Mel Biggs(207) asked me to see if anyone would be interested in his dinette set. He is asking $70 and will be here this weekend.
Royce(agent for Bedingfield) was here the last two days for his monthly pest control treatment. He did some termite treatment around my window areas that have been infested.
Fishing off the pier has been up and down. Sunday evening Vic(712) and I were in awe at all the drum around the end of the pier. The water was gin clear and it looked like a big aquarium. We could see hundreds of drum circling the pier with an occasional trout passing by. One guest actually had a drum hit his lure and brought the 17 incher in. He foul hooked another in the dorsal fin that was slightly larger. The drum were so thick it was not difficult to snag one.
With most of the winter Texans gone, I expect we will see a lot of owners here for the Easter weekend.

Yesterday morning a prospective renter was going to look at unit 210. She fell on the front stairs and hit her head. EMS responded and Air Life was called in. I understand she was flown to a San Antonio trauma center. There was a lot of blood. It was about a month ago in the same unit when a winter resident fell on the inside stairs and severely bruised her head.
I neglected to mention that at Oysterfest my friend and boat mechanic, Jim Waller, won the oyster eating contest. He put down 200 raw oysters. That's a bunch!
I talked to Jerry Hill, former employee, today. He is doing well.
Fishing was pretty good last evening. The guest in 402 had a stringer of seven nice trout. There were others on the pier catching a lot of drum. Today we had seagulls and pelicans working the water out in front for most of the day. Medium sized mullet are jumping all over the area between the piers.

J.R. completed the installation of the new Starboard material on the fish cleaning station. It hasn't had a lot of use yet, but it will work well when it does.
I talked to J.R. about the termite problems. He said he thought Bedingfield had been here, but I still have activity evidence on my walls. He said he will check on it.
Kevin(501) took his boat to Longreef today and came back with three keeper trout. That is better than the usual I have seen lately. Steve(202) took his boat south this morning, but did not catch a thing. John(guest in 102) caught three keeper trout off the pier on Monday evening. His largest was just over 20 inches.
Tony's Lawn Service came by on Thursday and cut and trimmed the grounds. The grass is turning a brilliant green with all the recent rains and looks really nice.
The State of Texas will be having an appliance rebate program next month. If anyone is planning to replace any appliances, then will be the time. The rebates are pretty generous. Here is a link to the state site. http://www.texaspowerfulsmart.org/rebate/

John(guest in 103) struggles to lift this big drum that he caught off the back wall this afternoon. There have been a number of drum caught around the complex the last few days.
The drum was larger than the yard stick, but Sandy(107) had a tape that showed it to be between 39 and 40 inches.

Interestingly, you can see the fish was foul hooked. Even then it did not put up much of a fight, just shear weight drag. A comparable red would have fought much harder. The fish was hooked in the mouth, but with someone else's hook and line. The rusted circle hook even had a barnacle growing on it. It looked like the hook and residual line had been there a long time.

The word is out about the fine new pier we have. People drive up from around town all the time. Yesterday we had ten folks from the HEB camp spend four hours on our pier. The sign that was on the Phase one pier had been torn off and was in the grass beside 308. I took the liberty to rescue it and attach it to the post at the start of the new pier. I don't know that this will help, but at least they can't say they thought it was a public pier. I have heard that story a number of times.

Even the AEP must be having trouble finding good help. They replaced the utility meters in a section of the 200 building. They discarded the used bands that seal the meters behind the shrubbery under the box.

Scott successfully surprised Amy with a birthday party. He took the family out in their boat while the crowd gathered. When they made the turn into the marina, she saw what was up. There were about 25 people in attendance.

John, guest in 204, hangs the first fish on the new board. This sheephead was barely a keeper.
The Schomburg girls and two friends practice for larger fish by hanging these mullet on the board. These mullet will be frozen and used later as bait for redfish.

Fishing report from Randy(308).

Fished Wednesday with Terry Coufal of TC Charters.
He ran us up to San Antonio Bay for starters and we worked our way back.
Terry says he has never seen the tides that low up there.
Fishing was poor to say the least.
One keeper trout and some rat reds and small trout was it.
On the phone with other guides they were all struggling as well.
Good to be on the water but the catching did not happen.

Scott Culberson, former Kontiki employee, shows off this flounder on his father, Jack's, fishing report. I visited with Scott at the recent Oysterfest. He said he is doing well and working for the City of Rockport.
Fishing reports continue to be dismal. Scott(504) took his family out on Saturday and went from Carlos Bay to Blind Pass, near Mud Island, and had only one nibble the whole time. Fishing off the pier has still produced just an occasional keeper with a number of small trout.
I did find a great place to buy shrimp. Pat(602) gave me a number to a place where he buys his shrimp. Jennifer Dong sells them from her residence in Fulton. They have their own shrimping operation. I guess they sell to retail operations and keep some to sell on their own. When I talked to Jennifer, I found that I was familiar with the area where she grew up in Vietnam, near Vung Tau. She sold me shrimp that averaged nine to a pound. That's about as big as they get, and the price was $5.50 per pound. They were great grilled with bacon wrapping. Anyone who wants to try some can contact me for her phone number and I'm sure Pat would give you the number as well.

Termites continue to be a big problem. These holes appeared in my wall near the window a few days ago. The wet winter and leaks around the windows have provided a golden opportunity for the critters to proliferate. Two weeks ago Rob replaced a board under my bay window that was eaten away and he said the termites were still active there too. I'm sure other condos are infested as well. Justin contracted with a new termite control company last summer at an upfront cost of over $2,000, but I have not seen them here to treat the termites.

We had an interesting event on Friday of last week. Early in the afternoon small minnows moved in and covered the water. This picture is from next to the new pier looking toward the HEB beach. Pelicans and seagulls were eating their fill. By early evening the area between the piers was completely covered with the minnows. You almost had to be there to believe how many there were. Under the lights you could see the minnows trying to swim, but were nearly too crowded to make any headway. By this time the trout were not missing the opportunity also. Ross(206) came to my back door to ask if I had seen what was happening. He had never seen anything like this and was very excited. By the next day the sea of minnows had moved away.

Rob, Tony, and John repaired the new pier today. It looked as if the post had moved up, but it was only the handrail warping into a twist that made it appear that way. I posted a picture of this a few days ago. A few well placed long screws and the pier was fine.
There have been a few more trout around the pier the last few evenings. A winter Texan just brought by two keepers to show me. Last evening I caught several small trout and then one took my lure and made the drag sing a tune I had not heard in a long while. Unfortunately, I didn't get him in. I saw on the national news that the Gulf is 5 degrees cooler now than it should be at this time of year. That may delay the trout bite in the bays.
The buzz among the winter Texans this week has been about Jayme leaving. They all liked her and had good things to say about her.
Rob and his crew have worked at a hectic pace to complete the remodeled of 202 this week. The word was that there were guests coming in today. As of right now, no one is there. I don't know if they didn't finish or the guests didn't come in. Last weekend guests arrived late in the evening for condo 601. No one had made out a cleaning sheet and the the condo was not clean. Lisa had to come out after midnight and put them into another unit.
Don Gormley and some friends went into Copano on Tuesday. The weather was great, but they came back with no fish. They went out today, but I have not heard the report. In January some guests went into the Gulf and came back with some kingfish they didn't want. They left it with me. Don has a really nice electric smoker and he and Dick smoked that fish this week and it turned out quite well. I don't know that I have tasted kingfish that was that good.
Work started yesterday to replace the outside GFI outlets on the decks that was approved at the owners meeting.
Cheryl and Steve(202) are in the process of buying Frances and Maxie Mayo's house in Key Allegro. Frances and Maxie were original owners of condo 102 here. Steve and Cheryl want Rob to do some remodeling there, but he plans to leave for California very soon. I believe the plan is to leave his tools here and let Tony finish the ongoing work as well as the work on the Mayo house.

The breakwater is still coming apart, but not too fast. These pictures are eight months apart and show only small additional disassembly. This month's assessement included the funds to do the repair. Rob said he will start soon.

This repair was done on unit 502. Termites and moisture leaking in around the windows had totally ruined the wall. The wire mess and stucco will have to replaced on the outside. I'm sure there are other walls under windows that are having the same problem. This year's budget will struggle to keep up. The recent repairs to the lift station, electrical circuits, and mitigation site wall have not helped us get off to a good start.

This pelican tries to stay cool as the temperature finally reached the normal high for this time of year. Unfortunately, the nice weather was not overlooked by the local mosquito population. They were out in full force.
These spring break folks thought they would play in the surf at Kontiki. This was not the day for that. They did not wade very long as the mosquitoes located them pretty quickly.

We don't currently have a full time employee so little things may go unnoticed. This is a conduit near the end of the Phase I pier. The fittings have cracked and broken from the weight of the rest of the conduit under the pier. The wire is exposed and is bearing the weight. The wires will soon become damaged too. I'll mention this to J.R. the next time I see him.

When owners have mentioned that their clothes dryers are not doing a good job, I have explained the only method that I know of to eliminate the problem. Here is a modification that is being discarded. The original vent tubes are between the walls into the attic. When they become clogged, and eventually they all do, owners have bypassed the original system with this apparatus. The PVC pipe stands beside the dryer and vents into the attic. This one has an elbow at the bottom to rest on the floor to support the weight of the pipe. Since the old vents are between the walls it is debatable whether or not the vent is a common element. When units are remodeled the old coiled vents are removed and replaced with smooth pipe material.

It has been so wet this winter that the ubiquitous dollar weed has begun to grow in the leaf nodes of the palm trees on the property. I know Scott's sells lawn fertilizer with dollar weed killer mixed in, but I don't know of anything to put on palm trees!

Some Kontiki owners had a successful hunt this deer season. Here Dustin(605) shows his fine buck.
Here Pete(710) shows the buck he got this year.And finally, my Sika buck from the YO Ranch suffered a more ignominious fate. This is how it looked when I first saw the flooded room. I have no idea how the nose of the deer went through the ceiling sheetrock. All I can figure is that as the ceiling sheetrock fell, the antlers were hit first and the deer head must have done a 360 in the air to have come down on top of the sheetrock.

The new pier is having problems. Some near shore pilings seem to be inching up from the sand. This,in turn, pushes against the railing and light posts and something has to give. I have no idea what the solution might be.

J.R. had gravel placed in the washout near the start of the Phase I pier. We'll have to see how this works.

To help with the washout problem, a drain was placed next to the pier to allow water runoff to return to the bay without washing out under the bulkhead. The drain is surrounded by concrete. We tried something similar in the past without much success.
I went to Oysterfest last evening. There was a huge crowd. I did see, former employee, Scott Culberson there. He said his father, who is a fishing guide, was finding some fish using Gulp on a jighead.
Randy(308) reported some of his friends caught some really nice trout on DOA shrimp at California Hole. They used the DOA without a popping cork.
Steve(202) took his new boat out this morning to try his luck. The problem is finding any bait.
Jayme is no longer employed by the onsite rental office. She had been here a long time and did a great job. I wish her well.