@worth1 the old pivoting railroad bridge in the inner part of the harbor was replaced rather recently with a bridge where they raise and lower the central portion. Our destination was just the other side of the lowered bridge, they were doing maintenance, and that black rod you asked about scraped the bridge as we went underneath.

I like looking at all the boats, ships and structures. Nary a shrimp boat in sight and 60 years ago it was chock full of shrimp boats.

The coast guard station at the port was damaged in the Hurricane. The metal roof of the berth for the cutters got blown off.

we have a lift bridge that connects copper island with the rest of da U.P.


keith

@karstopography
I used to eat at a restaurant along that waterway in Freeport back in the 90s.
I looked at the Google Earth maps and you're right there isn't any shrimp boats at all.
What happened?

@worth1 All the processors and suppliers to the boats seemed to have shut down, sold out or died. Some switched over to the offshore oil service boat business. There is likely more to the story, but I don’t know exactly all the particulars. My dad was good friends with one shrimper/supplier/processor of shrimp. Dad’s friend transitioned into Oil services, but held onto a shrimp boat or two for a while. He’d do deep water shrimping, the royal red shrimp, I think way over in the Key West area. Dad’s friend died and his son got out of the shrimping. Another family that processed and sold fuel and ice to the shrimp fleet sold their property. Same deal, dad liked the shrimp business, the sons not so much.

I think farm raised, especially the imported farm raised has been tough for wild caught shrimpers.

The port of Freeport has expanded quite a lot and bought areas that once had berths for shrimp boats.
https://portfreeportbondelection.com/pr ... 25e7197de7

I used to buy from Barron's years ago, I bought royal reds from them.
@karstopography

worth1 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 12:17 pm I used to buy from Barron's years ago, I bought royal reds from them.
@karstopography

That was my dad’s friend. Ned Sr. Ned Sr. died quite a long time ago. His son Ned Jr. and the son’s wife, Julie, were killed in a tragic boating accident on the intracoastal waterway a couple of years ago. Struck by another boat traveling at a fast clip.

@karstopography
If you look in the picture this is the split coming in off the ocean.
That loading dock just to the right on the ladder side is where I put a controller up to control the fire monitors that sprayed foam on the ship that docked there. Both sr up way high on the towers.
They also sprayed foam.
It involved a lot of work and only two of us did it.
No supervision and I planned it all out and bought all the materials.
Dow paid for it time and materials.
1 1/2 rigid conduit 40 conductor wire split off to 19 conductor to reach tower to a separate controller box.
Coming from the main controller with the joy sticks to make the monitors go up down left right and cannon to fog.
Turn fire pumps on and so on.
I think the main valve and line was 48 inches or some crazy thing.
The pump house was a bank of big Detroit diesels.

They kept giving me jobs like this and I was always scared to death I was going to screw something up.
I loved that work and hate what I'm doing now.

Fished up the Brazos River today. Caught a bull redfish, one slot red and a number of undersized redfish. Slot was on a top water plug, bull red on a paddle tail. Four more slots caught by along with a few undersized speckled trout. Once we left the ramp area didn’t see another boat all morning.

I know it’s not a fish fish, but we get them from the ocean, kill them and eat them, so I figured it would go in this thread.

Went down to the local estuary and picked up some groceries. Lots of barely too small to keep fish caught. Fished for a couple of hours. Paddled about a mile round trip. Easy peasy type of excursion.

With teal season still in play and a big kayak tournament today I was able to find a spot away from all that commotion. Don’t like fishing around crowds. Saw two boats at a distance, that’s a tolerable amount of people.

From the Alaskans I've known that lived there many years ago combat salmon fishing has practically ruined it for a lot of them.
It's ruined it here for me as well.
You can't go anywhere without being overwhelmed by people fishing.

Good trip this morning. I took home the flounder.
We are going to stuff and bake the flounder tonight.

Great comfortable weather today for fishing, but pretty windy. Caught maybe two dozen of these speckled trout that were 1 millimeter short. Anyway, got my three fish “limit”.

Baked trout in our future.

Fished three times in four days. Making up for a summer lost to hurricane cleanup. Weather has been outstanding for fishing. Worst trip was Saturday in the boat where we covered a lot of water but only got one keeper redfish.

I went back Monday at lunchtime to some of the same water. This time mullet were around in abundance and so were the predators. Three consecutive casts and three keeper speckled trout caught.

Today, it was different water. I had flounder in mind and thirty minutes after launching the kayak I had my flounder. Got a bonus redfish and trout.

how do you fish for flounder?



keith

rxkeith wrote: ↑Tue Oct 22, 2024 7:02 pm how do you fish for flounder?



keith

I get most of the flounder I catch up in relatively shallow water with some current. Today’s fish was in little “drain”, think brook sized stream, but this is saltwater, and that connected two larger lakes. Flounder ambush their prey in these streams and will cause some characteristic disturbances on the surface and sometimes will breach the surface in pursuit of their prey.

I look for tiny tidal streams flowing out of the marsh into larger lakes or bays. Flounder are frequently right around the openings.

I have a little more confidence getting flounder to strike and well hooked with relatively tiny offerings, shrimp or baitfish imitations, meant for the fly rod versus larger and heavier versions meant for conventional tackle, but both can work well, I just tend to lose more flounder on the larger lures. Technique is to slowly drag and bounce these along and near the bottom. Today’s flounder came on an olive colored size 4 borski bonefish slider tied by yours truly.

Flounder here can be found over oyster shell, on hard sand, over mud, next to piers and bulkheads, but they are always around water with moving current. They are also in deeper water, harbors, but I concentrate on flounder when they are in 3’ of water or less.

Our primary species of flounder are the southern flounder. Gulf flounder are less common here, those are more common in Florida. Mature Female southern Flounder leave, migrate from the shallow estuaries, bays, rivers, marshes in the fall for the middle continental shelf waters of the Gulf of Mexico to spawn in winter. Mature male flounder basically live offshore awaiting the arrival of the females. Today’s fish was likely three years old or possibly four.

Texas doesn’t allow flounder to be retained November 1st through December 14. That’s the heart of the flounder run offshore.

I never really went fishing when I lived on the coast but the time I did I caught a big crab and a flounder in the intercoastal waterway.
The flounder was an inch too short so I threw it back.

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 22, 2024 8:26 pm I never really went fishing when I lived on the coast but the time I did I caught a big crab and a flounder in the intercoastal waterway.
The flounder was an inch too short so I threw it back.

Many of my favorite flounder holes are very close to the intercoastal waterway. I was maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile from the ICW today.

i never fished salt water.

i knew flounder were bottom fish, and ambushed their prey,
and i know you like to fly fish. jig and a minnow or something else
is how i know to get bait down to the bottom.


keith

Sad story of the lake sturgeon.

https://www.michiganseagrant.org/topics ... -sturgeon/