Beach Camping on the Gulf of Mexico...

 I always keep an eye on fishing reports and our recent travels have kept us from good beachfront conditions but we managed to make it to Surfside beach this weekend for clear water, calm winds, cloud cover to keep it a bit cooler and biting fish. 

Here's 7 whiting and one speckled trout that I caught on dead shrimp under a popping cork. Those big ones are about as large as they get. They are like a panfish with no restriction. We ate them and then I caught another little bunch of whiting which we cleaned and froze to bring home for another day.   

All I ever really wanted to do was play tuba and camp on the beach with a girl and that's pretty much where we are at these days. The Brazoria County part of the beach is free camping. There are no hook ups but with our solar and a generator to run the AC at night we get by. There was one day when it was a bit cloudy and we had to turn on the generator earlier in the evening but that's ok. One propane tank runs the AC 12 hours. I'm up fishing long before that but the afore mentioned girl usually sleeps 12 hours. 

Here's the catch of the trip. It's a 25 inch Spanish Mackerel. Spanish macks usually like a flashy lure and because of the teeth you better have a short steel leader. This one hit a dead shrimp under a popping cork. It made several runs stripping line from my reel but I landed it, filleted it and we had it for supper. 

I think last trip the fish wanted all baits fished on the bottom but this trip the popping cork was the ticket as everything was swimming high in the water column and wanted the bait suspended. 

I think that mack makes the 13th species I have caught this year. I hung several ladyfish which is a member of the tarpon family and not good eating but with their twisting and jumping never added them to the catch list.  

Friends from church Peter and Sherry joined us for a day. Sherry grew up on south Padre and Peter is a long time surf fisherman. They are beach people like us and after talking up the beach while we stood around in the church foyer we finally made a day and piled up the whiting and they shared our mack supper. 

Late summer is clear water time. River flows are down and so far tropical activity is non existent for the middle of the Texas peak season so the water was swimming pool clear. Photos don't do it justice. 

We never had much rain but thunderstorms rolled all around us and we saw a double rainbow and clouds were like paintings. 

We have a big trip planned the end of September but hopefully we can make one more beach trip before this. Maybe the pleasant conditions and fishing will hold.