Green Water
To some? Skinny Green Water — just a quick, end-of-summer fishing trip. 21 Days on the road, I get a break. Been working a lot.
Took off with a Virgo buddy, my best fishing buddies tend to be Virgo, for a day on the water.
Green Water, launching from Mustang Island, running up to Cedar Bayou, which, at the time, always makes me think of Houston.
Fishing is tough in August. Sometimes great, and sometimes, pretty rough. We were on the water for more than 8 hours, got a handful of rat reds, a ton of undersized trout, and some flounder. If they were keepers, it would be a Texas Grand Slam.
The real goal, though, wasn’t just fishing, although I fished my little heart out.
“It’s been tough, lately. 44 boats were out last weekend. More than half came in with no fish. It’s this weird weather.”
Texas Weather does that.
I knew it would be tough, but what I wanted, the most? Accurate, realistic pictures of me. I was updating the biography page, and going quite against standard Internet “Best Practices,” I aim to use a current image. Not a high school graduation picture, or headshot from 20 years back.
The water was turbulent, the fish were having none of our offerings, and it was gorgeous day in the water. Wasn’t ridiculously hot, like it was in July. Forecast called for scattered showers, and thunderclouds gathered, with rain clearly visible in the distance. We were fine, though.
I tend to wear fish finder shades, and as were motoring along the intercostal waterway, the distant clouds, where the sand meets the land, and the sky collides with the sea? Seemed like the thin band of heavy clouds riding on the shoreline, those clouds, down at the waterline, they looked purple. After looking at the images I collected, I couldn’t see the same hue reflected in the snapshots.
Boat Bow
We rolled back in a few trout that were healthy and keeper in size, as well as a lone flounder.
Skinny Green Water
Standing in the bow of the boat, listening to my buddies wrestle snarled fishing line, I felt like I was briefly transported back to Old Austin. There was a bridge over an inlet, old East Austin, where there was a water–park–like arena. Buried too deep to access at the moment, I have an image of a guy with an apparent Mohawk, fishing out of a little John boat, near that inlet.
The other image is me, with a bass pole in hand, sight fishing for bedding bass in the spring, along that inlet’s banks.
So I was standing in the bow of the bay boat, same kind of fishing pole, same kind of gear, sight fishing for a big red. I could see the fish, feeding on the detritus of an outgoing tide, I watched those reds, but alas, no luck.
As an exercise, great. As a reminder, excellent. Not so much with the not catching the fish, but then, it’s called “fishing” — not “catching.”
Green Water
At the end of the day, I was trashed. Smelled like bait and (sea) trout slime. Mud minnows, croakers, live shrimp, dead shrimp, got one Skipjack, cut it up, too. Those are always fun fish to catch. Useful as cut–bait, too.
Fish blood, my blood, bait, and slime, a few seaweeds, plus assorted bottom muck, all made me a ripe mess.
More than once, threading a hook into some bait, I managed to poke a hole in the ball of my thumb.
Green Water
Most of the images are from someplace close to the mouth of the San Antonio Bay. A little blood, some sweat, sunscreen, and the threat of rain. Warm August day in the bay.
Which one would be the ideal “bio” picture?
Bio pic 1
Bio pic 2
Bio pic 3
