Last Tuesday morning I walked out on the concrete jetty next to the channel. I saw divots left by  flounder from the night before. The water was perfectly clear.  This is peak founder migrating season and many have been caught. That evening I went out about 11:30 and walked out on the jetty again. I was throwing a Die Dapper lure. I saw several large founder. One came by several yards away and I threw my lure his way. It sped off toward the wall behind 307. In a few minutes I saw a guest from 208 walk up to the wall and dangle a lure just off the wall. I walked back to shore and saw what he was doing. There was the largest flounder I have ever seen. It was in the sand, but not buried, about six feet from the bulkhead. The guy dropped his lure right on the flounder's head, but it paid no mind. I asked if he had any live bait. He said he did and left to go get a perch from his bucket behind the condo.  He came back and bounced the live perch off the flounder's nose and it didn't move. It was interesting that when he put the perch next to the flounder, the perch rolled over as if it were dead. When he pulled it away, it came to life again. After about 10 minutes we decided that this flounder was just not hungry.
He stepped to the right about ten feet and threw the perch out under the light. Within seconds, he had hooked a 21.5 inch flounder. It splashed around in the clear water and it was interesting to watch the fish fight when all the action could be seen. It never did disturb the first flounder.
The guy said that was all he needed and called it a night.
I couldn't just leave this huge flounder right there in plain sight, even if it were midnight. I went back to the condo and got a net, a DOA, and a fish bite. When I went back, the flounder was now about six feet away and on top of grass. I had never seen a flounder on top of grass.
I dangled the fish bite in front of his nose. I had put on a heavy duty hook because of his size. The drag was set just right. Suddenly, I could not see the white fish bite in the grass.  It had to be under him or he just inhaled it. I wasn't sure which. I eased up to see if the hook had just slipped under the flounder in the grass. As I pulled up, his head pulled up, almost to 45 degrees. He was so huge. I thought maybe this oldtimer had just expired of old age right in front of me. However, that was not the case.  He suddenly shot to the right about six feet and melded into the sand. Now I knew I had him, but still did not know if the hook was in the mouth. I pulled hard and now the fight was on, for a few seconds. It headed straight out perpendicular to the wall and never looked back. The drag sang a tune for a few seconds and then the line went slack. The hook had become dislodged. I wasn't really disappointed as this 25inch plus flounder needed to stay in the gene pool. I would have had a difficult time ending its life after living for so long. Maybe I will see its offspring some time in the future.

I'll be taking the next week off from blogging. My next post will not be until next Sunday.

 This is an update from the  Rockport Pilot on the causeway. For a picture click on the link to the pilot.

Friday, November 23, 2012 7:15 AM CST

Work on the new Copano Bay Causeway bridge is clearly visible now as several rows of bridge pilings and caps can easily be seen to the east side of both the south and north ends of the current bridge.
Texas Department of Transportation Engineer Armando Bosquez reported construction crews have been working in the water for several months now, driving pilings which are 54 inches in diameter. He said approximately one-third of the pilings for the first phase are in place, and about 15 percent of the “rectangular caps” have been placed on those pilings.
He said crews also have started bringing in concrete beams for about two weeks now.
Bosquez explained the process is very repetitive and initially they started only on the south end, but now are working on both ends, going back and forth in a detailed process.
They will continue this work for about 14 more months, according to the schedule. The expectation is by January or February of 2014, they will be able to put traffic on that new part of the bridge. Once that is done, they can go into the demolition stage of the current bridge.
He said it is starting to look like a bridge. He advised motorists approaching the bridge, there continues to be more activity each week as they are bringing in more beams and pilings.
They will see trucks bringing in heavier loads, which can slow down traffic.
He urges motorists to be patient, watch out for workers, and stay out of the way (in the area where construction crews are set up).
The new bridge will consist of four 12-foot travel lanes with four-foot inside shoulders and 10-foot outside shoulders; a concrete median barrier; and a higher elevation for hurricane evacuation and increased protection from storm damage. The project length is about 3.4 miles with the bridge length at two miles. Construction is on schedule and still expected to be completed by mid 2015.

I saw this spoonbill searching around our palm trees with its long beak. I didn't realize they came up on land to feed. I did see it catch a small snake and shake it into submission.

Seven thousand pounds of cement were delivered this morning so some of the guys can try to seal the gaps in the breakwater once and for all tomorrow.

Greg tells me he tried fish bites offshore and they worked quite well as evidenced by this catch. Hard to believe.

San Antonio Bay yielded this nice catch this weekend. You will notice the lack of trout. I talked to a marine biologist this morning. He said the latest gill net survey analysis will not be complete until about two weeks from now. He did say preliminary results show the trout population has cratered. I think we all knew that.

These are a 15” and 17” black drum caught on the walkway Friday evening around 7:30 pm (a little after dark). Bait was some 6-week old squid from the freezer that I was feeding to the pinfish to get it out of the freezer. I lost another big fish that I never saw because the knot slipped on the hook, leaving me with an empty line. Norman Frank
Owner of 219 and 321

The white cat was in full stealth mode as he stalked three Rosette Spoonbills in the mitigation site. The spoonbills paid no mind as they probed their long beaks into the fiddler crabs burrows in search of a quick meal.

When the cat reached the wall and peeked over at the spoonbills, he decided they might be just a tad beyond his ability to put on the menu.

Ok. It doesn't appear quite as big when she holds it out to the side. However, it did measure 23 and 7/8th inches. Overall fishing has slowed a bit, or maybe a little more than a bit. There are still some drum in the mitigation site, but not any reds recently.

There have been a lot of dead and dying cabbage head jellyfish washing ashore on the HEB beach. Most likely they are not dealing with the cooling water in the bay.

I heard a knock at my door at 7:20 this morning. Pat said she had just landed a large flounder and wanted to know if I wanted to see it. I had no idea it would be this big. I guess if I caught one this big, I would knock on some doors too. She said she was using the same mud minnow she had used the last three days and was fishing between the start of the pier and the cleaning stand. She also said she hopes that Barbara is reading my blog! Any guesses on the length?

This photo is from almost six years ago. We have so many new owners who have never seen what happens when the tide really goes out. Maybe this will be the year they get to see this happen again. It is so awesome to see. I have seen it go lower than this just one time. At that time the beach went all the way to the end of the pier. It looked as if someone had pulled the plug on the bay.

Good news for owners. As of last Friday the State has issued the windstorm certificates for our foundation repairs. Now all that is left is to attach more hurricane straps. We were told at the last board meeting that 3000 will have to be installed.  Keith said he had a bid from the original contractor for $6,000, but Larry Skelton and his wife, Loretta, are doing the work. She puts on her knee pads and works up a storm under the buildings. It is so noisy as the air hammer drives in the nails. I'm glad I was fishing most of the day while they worked under my condo last Wednesday.

The straps look similar to this one. The pier beams are attached to the floor joists where they meet at right angles.

When we finished fishing on Thursday, I took Keith on both sides of the breakwater to show him the latest condition of the structure. The allthread in the picture is just backing itself out. They are stainless steel and about 26 inches long. We have tried about everything to keep them in place. Once they fall in this six to eight foot water they are lost. A magnet will not pick up stainless steel. I would guess they cost about $25 each. Right now we have about 15 to 20 that are gone or on the way out. Keith was able to pull out and salvage four like the one in the picture.  Once these come out the whole thing starts to unravel.

The new bridge over Copano is moving along, but they have a long way to go. This was supposed to take four years, but they sure are not one fourth finished at this point.
Thursday morning we started here across from the HEB property and worked our way south all the way to the Sandollar Marina. We never put a fish in the boat, but still had a great time.

The bay was so smooth last week I took my boat out three days. The fish were hard to find and maybe this porpoise was thinking we knew where they were. You can see it in the portside wake. He followed us, but we didn't lead him to any fish. Maybe he should have been in the bow wake and he could have led us to the fish. There were a number of small trout at the wells and at Long Reef, but keepers were scarce. I did try out a bait that Greg gave me. It was a white strip of "fish bites". I've used them before to fish for perch, but he was correct. They work quite well on trout although I never caught a keeper on it.
I do have a new theory on the fish in the mitigation site. While roaming the bay last week, I never saw even one crab trap. They used to be all over the place.  Reds and drum really like crabs and may be having a problem finding them. The marshy area on the east side of the mitigation site is holding thousands of small fiddler crabs. They can be seen by the hundreds at a time. This is an excellent food source. When the crabs venture into the water, I would guess the reds and drum notice and grab all they can. Nothing else has proven to have any correlation to the presence of the fish. Winds, tide, and temperature don't seem to matter.

Jimmy, Pat, and son Robert(just left of Pat) visited Jennifer and Dong to buy some shrimp. They liked what they saw and asked Jennifer how many pounds she had. She said,"70".  Pat said,"We'll take them all". It was quite a deal at $4 per pound, but they forgot to ask Jennifer to take the heads off the shrimp. They were at this about an hour. The next day they went back and bought 20 more pounds, but this time Jennifer removed the heads.  This is the best place in Rockport to buy shrimp for size, price, and freshness. Pat(602) told me about this two years ago and I have spread the word and everyone that has tried them has had nothing but good things to say.
If anyone noticed the smell of pine in the air in downtown Rockport last week, I found out what it was. They have cut down all the pine trees across from HEB. I know some were starting to die and I guess something will be going up there.

I've shown this picture of the pier at the east end of Market Street in Rockport before. Something like this could be a backup plan for us should our pier access become a stalemate, or maybe even if it doesn't.  These  poles are 100 feet apart and only the outside two lights shine on the water. The center one illuminates the pier. In our case, we could install six of these on the bayside of our property and likely experience better fishing than off the pier at the present time. We put up one fixture similar to this last December near the spillway. Fishing there has been good, but trash tends to accumulate in this intersection of the breakwater and bulkhead. However, even now, folks bring their own lightning equipment and light up the water in the bay to fish behind their condo. The erosion that has occurred in recent years has led to a greater depth of water near the bulkhead and seagrass has encroached into the area. Both of these conditions have improved the fishing from the bulkhead. Last Sunday, Marv told he saw an extra large, over 20 inches, trout caught behind condo 302 in midday.
The improved efficiency of lighting and dispersive lens configurations would provide a river of light in the bay. The light at the spillway shows that no unwanted illumination would occur on the condos themselves.