My Diary 

PINS 08/18/03

Just like I 37, the beach was a smooth as a baby’s bum so the planned drive to the jetty’s was going to be faster and a lot cheaper than normal.  

The park opened at about 7.30am allowing the first visitors on to the National Seashore since the tropical storm Erica hit the Texas coast near the border.  

Cumulonimbus to my west, normally predicts showers or thunder if it was coming my way.

As I passed the 10-mile marker I could see by the tracks that the only one in front of me was Perky the Ranger.  He was going to check the beach to make sure all was well. Me, I love checking the beach out after a storm, never know what you might find.  The best one was after Hurricane Brett, that one really made it interesting producing cuts, south of the 40 across the beach that were over forty feet wide and so deep that the only way to get to the south side was to swim them. They became fish magnets for those willing to venture down and fish them. This one just cleaned the beach, improved the driving and put some needed fresh water into the trapped lakes that are behind the dunes.  This one at the 46 we call “Red Cut “

I noticed that it still has bait and plenty of blue crabs, in fact it is looking a lot better than when we were trying to arrange a rescue to pull the trapped fish out and put them in the gulf.

The water was milky for the first 20 miles and then got worse as I headed south, little signs of bait, the bait I did see was around the 17-mile marker. I noticed the blue water getting closer about the 40 and sure enough as I got to the jetty’s it was as good as it gets.

In the 20s I noticed this Black-tip rolled up in a net, "seen quite a few of these this year", one net in particular had about ten sharks in it, that was in the spring.

This poor turtle “lost its head” I would think to a Tiger shark.

This bird really had me going, I thought I was getting a picture of a Blue Footed Booby, which would be as rare as it gets for this area. On the way off the beach, I stopped by Billy Sandifer’s and let him check out the ID of the bird.  It turned out to be a Masked Booby, which is not so rare, but not common either to see sitting on our beach. In the book the Masked has a light colored beak and that is what sent me off on the wild goose chase. (excuse the pun).

In the clear water near the Jetty’s I decided to fish for a while. Jacob was the man to provide the bait with Whiting and Perch caught on Fishbites.

I put a head of a Whiting over the bar and had me a bite in no time. It turned out to be this 4-1/2 lb Lady fish that measured 29 inches. If that had been on a fly rod I would have taken it in for measuring. ( I have just found out from Billy Sandifer that this would have been a state record fish. :-)) 

After that I had one rat Red at the same spot. 

Rodney and S had stopped by and where heading back north to fish for the Black tips, that were in the first gut back in the twenties. He had been sight casting them earlier in the day but had not hooked one.  I decided to join him on my way off the beach. Regards Nickaway.

Quiz of the week. At what location is this Yucca in the dunes on PINS?