Zebra Of The Sea

Rockport, Texas

A government worker from a big City in Massachusetts recently transferred to the Mountains of North Carolina and Georgia and was on the first tour of her new territory when she came upon the tiniest cabin she had ever seen in her life.Intrigued, she went up and knocked on the door.. "Anybody home?" she asked."Yep," came a kid's voice through the door.."Is your father there?" asked the social worker."Pa? Nope, he left afore Ma came in," said the kid."Well, is your mother there?" persisted the social worker."Ma? Nope, she left just afore I got here," said the kid."But," protested the social worker, "are you never together as a family?""Sure, but not here," said the kid through the door. "This is the outhouse!"


The Beach Park was getting all ready for the weekend onslaught of recreational visitors. It is easy to see why they come back so often. This area has really grown on me. There are many, but not an unlimited, different things to have fun doing here or within an hour of here. However it is very hard to get any mountain hiking training here. The campground is at the high spot of the area at nine feet elevation.

The maintenance workers were out power washing the picnic tables to have them relatively clean for the visitors. Another was going around cleaning the BBQ grills and painting them.
Still another was picking up litter and emptying the trash cans that are all over the place. She made many trips up and down the beach and then started on the grassy areas. Back over on the backside is a special section of salt water for swimming and messing around.
There was a nice group of folks and small children enjoying this section. There is restrooms and shade shelters very close by for public use. They are well kept and cleaned at least once a day, but it has always been clean anytime of my need.

A little bit south of the park, a few hundred feet at most, is the Rockport Harbor. This is where you can purchase fresh seafood of all sorts to do your own cooking. The local restaurants get a lot of their seafood here also. Here is a picture of one of the shrimp boats coming in with a fresh catch destined for some great eating somewhere.
Along one section of the park near the Allegro channel is a bulkhead with growth and crustaceans growing on it. On this day the sheepshead fish were in great abundance and good eating size. Many folks turn their noses up at these fish. Not me. They are really difficult to clean, but easy to fillet. They grill up with the best of any fishes. It was about three and a half feet down to the fish in this picture.
The fish has black stripes. Sort of a zebra of the sea. Sometimes they are called convict fish. Call them what you want, but my name for them is delicious. They are fairly easy to catch and have to be fourteen inches long to be legal to keep. With the deep body, they will give you a good tussle on light to medium tackle and they do not care how old the angler is.

Spending a weekend at this each park doing all the activities would let you eat all the fresh seafood you want without gaining a pound. Now this sounds like a great way to try to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.