View from a Kayak

I spent the morning kayaking around the islands and channels of Aransas and Redfish bays dodging speeding boats carrying fishermen and fighting a wind gusting 15-20 miles per hour out of the southeast. I launched my kayak at the public boat ramp. On the return trip, I had to avoid pickup trucks with trailers backing down the ramp to load their boats. I lifted my kayak onto the sidewalk next to the ramp and a man called out “Hey, Mr. Kayak, how was it out there?” “Windy” I replied. He was small and slim, with a sunburned face, and white hair sticking out beneath a tattered baseball cap. “The water’s warmed up; it must be in the 60s” I continued. He was sitting at a picnic table next to the ramp. There were several fillet knives laid out in front of him and he was sharpening one on a rectangular stone. It was hard to tell how old he was; his weathered face added at least a decade to his age.

Channel leading to Aransas Bay from Little Bay

Winter Texans (Part 2)

This is our second "Winter Texan" post (link), but our third post on our time in the Coastal Bend. Here we turn our attention to the coastal waters. Marine recreational fishing is a popular pastime in the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico and a significant economic driver. In 2011, an estimated 5.3 million anglers made 22.3 million trips into the Gulf of Mexico harvesting over 62 million fishes (76 million pounds) and spending $1.5 billion on trips (gas, food, lodging, bait, guide fees, etc.) and $8.3 billion on durable goods (fishing tackle and clothing, licenses, boats, vehicles and second homes).

Sight-fishing for fish feeding on the flats in St. Charles Bay

In Texas in 2011, 751,000 anglers made 2.2 million trips. They spent an estimated $402 million on trips and $1 billion on durable goods generating 13,300 jobs. Non-residents were 10% of all Texas anglers (link). 

Winter Texans (Part 1)

We rented a house on the Gulf Coast of Texas for a month and ended up staying for three months. We knew the birding would be good and the diving bad, but there were national seashores and wildlife refuges to visit, and coastal bays and estuaries to kayak. And while we had explored West Texas from El Paso to Big Bend National Park on the Rio Grande, we had not spent time in the Coastal Bend.

Rande and the Big Blue Crab, a local Rockport landmark on Little Bay

Beachcomber’s Paradise

After leaving Washington, we headed for the Coastal Bend of Texas for the rest of the winter. I had been to Corpus Christi a couple times on business and the area looked interesting. The northern Gulf of Mexico is well-known for recreational fishing and the coastal marshes and woodlands are birding meccas. We were ready to leave the cold and wet Pacific Northwest. We rented a house in Rockport, about a half-hour east of Corpus (as the locals refer to it), and became honorary “winter Texans” (the Texas equivalent of "snowbirds" of the Southwest). Here’s the first of a couple posts on the interesting things we learned in this corner of the Lone Star State.

Small (coppice) dune on the beach at Padre Island National Seashore