Scott(504) sent this report from his offshore trip on last Sunday.

A friend of mine and I took advantage of the light winds this past weekend and went in the gulf on Sunday in pursuit of the bigger fish it offers.  We found our limit of state water Red Snapper (4 per person).  My first keeper Ling still evades me.  We stopped at a half dozen rigs or more and did not see a single Ling all day.  The winds were calm and the temperature was perfect.

I forgot to mention the fish Randy is holding up is another type of snapper.  I am fairly certain it is a Gray or Mangrove Snapper.  They fight as hard if not harder than a Red Snapper.  This one was 25" and was our biggest fish of the day.  It put up a hard fight.

Last Thursday, the contractors who were here to repair the Time Warner cable, did a side job for us. They correctly installed the lights on this post for only $100. This time Jerry was here to supervise. The previous contractor had removed the old fixtures and incorrectly installed new ones and charged us $1,300. Notice the big light is now on top of the post and not mounted on the side as had been the case. The two LEDs on the sides were just moved to a better angle. The place is lighted up now that floundering can be done at night without using a flounder light in this area.

Marvin(guest in 101) sent this fishing report.

Caught my limit of Trout (5) and also the limit of 3 Reds in a guided fishing trip yesterday.  I guess we could say we're reaping the benefits of the opening of Cedar Bayou.  One of the Reds that I caught had many, many black spots on it as the picture shows comparing  to the normal Red as shown..It drew quite an audience at the cleaning station for most guides and fishermen had never seen a 'Speckled Red Fish" before. 

 A Time Warner contractor came out today to replace the cable that was compromised last week.

 The first problem they ran into, besides the rain, was that the water table is so high that when they dug down only about two feet, the hole began to fill with water. That can be seen on the right side of the picture above.

 They dug down here at the corner and then used the pneumatic mole to tunnel down the edge of the driveway.

Then they turned the mole to the right to tunnel under the road to the area near the mailboxes.

We had a little excitement Sunday afternoon. The guests in 207 noticed that smoke was coming through the air registers upstairs. The electrical panel in the downstairs closed had had a meltdown. The Fulton Fire Dept. came right out and took care of things in a matter of minutes, but this could have been a bad situation. These electrical boxes have exceeded there life expectancy and most have been replaced, but the ones that have not, pose a real hazard. The one next to me in 202 just bit the dust a couple of months ago.

This tall light on the crossbridge was supposed to have a life expectancy of three years. The ballast burned up at three weeks. Jerry had to find a way to replace the whole fixture. He had mounted the old one before he erected the post. Now, it was a new challenge. He used a pulley system to get the old one down, but the new one refused to go up easily. Ken(606) volunteered to help on Saturday morning and together they got it done. I hope this one will last longer.

Steve(703) sent this story and pictures. Ling have to be the most delectable fish in the sea and I have never personally caught one.

 

Had a great couple days a few miles offshore last weekend. Put 6 nice ling in the boat and caught some nice kings and Spanish Mackerel as well.

 

Researchers and students with the Center for Sportfish Science and Conservation were out only a few days after Cedar Bayou had been opened to do some preliminary sampling assessments. They were pleasantly surprised to already find a high abundance of very young and newly recruited red drum to the area. 

While the post-studies are just in the beginning phase, this is certainly a very positive sign of the impact the Bayou will have. In stark contrast, the pre-studies in this immediate area over the prior two year period showed an absence of these fish when the inlet was closed even after intensive sampling. Now, only days after opening, it appears that the young larvae and early juveniles of spawning redfish and small fish about the size of a pinky nail in the Gulf have already found their way through the inlet to access the lush nursery habitats in the region. This is a remarkable finding, given that we are just beginning to enter the spawning phase for red drum. Things should only get better as the peak of spawning season begins.

We had a large invasion of jellyfish last week. The water was covered with them. This was taken in the mitigation site on Wednesday. By Friday morning they were almost all gone. I just don't know how that gelatinous mass can navigate their way around. The local newscast said there was something in the water they were feeding on.

 We had a weekend of  plumbing problems. First, on Thursday night, I noticed the red warning light was on at the lift station about 10:15. I called Penny and she came out and located a company in Corpus that came out at midnight. They only charged $271 for the call and put a temporary fix on the pipe with a compression fitting. The next day Jerry repaired the line with glued(see below) fittings and all seemed good to go. The only problem seemed to be that the leak had washed about 300 pounds of sand into our lift station tank. Jerry pumped it down and washed the sand into the pumps to empty it out.(picture at bottom)
Then on Saturday morning the sewer line erupted at another point.just under the new fence. Another plumber came out and estimated a repair cost of $753. After he got started he decided we needed to evacuate the pit. He called out the Honey Dipper. They came right out and did their job. When the plumber handed us the bill for $1,117 he mentioned that he had upped the Honey Dipper charge of $185 by $125 since he had called them out. This company had not worked here before and I would not call them out again. Maybe the cost was greater because he had to put a tent up since there were some showers at times.

 Yesterday we had two trucks from Time Warner come out. They strung cable wire from palm tree to palm tree as a temporary repair until then can bury the wire.

 They joined the new wire into the existing wiring at the sidewalk that leads to the crossbridge after stringing it from in front of the 700 building.

The culprit, it turns out, was the bollard in the concrete in the middle of the picture. When a hole was drilled for it by D&C Fence Company, they hit the under ground wire a few weeks ago. It took this long for the wire to completely fail.

I thought it might be a good time to get a grouper sandwich at Moon Dog on Sunday afternoon about 2pm. Wrong. I had to wait for a table. It seems that place is always crowded.

Ken(606) sent these photos and story today.


Larry attached are the photos we took Sunday 10-05-14 at Cedar Bayou, there were 5 fisherman at the mouth of the pass in the surf catching several good fish, the moving of the bait was a site to see in itself, also there is a photo of Liz and her 28.5” trout she caught a couple weeks ago when we fished the land cut, maybe they will start coming in the bay through Cedar Bayou soon.

 There were a few reds caught in the mitigation site this weekend a one flounder. All I could do was  this 26 inch gafftop off my back deck. Alice Faye's did a good job with it, but I would have preferred trout or red or flounder.

After Time Warner came out and worked on this pedestal in front of 303, they left a mess. Notice the connection on the bottom that doesn't go anywhere. There a was no place to put it either. When guests checked in to 302 on Thursday they had no TV service. Coastal Management called me to see what I could do. I knew what the problem was. We could have called TW and waited for them a few days, but I called Jerry, it was 7:00pm, and he came out and installed a splitter and everyone was happy.
I tried to watch the baseball playoffs, but Time Warner has Fox Sports 1 as a digital channel that requires an adapter. They rent them for $.99 per month and 5 more stations can be viewed. I was able to download Fox Sports Go on my ipad and could watch the games that way.
A new bank has opened at the old First Victoria site. It's named 1st Community Bank. Not many towns have more banks than traffic signals.
I talked to Security Service Credit Union in Aransas Pass. They now have a program that they match any other credit union or bank on CD rates. I've never heard of that. That would sure save some time when shopping for the best rates.

Pat and Sibyl(602) took a quart of shrimp to Copano this morning and left them biting. He said this is their best trip in months. They got 4 reds and 4 drum.

Last night I walked out on the crossbridge and the couple from 4** were fishing. They didn't know me from Adam. I said, " Not much biting is there?". The man replied,"Oh yes. Look at this". He reached into a five gallon bucket with an aerator on it. He picked up two reds about 13 inches at most and about an 11 inch drum. I told him those were far from legal and would be about a $500 fine each. I showed him the cutting board next to him and how to measure fish on it. He indicated he didn't care and would keep them anyway. I said, "That's why I keep the night game warden on my speed dial. You all are staying in 4**, right?". He replied, "Yes." I put my phone to my ear and walked off the pier through the gate. I waited about five minutes and called Mingo to ask him to take a stroll on the pier to see what they would say. He said,"There is no one on the pier.  They were just there, but I see no one in sight now."  What do you think they did with the fish.  They were still lively when he showed them to me. Mingo said they likely didn't have a license either or they would have just dumped the fish and kept on fishing. Mingo is really good at accessing a situation. I never thought about them not having a license.

If I know Penny, she'll call the management company for unit 4**.  It would be nice to have a sign with a description of legal fish posted on each pier.

Now here is a legal redfish. John Pack(202) used a gold spoon that I had suggested and pulled this 26 incher from the mitigaton site this morning. Diane and Curt left from 304 this morning and took 18 reds with them and the best is still to come in the mitigation site.

Note from Steve Wright.


My Friend from Austin caught this sail at the ships about 6 miles offshore in August. Nice GOPRO footage. They were trolling for kings and the marlin hit a ribbon fish.

Sailfish video

Steve Wright sent this note and pictures.

Had some great luck on reds in Copano. This was a slot fish that went 28 inches and 9lbs. Chuck caught one almost identical[wished we were in tourney]. I expect all shorelines to improve for reds as tide stays high