching Jay use his Garmin to navigate the soup was a good lesson for me as we have the same GPS and encounter the same stuff from time to time.
Our first spot was a series of shell reefs with a number of deeper guts that held the promise of trout Jay had been on for a few weeks. We eased in to the spot where we would anchor up and pile out of the boat (I saw on the GPS he had been here a number of times before!) to catch our first fish of the day! Lesson #2 began immediately as we didn’t anchor up nor did we pile out of the boat. Why? Not enough bait fish moving and flipping about for Mr. Watkins. To him, it didn’t look good. To me, it looked like a lot of the water I had fished on a number of occasions. Could there have been fish there? Maybe. Were there a lot of fish there? Probably not based on Jay’s observations so we moved on!
A short run through the soup put us on a shoreline with entrances and drains to limitless back lakes and sloughs that ran for miles. As we slowly ran down the shoreline looking for signs that fish were present I learned Lesson #3! Jay’s head looked like it was on a swivel or like one of those “bobble head” dolls you get at the Astros games! He looked left toward the shoreline, ahead to the water in front of us, to the right at the water off shore and then back through the same progression over and over again. His vision and awareness of the water we were in was amazing. He seemed to see every little nuance of every inch of the acres of water around us and then … there they were! A pod of redfish “pushing water” right up against the shoreline.
Pile out, spread out, move in on ‘em and Lesson #4 took place. After about 20 minutes with nothing but one hook up on a little “rat red” and we were back in the boat looking for better water. One of the biggest mistakes I make is hanging around water (promising and not so promising) for way too long instead of looking elsewhere. Not Jay! It was off to something that held greater potential for his taste! So … off we went!
This time we hit a mid bay reef and with the tide being low it was easy to spot. We anchored off the edge of the reef and piled out! Walking down one side of the reef we were casting across the top of it and off into the deep water on the other side. Nothing so far but Jay was quickly moving for the end of the reef and some bait he saw flipping. Lesson #5 (and it isn’t even 9am yet!) came from what he called “local knowledge” that the end of this particular reef was more productive than the middle of it! And of course … they were there! For the next 45 minutes we caught trout after trout until we had loaded our stringers with ½ limits!
Lesson #6 … we could have easily put 10 fish apiece in the boat from that one spot but Jay believes, and we concur, that doing so isn’t being a good steward of the resource! If you feel differently I am not going to argue with you because it is your legal right to take a full limit with you if you can. For us, it was take enough for a good meal or two and move on!
There were many more lessons to be learned that day but I will save those for another post. To say the least, we had a great time and I learned a lot that has opened up a lot of new possibilities for me and my family to enjoy what Mother Nature has to offer. I loved the fishing (and catching), I loved the time with Jay and I loved being outdoors but most of all I loved the learning! I have long believed, and shared with audiences worldwide the following … “as long as we are learning, we are living. The moment we stop learning is the moment we start to die”! Boy, did I feel alive that day! Thanks Jay!

The news on the channel dredging is that work may begin very soon. Kinsel has given some input on the redesign of the breakwater. That work is now scheduled to be done after the dredge is finished.
Today Merlin(506) celebrated his 83rd birthday. They are going back to Granbury tomorrow. Today was also Christy Aguirre's birthday.
Winter Texans have given up on fishing off the back bulkhead. The tide is really low and there are just no fish. This morning a large island could be seen parallel to the breakwater that went past the second light. Sand accretion seems to be happening all along the pier due to the water being stopped by the breakwater. This pier may become totally useless very soon, except the very end.
Condo 608 has been sold. The listing price had been $295,000 and then recently reduced to $235,000. About two weeks ago Jim(210) and I were talking about the price and Jim decided to make an offer of $185,000. He asked Justin to see if Rachel could put together a contract offer. The next thing he heard was that someone else had offered the same price and a deal was made (the number I'm hearing, after all assessments were considered, was $191,000). I had heard that the former owner was behind on assessments and under some pressure by the board that foreclosure was possible. The new owner is Richy. This really low price may bode well for owners when the Aransas Appraisal District looks at property values for the coming year.
George(guest in 601) found the fish again today. They went to an area just south of Redfish Bay. Everyone else that I have talked to has come back empty handed.

Here is where all the palm trees were relocated. It really looks different. There are a lot of smaller plants to put out.

This picture shows the debris from the tennis court that has been placed on Richy's property near the boat ramp. If you look closely, a surveyor can be seen on the mound aligned with condo 602. They have been surveying all week to determine exactly the boundaries of the property that Richy is selling. All the palm trees and bushes have been removed and the entrance sign will be gone soon.

The deer hunting went well. Pictured is my son in law, David Williams(603). The buck season ended two weeks ago so we had to settle for does. We got these four while hunting in the same blind yesterday morning. The previous weekend I went with another son in law and we also got four does. In between those weekends we hunted at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Honey Creek Management Area. Honey Creek has about 1,500 acres. During that hunt they had fifteen drawn by lottery hunters hunt the area. Altogether there was one doe taken. What a waste of time. To make matters worse the cedar was in full bloom and my allergic reaction was severe. I'll be glad to get back to the Kontiki today.

Work began last week on tearing down the tennis court in front of the motel. This is the last picture of how it looked. Friday morning the heavy equipment moved in and there went the court. I think it will look much better.
Last Friday I set two poles out at the end of the pier with perch. They sat there all day and not a bite. Don Gormley went out of Cove Harbor the same day with John(guest in 204) and Dick(guest in 505). They didn't get a keeper. I did have a chance to chat with Karen Meador on Thursday. She is in charge of the fishery in Copano and Aransas Bays. She showed me the catch rates for their fall survey. The Speckled Trout catch was one half of what it was a year ago. No wonder we are not catching any trout. The Black Drum count was way up.
Remodeling began last week on unit 605.
I had a chance to talk to Justin on Friday also. I had mentioned earlier in a blog post about a charge in the bills for out golf cart. The charge included over $600 for new batteries. I checked our cart and the batteries are old. I asked Justin about that and he said he was under the impression that Phase I owned both golf carts and the new batteries were for the other cart. I'm sure he will get that taken care of. I also asked him why the HOA paid for a new window in 108. He said that the windows are common elements and all windows will fall under HOA expenses. I didn't know that.
We then talked about the breakwater and I showed him the power point presentation that I was given by Keith Barrett. Justin said there will likely be another owners' meeting called soon to address the breakwater. He said that the bid he received for the modification that Belaire suggested was for $300,000. He is looking at other proposals.
I'll be deer hunting for the rest of the week and will not likely post again until next week.

Today is definitely a Chamber of Commerce day. The weather does not get any better than this. Now if I could find the fish, all would be well. I did finally catch something on the pole off the deck. Tuesday morning a pelican spotted my perch and thought he had found a meal. I brought him in and John(guest in 103) helped me get him loose and he seemed ok. John said he caught one small trout off the wall. He wanted to taste trout again so he kept it.
Someone came by yesterday to measure the tennis court fence. He said they did it all and could put up better lights and a playback board if we so decided. I hope the board decides to do that. They have removed the fence from around the motel tennis court to begin the process of revamping the entrance area. Ron is working today to remove the oleaders from between the road and the old tennis area.
I reviewed the financials for December on Tuesday. I found that we purchased owner parking decals. The rental office has 250. I've heard owners ask about them since we have not had any for three years. I also saw that Charter Cable is going up on their rates beginning this month. There was a charge for a repair to the golf cart. I'll have to ask Justin about that. It seems like I've seen the cart used every day. Maybe the charge should have been for the motel cart.
Ron has removed all the marginal window screen from the condos. He said they are having new ones made.
The winter Texans had their first Wednesday covered dish get together yesterday. I looked like about 25 people. Usually there are more, but I guess they have not all arrived.
Gas prices jumped here. They were at $1.36 early in the week and now they are at $1.59 per gallon.
The tide is as low as it has been all winter. It is such a nice day, but I doubt any boats can get out. The dredge equipment is across the channel again anyway.
Tuesday, I visited about an hour with Perry Trial of the Parks and Wildlife service. He manages the fishery for the Corpus bay system. He showed me a lot of charts and graphs about fish populations from their recent surveys. The flounder population is almost nonexistent. There is a meeting here in Rockport on the 14th for public input, but it looks like drastic measures will be taken to improve the flounder situation. The data for the last two years for trout in Corpus show numbers at historic lows. The juvenile trout population is almost off the top of the charts. He says we should see a lot more trout in about 18 months.
After that visit, I talked at length with the Rockport Harbor Master, Keith Barrett. We discussed our Kontiki breakwater problems. There seems little doubt that we will be throwing good money after bad if we try to repair what we have. Even though we were assessed our share of the $25,000 for the redesign, I don't think there is any relationship between that number and what it will take to get it done right. Keith felt that we need to contact Coast and Harbor Engineering out of Austin for an evaluation. Otherwise we are just guessing what it will take. Rob said that he and Justin met with Belaire Environmental and they think they have a plan. Belaire designed what we have now. Belaire deals with environment issues and I'm not sure what experience they have with construction design. Keith said that putting shoreguard in eight feet of water will never work and will need constant maintenance. He gave me a disk with a power point presentation from the Austin group concerning the channel at Key Allegro. Their channel is not as large as ours and the estimated cost was almost $2,000,000. Rob told me that he was planning to begin repair soon on our pier. I told him that I would wait until the breakwater redesign is complete. The end of the pier is tied into the breakwater and the redesign may impact the pier. The Austin group's study showed that a lot of sand comes in when waves splash over the wall. We have a lot of that. My best guess after the conversation with Keith is that we are going to have to back off the breakwater to only four feet below mean low tide. I think it would be well worth the cost to have engineers with this kind of experience give us a design that they would stand behind. Now, if we could afford to build that, that's another question.

Here is a guest post from Jim Jacobus(208). He has a wealth of fishing(and catching) knowledge. I hope he will contribute often!

I was standing in the parking lot at Kon Tiki the other day when I ran into my good friend and fellow condo owner Larry Biggers! I always enjoy talking to Larry because he knows everything that is going on around Kon Tiki, Rockport and those parts of the world. One story led to another and eventually we talked about his blog and how much I/we enjoyed reading it. Then I had to open my big mouth and suggest it would be good to read about fishing in the area! To which Larry responded … “awesome idea, why don’t you write something for the blog about fishing since you do so much of it down here and I will post it to my blog”!

So, here I am writing about fishing the last couple of weeks down in Rockport! Allow me to give you a brief, but important, history of my saltwater fishing experience. I started saltwater fishing, after years of freshwater fishing, in 1979 after moving to Houston, Texas from Dallas. My first experience came at the invitation of a high school chum from Dallas that lived in Houston. He had a customer back out of a wade fishing trip with guide Blaine Friermood and wanted to know if I wanted to slide into the open, and paid for, open slot. I said yes and the result was a 31”, 8lb 11oz trout that now hangs on the wall in my office! Needless to say, I was hooked so to speak!

We bought our first boat in 2000 and slowly made our way from Galveston bay complex, to Matagorda, to Port O’Conner and eventually settled in to fishing the waters around Rockport! We bought a brand new Majek Illusion with a raised console last summer and are having a blast with it! We regularly catch fish when others don’t not because I am so smart but because we have invested regularly in hiring guides like Dave Posey and Dan Poffenberger to teach us how to fish! The focus here is on teaching me “how to fish” not just taking me and my family out to haul in a lot of filets for the freezer!

Last summer, with the new boat as impetus, my son and I decided that we wanted to learn how to fish with artificial and we turned to first fishing with topwaters. We went to see the good folks over at Tackle Town in Rockport where Javier, Austin, Mike and Charlie all helped us tremendously when it came to getting all of the “right stuff”! Armed with my bone colored Zara Spook Jr we hit the waters of Estes Flats, Hog island, Traylor Island, Mud Island, St Joe’s and anywhere we could find to cast and retrieve our new found toys. I can tell you that I am now an artificial bait enthusiast!

Here’s the bottom line … we are still learning and I hope we always will be! I am confident with what I have been taught by Posey, Poffenberger and others as well as what I have learned on my own that I can go out and catch fish on just about any day I decide to put my boat in the water! I will use bait when the conditions dictate but I can throw an artificial when timing is right for that approach. Last week my son and I fished with local guide and fishing legend Jay Watkins to begin to deepen and broaden our understanding of throwing artificial. We caught a lot of fish that day, trout and redfish, including a heavy 6lb, 27in trout that we released. All in all we probably caught 35 fish that day keeping only a few for the freezer. What we learned that day, from a true professional, was huge and will open up fishing opportunities in the Rockport Bay system to us that we didn’t know even existed before!

I encourage you to do the same … learn what you can about fishing. If you have a boat, learn how to maximize your experience in that boat! No boat? Learn how to fish the causeway piers or wadefish the shoreline there right next Kon Tiki or the miles and miles of shorelines in and around Rockport. Ask for help from the guys at Tackle Town, hire a guide every now and then. Jay Watkins has some fantastic fishing videos available on his website or you can buy them at Tackle Town! Check out the message board at www.2coolfishing.com for tons and tons of info! The fishing and catching is great! The learning how to fish and catch is priceless! Give me a couple of days and I will write about the trip we took with Jay Watkins! It was an experience of a lifetime!

If you have questions about how you can learn to get the most from your own fishing experience e-mail me at jim@kontikidream.com. I will be glad to answer anything that will help you enjoy your time in Rockport!

Jim Jacobus

Dave and Hanne(307) sent this picture. They are 49 inches over average for snow so far this year and more is on the way. This is not their house. It is their shop behind the house.

The holidays are behind us and most of the winter Texans have arrived. Fishing remains abysmal. I put out three rods with perch yesterday and so far, not a bite. Scott and I went out both Friday and Saturday with no success. Saturday we went all over the north part of Copano. At least the tide is way up and we were able to get his boat out the channel. He has taken his boat back to Houston for some work that he wants to do on it.
We had a big Christmas here with eight of our grandchildren and four families. New Year's eve was a bit of a problem as alcohol, fireworks, and crowded conditions made for some problems. Rob said that he was called out four different times. Pop's hours had been changed and was not on duty until midnight. I think his hours were likely changed because three big screen televisions were stolen out of unit 101. The back door had been pried open. Charlie bars have now been ordered.
We had about 15 owners spend some time here during the holidays. It was good to see them, but, for the most part, many were concerned about their lack of rental activity, the attitude of renters toward owners, the lack of communication from our board, and the really poor fishing. Some felt the poor condition of the piers limited their fishing opportunities, but I think that would not have changed had the piers been perfect. The fish are just not there. Of course, by most pier standards, our lights are pretty primitive and maybe better lights would make a difference. One winter Texan said that he didn't even bring his fishing gear after reading my blog.
There are no ongoing projects to report on. There is nothing new on the dredging, pier repair, parking lot repair, or crossbridge work.