Jerry devised a way to put a lockable box on the new tennis court light switch. We don't need those lights being turned on in the middle of the night. The security person will open the switch box and lock it back up at 11pm. I was a little concerned the way Jerry is putting the pressure on the drill since I was the one who loaned it to him, but everything worked out as planned, for a change.

Jerry is also going to be busy spreading some new rock in the flower beds and under the shrubbery.

Welcome to our newest owners as of today. Nathan Peacock and his family now own condo 709.

Ryan Carter(guest in 711) sent me this picture from this morning. His brother caught this 31 inch red on a topwater over at the Navigation District Park behind the airport. Fishing on our pier has been pretty nil, but other spots have been pretty successful of late.

Yesterday was a good day on the water with even a fish story to tell. Click on the photos to enlarge them to better see what I'm talking about.

First we started out at 7:30 and fished around the popular areas of Copano. After a couple of hours we had one under sized trout and a barely keeper drum. We came back to the condos to regroup. Ralph(101) had scheduled a guide for Sunday, but the guide canceled because he said the fishing would not be worth the trip.
This gave us pause but, we went back out at noon and went straight across to Paul's Mott. When we got there the top picture shows five boats already positioned and each had one or more fish on. The reds were all over the place. We had only a few small shrimp and no leader materials and our DOAs.
We used a small hook and shrimp to catch perch to use for cut bait. Right away we had a nice red in the box. We had beached my boat on the north shoreline and stayed in one place while the other boats, as in the second picture, circled around us with bent poles. We tried a spoon and caught one red and one drum. We then caught another perch and cut it into pieces and had several hookups only to have the our lines cut on the shell. Finally, we had only one perch head left and tried that. A large red took it and fought hard. The red disappeared under the boat and we could not get the line or fish out. We finally pushed, with great effort, the boat free from the shore and boated the dead red. I had never done that. The red had wedged itself under the keel of the beached boat and been squeezed to death. Altogether we ended with three reds and six drum, but with some cut mullet and leader line we could have easily got our limits.

Jerry vacuumed the curbs before the weekend traffic arrived on Friday. Friday is always fine tune Friday since larger jobs can't be started with the summer weekend crowds coming in. This weekend was the usual large crowd with parking at a premium. JR has hired four security employees working extended schedules to keep things going smoothly. Our new tennis court lights and barbecue cabana and beautiful lawns have proved attractive to more than just our owners and guests.

The buzz on campus last week was that a finger pier had collapsed with three people ending up in the water. JR was called and he called Jerry to see where the accident was. Jerry found out that the finger pier was actually one located at Phase II.  He said nails instead of bolts were used in its construction. Notice the posts are outside the walkway where ours are located under the walkway. No injuries were reported.

JR is saving some money be doing the annual palm tree trimming in house. He borrowed a power pole chain saw and Jack Gibbs is using his dump trailer to haul away the cut fronds. Jerry has been working almost nonstop the last two days and is about 75% finished. Another company will be called in to do the really tall trees that can't be easily reached.

The alarm light has been telling us all is not well with the lift station. Today JR and Jerry rigged up a device to lift out the pump for inspection which saved the cost of calling out a truck with a winch. I don't think we have ever pulled the pump out with our own staff. JR is pretty resourceful.

The tennis court lights were installed this week. Here an adapter is being welded to the pipe to attach the light fixture.

 The final result is a very WELL lighted tennis court. The lights were adjusted to shine a bit more downward on Wednesday and that helped to keep the lighting more concentrated on the court. Signage was put up to say that basketball is limited to times the court is not needed for tennis. So far I have seen much more night basketball than tennis.

Steve's(702) son, Kameron, shows that the trout in Copano are still big and hungry.

Parts of the breakwater have been coming apart after the high winds this spring. The walers are breaking apart and the shoreguard is separating and sinking. Jack Gibbs crew put together a homemade raft and salvaged the pieces that they could. A decision will have to be made soon as to what to do about this ten years old structure that seems to be failing faster than repairs can be made.

Jack Gibbs had a crew here this week to trench from the electrical panel at the pool to the light poles at the tennis court. They decided to hand trench since there were so many buried water lines and electrical lines in the area. While the trench was open JR laid in some sprinkler wiring that he had in his garage that allowed us to replace two of the battery powered irrigation controllers with the master 24 volt system. The older wiring had not been used because the wires leading in had been broken for years and the location of the break was unknown.

The purple martins have been here in large numbers this year. We had been down to just a few pair just three years ago.
The fishing continues to be better than in recent years too. I don't know when I've seen the size and number of trout that have been coming in. Today two of us picked up 8 trout with two measuring 19 inches. We caught five at Mack Reef and three at Half Moon Reef. Other boats have been coming in with similar results.

 The annual Lone Star Legacy tournament was held last weekend. Richy brought this group to us 13 years ago. This year he took first place in the event.

 The guide boats were lined up with the tournament guests. It did give me a chance to see how they were rigged up for catching the big ones. Interestingly the lures were mostly white with chartreuse tails.

On  Monday morning the tent rental company came out and took down the tent. The high winds had come very close to taking it down for them. One worker said that next year they will use longer stakes.

Scott sent more information about their snapper trip on Sunday.

Larry mentioned earlier in the blog that Paul Westburg, Randy Grones and I went offshore on Sunday morning and got our limit of snapper. What he did not mention was the storm that hit us about 5 miles from the jetties. See the pics of the crazy dark clouds that faced us as we were heading to shore. These were taken approximately 8 miles from shore. In a few pics you can see the tankers anchored waiting for their time slot at the docks in Corpus. All day the wind had been blowing a medium 12 mph out of the SE but about 5 miles from the opening of the jetties the wind turned instantly from the North at 35 mph, dropping the temperature about 15 degrees and putting "teeth" on top of the waves. It got a little scary to say the least. The seas built quickly before we could reach the safety of the jetties. We had to slow down and change our directions a few times to handle the chop. As soon as we got in the jetties the rain started coming down. I had to put on my sunglasses to protect my eyes while making forward progress. All the while our biggest fear was lightning. We did see a few bolts but it could have been much worse. We made a pit stop under one of the bridges along the shrimp boat channel to get out of the rain for a few minutes. When it let up we took off again for Conn Brown Harbor. Of course, by the time we got there it started raining again. By this time we were all soaked, but eventually you reach a point where you can't get any more wet. At the end of the day we safely loaded the boat with a box full of Red Snapper. Lesson Learned - pay closer attention to the weather forecast.

Scott sent this note about his fishing trip this morning.

Randy Grones and I left the condos at 7:15 Monday morning to beautiful weather. The winds were around 4 mph. Our first stop was Mack Reef. Using live shrimp we picked up 5 trout with one of them going 21". We then moved to Jaybird. After a half-dozen drifts we picked up another 9 trout with another one going 21". We headed back to the condos around noon. The weather was still great. Wish I could stay all week. We ended the trip this morning with 14 trout; 2 were a little over 15" and the other 12 were all over 17" with two of them going 21". That is a very solid box of fish. Great morning on the water.

Scott and Paul(505) braved the weather to go offshore this morning and got their limit of Red Snapper. This one measured 29 inches. The weather seems to have settled down and a week of light winds is forecast. It's about time
On Friday the General Land Office notified us that they have granted us another 60 days extension to work out the pier permit issues.
Welcome back owners Joe and Elaine Burkholder. They owned 507 at one time and have now returned and closed on condo 603.