In Search of Sole or getting swept away with the tide

and visiting one are two different things.  As a tourist, you come and go, but those who live there have only so much to do, which mainly involve working, beaching it, fishing, bar hopping and finally resting from all of the above. 

This is a story of something I found to do while living there -- which now due to city codes and expansion is not possible anymore, oh for the good ole days when the population explosion had not hit yet.   Fishing of course is a major industry, but if you don't want to go by boat, on foot and with a gig is the next best thing....

life can get pretty boring after the tourists leave for the winter, even as more tourists, but of a different sort come and stay for the winter. We call them winter Texans and they like to leave their money somewhere else and not put it into our town, so the islanders have challenges during the winter months with survival... I know. I was one of them for many years.

To while away the time, when not working either you go bar hopping, fishing or shell hunting ...the latter of the two is more to my liking.

Thirty two years ago, the island was totally different than it is now. Yes, tourists came, they went, but life was easier back then...A quiet little fishing town where everyone knew everyone else and all were totally safe and secure -- shells on the beaches were everywhere and the beaches were not so crowded.

Before all the codes and land divisions took place, it was a really fun time to go to a place we called Charlies Pasture. You mostly had to have four wheel drive to get back to the back of it where the Island Moorings cut ran into the Lydia Ann Channel which goes to Corpus, or the other way to Rockport and beyond.

It was one of the best places to find shells then, and also to wind surf, and the thing I liked best was gigging back there.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with gigging for fish, a simple explanation of this is kind of like spear fishing. And what did we spear??? Well flounder of course!!

The flounder hide in the sand and are usually difficult to see in the murky water being sloshed about with wave action.....but there was a trick to it. And it was really tricky too, for is you did it wrong, you would get washed out into the channel...

You see, boats of all types go through this channel, on their way to and from Corpus Christi port or back the other way towards Rockport and further ports of Houston, Galveston....it is still a major shipping lane and quite busy..... When the boats pass by, they literally suck the water away from the shore......

Oh my! not only a new world of shells and shellfish, but if you looked hard enough, you could find the flounder. Now a good size flounder baked and smothered in wine and mushroom sauce is one of my favorite dishes in the whole world. Couple it with some rice and a salad, man, you can't beat it.

So a gigging we would go. Sometimes we brought in a lot, others a few or none at all...sometimes I think they heard us coming and buried themselves deeper in the sand.

One time while I was out there with some friends on a sail board/shell hunting excursion, I had a really bad scare.....Altho I had done this many times before, I stayed too long on the open beach as a huge tanker passed by. Gathering shells, not paying attention, until I was far out in the sand....which was normally about six foot deep in water......No sweat, I would gather until I saw the water coming back to shore...

Oooops.....too many shells, kept picking them up and suddenly, I heard yelling....I looked up and the water was rushing at me faster than I had ever seen, but I had never been out that far when it came back in.

Run?? Does a bear dump in the woods??? I ran as tho my life depended on it and it actually did. If the water came up on me it would hit the wall of sand I had climbed down and then rush out again taking me with it. Scared?? Oh yes. cause I liked my life. Ran track for a bit in high school, but this day I woulda beat em all.......

Got to the sand hill just as the water got to it as well, There was a branch of some sort sticking out of the wall of sand. and as I grabbed it, I was only hoping it was sturdy enough to hold me when the water backed away from the shore again. The pull of the rush of water was so tremendous, I will never forget it. My tiny body against the mass of water was pulled back towards the channel as a kite tail flying in the wind. But the branch held. Had I been pulled out, I would have been drug at least a half a mile into the channel....but evidently this was not my day to disappear......

My cache of shells had been thrown over the sand bank and they were safe, but as I crawled up the remainder of the hill, I swore to myself never ever again would I not pay attention and was really glad I never went out there alone. But for my friends, I was too involved with all the pretty shells to watch anything else. Ah those were the days.

At the time of this writing, I do not believe the public or anyone is allowed back there as homes have been built and there are restrictions....I am not sure how the city did this, but I know there is a point now you cannot pass......it was so much nicer back then.

is at first difficult if you do not know what you are looking for. And they live along the channel....and also the best time to gig them is either at low tide, or it you are quick enough, when the ships suck the water out. But as you can see from my shelling experience, ya gotta be quick.

Once you spot the correct shape, it is stab (or spear if you prefer) Yank it up out of the sand and into a net or bucket. Taking a boat out close to shore in the evening is also a great way to catch them.....A lot of the island people used to make a living doing nothing but catching flounder and selling them to the restaurants.

Of course,flounder like every other fish down there is being fished out and the numbers are dwindling. People who love to fish and eat fish are just not understanding one thing. The more people who take them out of the water without giving them time to spawn and replenish themselves, the less of them there are to eat.

It would be really difficult for a place like where I lived to ban fishing for a year of so, because that would affect the tourism to the community and this would affect the way people lived there. But people at some point need to realize that if the fish are not allowed to reproduce, then there will be no more to catch or eat.

As with the farmlands being flooded and drought ridden, when food production is down, it becomes more expensive. I worry that this year will be a hard year at the end of the growing season for so much land has been ruined by natural disasters.

I am also going to make a good suggestion. Buy fresh veggies....freeze them and save them...our canned foods are filled with chemicals. These too will become expensive. Like the ant. Start storing up now while prices are relatively low and there is still good supply. What I am saying here bears research from all. Do your due diligence and make sure there is enough food when it gets almost too expensive to buy because this will be a hard growing season for the entire US.

Or course, as long as there are fish in the sea, and gigs, fishing poles and bait left, we should all be ok. 

For those of you who do not like fish, now would be a good time to learn to like it. I remember as a child, I detested fish, but this was because the person cooking it wasn't really fish orientated.   Cooking fish is not rocket science, but it does help if you know how to season it and prepare it.  Let''s see, if you decide to fry it, make sure your batter is fresh and the grease is good and hot, ya don't want a greasy fish ball to eat.  

Baking, ah there is so much to do with a baked fish....As I said i the beginning, my fave is baked flounder with a wine and mushroom sauce.    Yummy.   

Hope you enjoyed this.  Why don't you try floundering sometime.....only don't get caught floundering in the water when the tankers go by.....LOL