After all the wind died down, Wednesday was a great day on the water. Edward, a high school friend of mine, and Marv planned a trip to Copano. We intended to leave at 10am. Marv had picked up a quart of shrimp and Edward brought the ice. I had not used my boat since I had some guys, who drove through the complex looking for work, do a lot of cosmetic work on it. Reed Smiley(original owner of 306) had purchased the boat new in 1987. It has spent its whole life at Kontiki and never had any kind or cosmetic work done on it. The guys did a great job.
When we got ready to launch, Marv noticed the drain plug was not in. I had intentionally put it in place so that it would not get lost while the guys were working on it. Marv and I went to Seaworthy Marine and I paid $6.42 for a new plug. We decided to buy another pint of shrimp while we were out since the first ones were so large that a quart did not add up to a lot of shrimp. Now we're back at the ramp and 45 minutes behind schedule. I backed the boat off the trailer without starting it. I had always powered it off the trailer. Sure enough, when we tried to start it, the batteries were low and it barely turned over. Fortunately, I had a booster battery in my car and we hooked that up and began to crank the engine and crank and crank and crank. It would not start. Finally we took the cowling off and inspected the engine. We noticed the choke was not engaging when I pushed the starter key in. Edward held the choke closed and when I hit the starter again we were in business. Now we were an hour and a half late getting started.
We tried about every place I know in Copano from Lap Reef north to Turtle Pen. The same places that Steve and I found fish just six days ago held no fish at all. We came back to Newcombe's Bend and finished with only undersized fish to show. We did stop at Tin Can Reef on the way back and saw bait fish everywhere, but again no bites. It was still a great day on the water. Later that day Vic(712) waded out on Tin Can Reef and caught four big gafftop. Edward and I came back totally worn out and stayed in the rest of the evening. Marv, even with his twenty years on us, had the energy left to take Rita out to eat at Crab'N. I do not know how he does that.
The catch of the day was a 29 inch red that I heard Pat and Jimmy(guests in 205) caught off the bulkhead wall. Randy(308) and a friend took his boat to Estes Flats also on Wednesday. They had the same success we did, none at all.
You might see Taylor(508) walking his new dog, Jake, around again this weekend. They adopted the chocolate lab last weekend for Taylor's birthday. Jake is well mannered and friendly for just being adopted.

This picture shows where our washed out beach sand ended up. It is just across the channel from the point where our eroded sand enters the channel where the channel wall intersects the bulkhead. A proposed spillway at the this point will be discussed at the annual owners' meeting. The idea is to channel the runoff into the bay instead of the channel.
Work continues on the repair of the breakwater. This point just past the old 'L' and looking north toward the new pier shows the new shoreguard that has been installed. The problem I see is that the new shoreguard is not lining up with the old. It seems to be not quite vertical. The workers on the barge tell me there is so much debris on the bottom they cannot drive the new pieces in vertically. They have not yet bolted the new pieces in place. The ones they removed were only 10 feet long and barely reached into the sand bottom and this caused them to fail. The new ones are 20 feet long and are well into the sand. They did say they are having trouble using their barge in the channel since the channel has become so shallow again. The last time I had my boat out, my depth finder read 1 foot deep in places and the tide was not that low.

Congratulations to the rental office located in Phase II on being named Business of the Month. I would estimate that more than one million dollars worth of rental receipts are collected on an annual basis. It's no small wonder that many HOAs are organizing and running their own rental operations to retain profits for their own use. We amended our declaration years ago to allow the onsite operation we had in the mid 1990s.
Several owners have noticed that our water pressure has, on recent days, been very low. When the city water dept. came by to do their annual flushout seen here, I asked about the pressure. They said they measured 59 psi for us, but that we are at the end of the supply line for service. The tower in Fulton is not high enough to generate much more than that. It takes 2.3 feet of height of the tower to produce 1 psi of pressure. The worker did have a hose bib digital device with him that he attached to monitor our local water pressure. The device is not much larger than a golf ball and will record pressure for weeks. He will check back later to see if we have any problems.
This was a mess this morning. The garbage was picked up early Saturday morning. Later that morning some oak trees were trimmed and placed in the dumpster to nearly fill it. The rest of the day Saturday and all day Sunday, guests and some owners continued to pile the trash on top of the trimmings. There was an empty dumpster at the end of the boat parking not 150 feet away that could have been used. The high winds scattered the overloaded trash. Lamar picked up the litter later this morning, but when the big truck came to empty the dumpsters about noon, more paper scattered in the wind. By this afternoon it was all cleaned up again. There was a crowd here this weekend and that did not help the trash situation either. I believe every bayside condo that was available was rented.
The mailbox that has been broken was repaired today too. For at least the last three months Alma, mailperson, has had to door deliver mail that should have been placed in the second large box in the cluster, about 16 small boxes. I tried to repair it last week, but it appeared it was a lock problem with the post office entry point. With that broken, anyone could open all 16 boxes. I called Max at the post office this morning. He came out within the hour and replaced the lock and everything is fine now. Every other part of the boxes is our responsibility, but that small part is their responsibility. I can't imagine why they had not repaired it a long time ago. I would think Alma was getting tired of hand delivering the mail although not many here get any mail.
All weekend with the good weather, we had vehicles driving in to walk the HEB beach or fish there or on our pier. HEB has placed new signs about no trespassing, but no one seems to notice. I can understand why HEB would not be happy that our failure to control access to our property is allowing unauthorized access to their property. I did question one couple in a white truck who did not have a parking permit. They told me that they did rent here at one time in the past and just wanted to use our pier. So what did they think the signs mean? They did leave. Some interlopers have tried to be sneaky. I saw two drive in and one parked at 708 and the other at 101. They then got out and walked down the HEB beach. They know they stand out when they park in the open at the end of the pier.
The Friday local paper listed most of the Crowley owned condos as under contract. I'm hearing that maybe only two are left of the original 25. I talked to John and Carol Rice yesterday. They sold their Phase I condo in 2007. They are now in the process of buying back in with purchasing condo 220.
J.R. climbed the tall ladder Saturday morning to replace the light bulb on the security light by the boats. It had been out a long time. It was good to see it on again. That thing really lights the place up. He also said he has ordered replacement light fixtures for the bayside skirting lights. A few are out, but the rest are highly corroded and need to be replaced. There are 14 in all and he said they cost only about $18 each.
Yesterday afternoon the pelicans were all over the place diving into the water around the pier. I counted at least 32 around the pier, but they stayed just out of casting distance. I could see small fish they were eating and made a few casts, like a few other folks who saw the same thing. Whatever it was, was not biting lures. I did see six good sized black drum caught in the early evening hours.
The ever changing hours for sunrise and sunset have kept me busy setting pier lights. People want them on as soon as the daylight dims, but I don't want to waste any electricity. People asked me to reset the ones on the crossbridge Friday night and I got those done. Saturday I reset the big pier lights for optimum on and off times. I looked out Sunday morning about 6:30 am and saw people trying to fish in the dark. I went out and manually turned the lights back on. The people on the pier turned out to be Libbi Bosworth(221) and some friends. The were happy to get a few more minutes of lighted fishing before sunrise.

Steve Wright and his cousin, Chuck Ayers, went back to Turtle Pen on Friday and bagged this big red. They did even better today even though the wind was tough.

Steve Wright(702&703) brought his big ole Kenner boat down from Marble Falls this afternoon.(see below) This is a really nice boat.
We went out about 4:00 pm and launched from one of the Holiday Beach ramps. We went pretty much straight across Copano and fished the west shoreline. We anchored in 3 feet of water and tried shrimp and piggies. The shrimp seemed to work best. We caught all seven trout there in a little over an hour. Two were 18 inches. We then went as far back as you can get into Copano at Turtle Pen and fished the grass lined shore. Steve caught a 26 inch red on a piggy. The wind had increased to more than it has been in over two weeks, but his big boat kept us dry as we motored back just before dark.

Rita and Marv are enjoying their monthly stay in 307. Marv sent this story about his latest fishing adventure.

Larry, I had one of the most enjoyable and productive fishing trips Monday, October 19th. Our guest Gene, and I met guide Dave Posey at Cove Harbor at 7:30 AM and headed south to the flats. By noon, using piggy perch, we had one keeper red and about 5 trout while covering the area up to and into Red Fish Bay. After lunch, we drifted in the flats, generally in the vast areas between Traylor Island and the carbon black plant and by 2:00 PM had boxed our limit of reds and 8 trout and were out of bait. As in previously guided trips, my stamina had begun to wane about this time and we would have called off fishing. Dave said if we were interested in continuing fishing, he would get some more bait.
This prompted a new source of energy and an offer we couldn't refuse. After replenishing our bait, we returned to drifting in our 'Honey Hole'. By 4:00 PM we called it quits after again using up our bait. Our tally was 6 reds and 10 trout while releasing at least 2 limits of legal size reds and many undersized.
We used the guide’s equipment and he had the drag set awful low so you can imagine the time it took to boat the fish. Several times we had 'doubles' keeping the guide busy.
I have fished these waters for the past 17 years and I have never seen or caught this many reds. It appears the efforts of CCA and the Texas Parks & Wildlife are paying off.

The barge crew has been out working on the breakwater since last Friday. They seem to go out about an hour and then come back and leave until the next day. It's hard to tell from here what progress is being made. It appears to be about 70% repaired. In this picture you can see a long length of shoreguard being lifted in the air to be placed into the breakwater. These pieces of shoreguard are 20 feet long. The ones that failed look to be only 10 feet long. The original assessment was to repair the other side, but since then the north side has developed problems that are of higher priority to repair.
Yesterday the stucco repair on the 700 building was repainted.

Sean and Lamar loaded up the old golf cart that has been in front of the maintenance shed for the last three months. I think J.R. had tried to sell it at one time. Sean also hauled off the old truck that had been in the Phase II parking lot.
This is the white cat I had blogged about previously. It is spending more and more time here and less time at the HEB camp. The yellow cat has ceded most of its territory to this new cat. They fought for some time until territories were established.
It was a quiet week at Kontiki and only a few workers were on campus. I expect more will be done this week. Royce will be here tomorrow to do his pest control application in the condos. I believe Lamar has a full week scheduled too.
Guests and owners awakened to the sound of crowing roosters this morning. The guests in 711 had cages in the bed of their truck with about a dozen chickens in them. Most were pretty silkies. He supplies animals to zoos for petting animals. These chickens were very tame. I was helping Butch(206) walk his greyhounds at first light this morning when the dogs picked up the scent of the chickens. Bentley(the male dog) reared up on the truck bed sides and looked at the chickens. The chickens didn't even panic. Usually chickens will fear a dog and flutter and cause the dog to react, but not these chickens. These folks from Beeville had their nine well mannered kids with them. The kids had a great time, but one of the boys pulled up my perch trap to see what it was and when he threw it back in the bait door opened and I lost all by bait. However, the small mullet have been everywhere and a few throws with my net and I had all the bait I could use.
Actually, at one time, I had chickens here all summer. I had two clucks get into a fight in San Antonio and one blinded the other. I brought the hen and her seven chicks here and kept them in the outside deck closet all summer. I put sand on the floor of the closet and the blind hen would walk around until she bumped into the water or feed pan and then back up two steps and call the chicks over to see what she had found.

Mimi and Hans(707) were here for a three day weekend. Here Mimi shows her 16 and one-half inch trout she caught on her first try off the crossbridge. After they left their spot, a guest in 606 caught three more keeper trout in the same place. Fishing off the crossbridge has been better than off the pier.
These reds and two big trout came out of St. Charles Bay on Thursday. They hit on live shrimp.

When Scott fillets his red snapper, he had not been keeping the belly flesh with the pectoral fins. He has since started giving this to me. To me, this is about the best part of the fish. I put lemon and butter on it with a little Bolner's seasoning and cook it in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 degrees and this is how it turns out. Very tasty.

Scott sent this fish story about their family offshore adventure this weekend.

We broke the jetties at the crack of 9:30 am on Saturday. So we did not get a jump on it . . . but according to my wife and two girls it was plenty early for a fishing trip. They find no value in replacing weekend "sleep-in" time with an early morning on the water. This time they were right. We did great despite our late start. With Amy and the girls, 50 mullet, several bags of cut bait, 100 lbs of ice, 75 gallons of fuel, a few morsels of food and water, and a mess of rod sand tackle we went blasting into the gulf looking like a rag-tag bunch of fishermen. The water was a little choppier than expected but nothing that we could not handle. Waves were about 1 foot but were fairly close together. At about 10 miles it really started to smooth out. Our first stop was the rig we successfully fished last Saturday.
It is a simple four post large square rig sitting in 90 feet of water. It is about 18 miles out. We arrived about 10:30 am and found four other boats circling and drifting. We tried to ease into the rotation but found it more challenging than enjoyable. If you cannot relax a little while doing this then it is not worth it. Fishing for about 10 minutes there without so much as a bump is another sign that it is time to move on. We brought in the lines, fired up the engine and aimed for the next row of rigs on the horizon. This took us to 25 miles out and about 160 feet of water. This is a double rig; two large four post square rigs setting diagonal to each other 50 yards apart joined by an overhead set of pipes and a catwalk. This structure had several boats tied off and a couple more trolling around it. We found a good down current corner to tie onto. With rods rigged for bottom fishing we dropped live mullet and the catching commenced. The first fish landed was an 18" Mangrove snapper.
Meredith brought it to the boat with a big smile on her face. And so went the day. After 3 1/2 hours we had burned through all of the live bait and started to use some of the cut bait. We had seven red snapper (18" to 25") and six good-sized mangrove snapper(15" to 18").
I caught my personal best 25" snapper. That thing really pulled on the line. It is amazing how strong those fish are. You compare the pull of a 25" redfish with that of a 25" red snapper. There is no comparison. That snapper pulls as hard as a 40" red fish; maybe even harder. I have hooked larger/older snapper but they are smarter then these younger ones. The older ones grab the bait and then dart straight into the rig legs. When you pull up on the rod the line rubs
against barnacles on the rig leg and that is all she wrote. Fish and terminal tackle are gone. I read somewhere the other day that a guy uses 250# braid to combat that problem. I briefly researched a price on that. I would have to take out a loan to buy that stuff. I will have to stick to my lighter weight line. We were going to try trolling on the way back to the jetties but everyone was exhausted.
This offshore stuff will wear you out. Even in fairly smooth water you are constantly adjusting to the leaning boat. The waves were almost non-existent on the way in. We ran at 28 mph and were back at the dock in no time. When all was said and done it was a fantastic trip. This is why we bought at Kontiki and come down as much as we can. We are making family memories.

Scott and his family had a good day offshore on Saturday. The conditions were about perfect. I had put my perch trap out on Friday evening and we had about twenty perch by morning. The red snapper were eager to get a bite of these perch. I did put the trap out the rest of the weekend and only two perch showed up.
Several good catches of trout and reds were brought in by other guests.
My friend Joe Fischer caught a very large gar in the mitigation site last evening. It was too big to net and eventually broke the line. This could well be the big fish that I battled last week.
There are stories that opening Cedar Bayou may be getting close to resolution. There were stories in the Houston Chronicle, Victoria Advocate, and Rockport Pilot. Using the link at the top right of this blog, you can access the Pilot and read two stories about Cedar Bayou that they have posted.
There was some work done last week on repairing the breakwater. The barge is still in the marina. A large barge ran aground on Tin Can Reef last week. He had cut the corner coming out of Copano too close. It took about an hour to dislodge the barge.
Randy(308) took his grandson(Colson) out to Paul's Mott on Sunday evening. They were able to catch two keeper trout using dead shrimp. They went with guide, Chad Verburgt, this morning. They went all over the area near Aransas Pass and did not get a keeper anything. They will get a half price trip next time since Chad could not put them on fish today.
Open houses were held both Saturday and Sunday in condo 303. Prices have been reduced. The smaller units(118,403,503) have been dropped $10k and 303 is marked down $20k.

Work began today on the repair of the water damage in my condo. This whole area was still wet and even more sheetrock may need to be removed. The sheetrock above the bay window had to be replaced too.
This area next to the window shows termite casing and there were a lot of ants. Everything likes to get into the walls when moisture is available. J.R. will call Bedingfield Pest Control to come out and treat the area before the sheetrock is replaced. They are about due to come out anyway. I haven't seen them in a while.

B&R Electrical came back out today to work on the lights on the 500 building. They had to trench from the box in the 600 building to provide power to the 500 building. An electrician, Alan, had done some repair to the fish cleaning stand electrical not too long ago and this work will complete the network for the fish cleaning stand and the outside lights. It appears the rain caused a short that could not be located.
Charter Cable came out this morning too to repair the service to 302. I had tried yesterday, but could not improve the picture quality. The service man had to go under the building and replace a section of cable. I could not have done that.
J.R. told me the plumbing repair last Sunday cost over $900 for three hours work. The cleanout cable he had would not reach the blockage. He said he needed to have a new cleanout installed in back of 704. I told him there was one there, but grass had grown over it. We located it pretty easily and now it is clearly marked for future use. He said we could have saved a lot of money and time had he known the cleanout was there. There are just no existing diagrams of the property that show the electrical, plumbing, or irrigation systems.

You don't see this often. I believe this is a tidal shift line. Since the wind was light this morning,this line could be seen moving this way from further out. I think this must be water coming out of Copano with the falling tide.

This Turkey Vulture has my perch trap staked out. When I get out perch I was leaving a few for the seagulls. Right now the perch are pretty large and the seagulls have not had a lot of interest so this vulture has decided the perch are just right for him and comes out of nowhere when I pull up the trap.

The sunrise at Kontiki was particularly pretty this morning. The two photos are seven minutes apart and you can see how fast the night turned to day. Just as I took the second picture, a huge fish swirled right next to the bulkhead behind 204. All I saw was the wake that was generated and it was as large as a boat would leave. It could not have been a porpoise since I did not see any dorsal fin. A bit later Kitty(302) called me to say she had a fish story. I went down to see her and she said just after sunrise she was outside on the deck and saw this very large fish surface next to the bulkhead and grab some mullet that had been cornered at the junction of the brakewater and bulkhead. She motioned that it was larger in length than she could extend her arms and the head was the size of a basketball, just one fish. This must have been what I saw too.
My last blog about the fish last week, and I have not tried again since Friday, elicited more response and conversation that any post in a while. Bradley Phair, former HOA board secretary in 1993, called to say his guess was a big Jack Crevalle. Jay(704) wrote to say he had seen a large gar in the marina recently. Whatever it is, it is still out there.
Below is what captain Scott Hamilton has to say about the jack crevalle.
Pound for pound, the jack crevalle will put most other fish in his neighborhood to shame.I think the crevalles, however, must have been the chronically mean fish in the family. Like a junkyard dog. Cornering baitfish and then relentlessly hammering them produces a sight that resembles almost nothing else with the exception of bluefish or tuna. They slice through the water not so much like a fish as a battering ram. A pit bull with fins is what I like to think of them as.

Another fish story. I last posted that likely a big red had come by and taken the line off my rod and reel staked out behind the condo. I have come to the conclusion this was no red. I have never in all my fishing days had all the line taken by a fish. It is called being "Spooled" and I have read about it. The reel I was using was the largest that Shakespeare makes in a closed face spinning reel. I triple checked the drag and it was as tight I as I could trust. On Friday morning I set the rod out again with a perch on a stainless steel leader and a 5-0 Mustad hook that cost $4.95 for 10. I was ready. I went back in the condo and shortly after checked and again all the line was taken out down to the center of the spool. I reeled it in and this time the hook was partially straightened. I put another perch on and threw it out. With a slight north wind, I can cast it about 50 yards. I went to Steve Lew's barbecue for lunch. When I returned the line was out again. There was slack in the line and I thought the line was broken. I reeled up about 15 yards when, to my surprise, the fish was still on and not very happy. It took off toward the pier and the drag virtually whistled. I instinctively put my left index finger under the reel and on the line. Not a good idea. My finger was burned instantly. Now I have landed some big drum and reds in my day, but this was ridiculous. I had no control on this thing. When the line ran out, the line went slack again. This time the hook was totally straightened out. This was no red or drum. My only two suspects are a shark or perhaps a tarpon. There was a 212 pound tarpon caught in Copano a few years ago that had 50 leaders and hooks dangling from its mouth. There have been an incredible number of mullet gathered behind the condos for the last week. Something big is here, I believe, to feast on them. What ever it was, it would not have been good to eat. I do not believe there were several of the fish around, because I believe I would have caught a smaller one of the species that I could have landed. I think it was the same fish four times. So after never having been spooled, it happened four times in the same week. I would say maybe this is the week to catch this thing and see what it is, but I used the heaviest inshore tackle that I have and that was not enough. I guess I just won't cast as far out this week.
Work began on the roof on the 100 building on Friday. He worked on the area between 103 and 104. It is just so bad that we have this big roof repair when we spent about $200,000 two years ago. Proper supervision by the board or property manager could have avoided this. Some owners say we need to go after Mike McAdams who did the work, but when the work trucks did not have a name on them, I figured this was not a company with a lot of assets. Mike's brother and John were good friends in Austin and John recommended him. Actually, I don't know at this point if anyone has tried to contact Mike. He might still stand behind his work. That is probably something our board should be looking into. Chris and Karra arrived here on Wednesday. Usually things get into gear when they are here and maybe they will check into this.
Marv and Rita checked in for their monthly fall stay on Friday. Marv may be 88, but I'm sure he will be ready to go out on my boat with me and stay until I get too tired to fish.
Benches were put into place on the marina piers and the fishing pier. They look great. I guess since Phase I supplied the materials, Phase II will fund the labor.
I called Sprint Customer Service last week. Normally, someone from Manila
answers in broken English. This time I got someone named Jody who works out of the Victoria, Texas office. What are the odds? I didn't even know Victoria had a Sprint call center.
I had a couple of responses about the picture of the AEP trucks backed into the parking area in front of the 600 building. Rodger googled the concept and there were several theories. The one I liked was that when backing in, if a another vehicle is hit, it is not likely occupied and you can make your get away whereas if you back out into someone, you are busted. Frank noted that service personnel are taught to back in so that when dispatch calls them into action, they can leave with minimal interaction by being backed in.