My Diary for 02/14/00

Nickaway Diary 021200

A crowded Texas beach Febuary.00

Hit the Bait Bucket at about 7.15 on the Saturday morning. As I collected my Ice and live shrimp which I then put on ice, the fishermen were talking about the immanent 25 mph winds that was going to blow me off the beach. I thought, I am going at any rate. Don’t care if I fish, I just need to hit the beach and head south. As I left the black top the water was dirty and I could clearly see that the tide had been high. It had washed almost up to the winter Texans that are there in abundance for the first 3 miles. Going to the 4 wheel drive sign I unloaded my rods and placed them in the rack. RFInjun arrived looking quite sprightly, considering it was only a few hours ago he had been strutting his stuff all over the bluff like he does most Fridays. We planned our day. Looking at the water was all we needed to hit south. I grinned and said "its like a dam drug for me. I have to go south". Carol the warden stopped by and shared a few moments with us explaining that he had not seen much caught over the last few days and that the weed had been a problem. The driving was surprisingly good, we did work the high road through the high banks but I only needed 4 wheel drive once. That’s were we first got a glimpse of the 3 vehicles that could more than likely help the Eco-Nazis get us kicked of this beautiful beach one day. As I drove past I did not see any fishing rods. Only 3 big trucks, one of which was a military vehicle. It had very thin profile tires. About 5 miles further down I noticed tracks running up the front of the dunes destroying the valued vegetation. We decided that we would tell the Warden as soon as we catch up with him. Unfortunately we never did. He must have taken the back road. As we went through the high banks the water started to get better. The green fingers could clearly be seen approaching the beach. As we approached the jetty the birds were sitting on the beach and that seemed a good enough sign to have a go. Rfinjun fished the channel, I punched some small shrimp out on a Pompano rig to the clearer water. Got my first hook up. Stinger about the size of a small dinner plate, Rfinjun still smelt of skunk, but that was not to last. We decided to have a go in the cuts. First cast RF pulls a lovely keeper flounder out using a Dorky.

His comment to me was " kind of sucks don’t it" I said what mate. "fishing down here all by ourselves, the sun shinning an all." It was beautiful and to be honest I did not care if I caught any fish. I was just enjoying the day. Well we fished and fished but only caught one other stinger. (Both putt back with out cutting the tail off.) We fished our way out and stopped by some fellow fishermen in the high banks. The water was dirtier, but they had a cooler with a considerable amount of Bonnet heads, one black drum and a few whiting. If you want to catch it seems the high banks is the place. Shame about the bonnet heads, as they were all pups. Skipper you still have my sample kit and Art needs the samples. Well that was the end a great day fishing that I really enjoyed. That’s why they call it fishing and not catching. Regards Nickaway

 Blown sand, looking North from the Mansfield Jetties.

Suck out