The Auditions

Rockport, Texas

The Team has been having auditions for a new Team member. The new member must like adventures but only if safe. No recklessness allowed on this Team. OFM gets into plenty of trouble with out any extra effort required. Several bicycles were auditioned, but Sturdy Steed beat all of them easily. Other auditions did not last long, too dangerous or expensive was the usual trouble. When the dust settled from all the activity, a new folding boat won out. It will join the Team around the middle of January. The boat is a green Folbot Edisto. www.folbot.com

It is 13 feet long and about 2.5 feet wide. Most importantly it is a lot lighter than Sneaky or the SOT before Sneaky. Additionally it folds down into a couple of duffel bags that fit INSIDE the camper on the Truck. No more straining to get a boat on top of the Truck in the wind. No more pulled back muscles from having to stretch high with the wind moving a boat around in the air. This is my fourth Folbot and they are tough boats. The mini deck was ordered to go with it. The deck will be green but this shows the configuration of the deck.

Now we have the excitement of guessing what name the new Team member will earn. Outfitting a boat is also always a lot of fun.

It was cold this morning at 50 degrees. Making my morning tea warmed up the Castle just fine. From that start, the temperature climbed all the way to 70 for an hour or so this afternoon. It is great that in two more days the days will be getting longer again. YIPEEEEE.

A nice drive in the cool air sounded good, so the Truck took off and rolled north. We ended up on the Lamar Peninsula at the back side along St. Charles Bay. It was cold there at first and all that happened is taking this picture.

A lot of yaks launch along here to fish these grass flats and sand flats. Other folks wade out here a lot of the time. The deeper water gets to around three feet is all. The wet light wind was too cold, so the Team moved on to the south to the public boat ramp. My old fat body was kicked back in the Truck letting the bright sunshine warm it up. I would personally never be that lazy, but my body is bigger than me so I had to go along with it. This was the view that my lazy body had.
After a very short time it suddenly, in just a couple of minutes, got a lot warmer. So a little exploring was in order. Hearing a loud noise alerted me to another air boat bringing in duck hunters. This time of the year you get used to hearing shots fired all over the place. Within a couple of days of duck hunting season starting my Viet Nam reaction flinching even nearly goes away. Here is the mighty hunters coming in from the hunt.

After this it was back to the location of the first shore line picture to try my luck at fishing. Over an hour of casting yielded only exercise. Exercise??? Just casting a lure???? The real exercise is hopping from rip rap chunk to rip rap chunk. The chunks are not necessarily steady or good footing. Hop from one loose chunk to another and you will get practice in keeping your balance. The lack of fish evidence set up the afternoon’s activity.

After lunch and some rest for the knees, the Team headed out toward the City of Aransas Pass area. My guess is that the fresh water had chased the good fish down the bay toward Aransas Pass. My guess was very correct. However you needed a boat to get out into the bay near the pass to get some good catching. You want proof? The fish cleaning table at Ransom Road ramp has room for four folks to clean fish at the same time. There was a line of folks waiting to clean their catch.

Two nice folks near me had limited on redfish and quit fishing early. The fellow at the cleaning table to the left was finishing out four limits of speckled trout. The fellow in the next picture had a nice catch, but told me their late evening/ night catch from yesterday was much better. Those flat fish are flounder and the term for those size flounder is “saddle blanket”. He had a couple of nice black drum on the table and several pompano in the ice chest.

WOW This is great isn’t it? For the heck of it my very light fishing pole was unlimbered and an attempt at catching some small perch for fun was engaged. An hour and a half later still not one nibble. Good Grief!

As the sun started down the sky exploded into wonderful color to end a great day of trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.