Copano Bay Fishing Pier

Rockport, Texas

Every now and then the governing bodies do something right. The old causeway over Copano Bay was getting unsafe for the size and amount of traffic on the highway now. A new causeway was planned and built to handle the traffic of our current times.

The old causeway was turned into a very long fishing pier. It makes a pretty good pier even if it is a bit high off the water. The center section that went over a channel was removed. Now you enter either side as your choice. Tonight we are seeing it from the Fulton side of the bay. This entrance area has the fancy new boat ramp and parking area. The other side has a shell/gravel parking area and a sloped bank of shell/dirt that is ok for launching yaks.

Bait is sold at this end. A nice new restroom facility is provided. The boat ramp facility includes a very nice fish cleaning table. It is easy to see where the entrance to the pier is from the large archway.

To attempt to give my readers some idea of the height, this next picture was taken after an exciting scramble over a lot of sometimes loose rip rap down toward the shore line. One yaker told me of paddling length wise under the pier. He could not see the monofilament fishing line. Every now and then a fish would seem to fly out of the water up onto the pier above. That must have been a sight to remember.
This Fulton side is the short side, but it is still a long walk out to the end. One fellow told me the other side is three times as far to walk to the end. We will see the other end in a later picture. Here we have a view from right in front of the bait house out toward the end. The shade shelter way out there is about a hundred feet from the end of this side.
When you get out to the end, it feels like you are a long ways out in the middle of the ocean. The end of the other pier is right across from you. The current causeway has it’s high section close on your right to help you feel really small.
It is free to walkout and enjoy. Fishing costs $2 a rod if my memory (what’s that says the old man) is correct. It is certainly a lot cheaper than a power boat.

Speaking of power boats, a jet ski was being run around the area by the young man operator. He was doing it fairly safely but not always being the most courteous operator in the world. Here is the jet ski heading toward the folks fishing on the end of the pier.
As he passed under the causeway he hit a nice large wave for this large splash.
He should have stayed farther away from the fishing lines in my opinion. He could have moved out into the bay a couple of hundred yards and had lots of room to play and the fishing folks would have had lots of room for their fun also. Usually all the different types of toys and fun can be accommodated without causing one or the other trouble. The ski basin area of the Rockport each park is a great example of giving everyone a good and designated area to play.

But when it is all said and done this day every one was having a good time trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.