Here is Scott's fishing report from this weekend.

Fished Aransas and Carlos Bays on Sat afternoon.  Very windy so had to stay in protected waters which really limited our options.  Caught one keeper trout.  The excitement for the trip was hooking into a big black drum.  Great fighter.  Stripped drag on several runs.  Caught it on a dead shrimp under a popping cork in shallow water.  Took a quick pic and released it.  Not much catching but fun trip with friends.

Rose(606) spent some time on the crossbridge this weekend. On Friday I saw her reeling in a trout that looked to be 18-20 inches. She had trouble trying to winch it over the railing so Roger grabbed the line to help. That's all the extra help the that trout needed. The line broke between her float and the hook. Later she pulled in a 16 and then a 19 inch drum from that same light.

I planned to take my boat out on Sunday and had it loaded and started out of the marina when the engine stopped. We had to drag it back out to find the gas was highly contaminated with water, even with generous additional amounts of Stabil. This is just another example of political greed as Iowa corn producers are subsidized to grow corn for ethanol. What a waste of money and corn, but some senators and congressmen will retire wealthy. We continue to have the best government that money can buy. Now I have to figure what to do with the 40 gallons of fuel and water that we drained from my tank.

This last weekend brought to an end our long summer of high rental activity. Above is a courtesy notice placed on a car dashboard. Our security folks had filled it out Friday evening and placed it on the windshield to ask the owner to obtain a parking permit. The car owner placed it on the dash the next two nights to perhaps demonstrate their lack of respect for our property and rules. We have put up new signs warning of towing for failure to have a parking permit. In the future we will likely need to up our enforcement of towing. A newer owner came in to talk to Lina and I on Thursday about rule enforcement. She had a very good point. We need to decide if we are going to be a resort and primarily cater to renters or have strict rules and enforce them to protect our owners and property. We have for so long been at the mercy of investors and who controlled our property and were willing to put up with anything guests did in order to make a profit. We seem to be transitioning to a property with more owners opting to not rent and enjoy what our property has to offer to themselves and their families. We have seen this already happen at the Racket Club Condominiums. They are a few years older than us and have 82 condos, but very few are now offered for rental. At some point, those who do not rent their condos, realize how much they are subsidizing the rental activity through much higher costs during the rental season. We may now be reaching that point and owners may decide to be more comprehensive with rules and vigorous with their enforcement. It seems to be pattern of evolution for properties such as ours. This may be related to the increased cost of maintenance for aging complexes. Rental activity becomes less profitable and real estate appreciation slows to a standstill. I showed Lina last week some foundation issues that will soon need to be addressed. Our board has asked her to bring an evaluation of the problem to our annual meeting. We already know we have some expensive stucco issues to address soon.
Jerry can only maintain so much by himself. He spent quite some time repairing the pier gate from the last time someone kicked it in. Jerry completed the repair Saturday before last and later that evening someone broke our lock to get in. The lock itself is over $300. Jerry is always asking the housekeepers to slow down when driving through our property. This has been a longstanding problem with one management company. Today one of their housekeepers couldn't wait for the exit gate to fully open and crashed into it. I hope she has good insurance.

After this long summer I'm going to need a break myself. I'm taking a sabbatical from this blog for the next 30 days. I have not been to San Antonio in over three months and I plan to take care of a few things there. Tune back in in October and I'll try to start this back up again then.