Variety Night On The Pier

I took a day off work on Friday and Tracy & I decided to run away from home for a night.

We were supposed to be in Colorado at the Estes Park Wool Market but I attempted to make our flight reservations too late. Tracy had done some homework and found a nice B&B called The Main Inn. The rates were reasonable and the bungalow was small but clean and comfortable.

We spent the afternoon exploring around town (AKA buying fishing maps, extra tackle, and bait) and looking at local communities like Turtle Bay.

It was mostly clear but some storm clods were popping up from the Gulf.


I need to find out who the long lost relatives are in Palacios. They have "wells".


We had the feeling we were being watched everywhere we went.

After exploring, it was time for a nice low-fat dinner at the Outrigger.


I was getting antsy to get to fishing and after a trip to the room to change we headed off to Grassy Point bait shop for some live shrimp.

We say this mother duck with her brood and never one to pass up a bird photo I snapped a pic:

You can see from this shot that there was a good chop on the bay.



Sunset over the fisherman.

I started catching the usual suspects - hard heads, croaker, whiting, and yellow-tail. I witnessed a father & son team from San Antonio catch a big gafftop and a small shark on cut bait. I haven't ever seen a shark caught off the pier until now. It was about 30 inches and feisty.

It seems that this ugly dude (a Gulf Toadfish) also liked the live shrimp.

I caught a lot of fish but they were all small. I finally caught a sand trout and some specks. My buddy Tony caught a keeper speck on live finger mullet about 2AM and I thought it was going to turn on. I got a hit that was pretty good and before I knew it something was putting up a pretty good fight. I was losing line and hoping I could land whatever was on the other end of my line when I saw a flash of silver - not the whole fish but enough to believe I had a big speck on. I fought the beast for about three or four runs and finally was able to hoist it up on the pier:

Talk about a letdown - a big hardhead and a small trout both caught at the same time!

I stayed out too late waiting for the wind to lay down and missed the best opportunity just before daylight. I had planned on making it a relatively early evening and getting up before light to take the yak out. The reports were that the wind had been dropping off by midnight but that was earlier in the week. As the wind kept blowing, I began to believe that I needed to stay up and fish.

I should have stuck with PLAN "A".

Saturday morning after a great breakfast (fairly low-fat) we went for a ride across the bay to the area of Collegeport. I was still hoping to get the kayak in the water but some t-storms were brewing up and all the boats were coming in.

This Collegeport area has no services and is a bit isolated from the rest of the spots we had explored. We looked at vacation homes and dreamed a little then came up on a Killdeer playing the broken wing trick on the side of the road. Since there was no danger of creating a traffic jam, I jumped out with the camera to record some close up action and to see if I could locate the nest.

"Hey - Over here... I need some help here!"


"I've fallen and I can't get up"



"No - Don't look there, there's no nest there..."



Spotted Treasure


Back Off Buster!


I'm giving you fair warning!



Shake your Tail Feathers



Nest in foreground.
There is another bird way in the back coming in to help.



Baby in the grass - "Keep Low"



"If I don't move, you can't see me."

We headed back to Needville about noon and drove through rain most of the way.

All in all it was a nice get away and a relief from the stress of the freeway and the latest corporate restructuring.