Port Mansfield Deer

Port Mansfield is noted for two things -- the salt water fishing and the deer.  The deer population is out of control in this town.  Of course no hunting is allowed in the city limits and everyone in town feeds the deer.  Jim has really enjoyed feeding them even though he named them chops, roast, tenderloin, etc.  Poaching is a very expensive crime here and the game wardens keep watch but that's not to say something doesn't happen in the middle of the night.  We would never take a deer illegally but they do look delicious although they are tiny here compared to up north.  A good sized deer here would dress out at just 130 pounds.  Most northern hunters wouldn't bother with this small size. 

We are finally going to go out deep sea fishing this week.  We are taking one of the charters that goes out to the gulf from here in Port Mansfield.  Its only an hour to the fishing grounds from here.  If you take a charter out of South Padre Island its a two hour boat ride.  We will be taking Dramamine just to make sure we don't get seasick.  We should be coming back with some nice red snapper.  Next week we will be leaving Port Mansfield and heading to Midland, TX.  We took a job for two months there at a campground.  They just need some extra help this spring.  We are looking forward to getting away from the salt air and watching everything start to rust.   

Gulf Coast Boats

Boats that go out in the Laguna Madre are very different from anything we've seen up north.  They run very shallow -- even the motor is up higher in back so it can go through the shallow water without hitting bottom.  The boat in the top picture is the latest version of "Shallow Sport" boat.  It has three indents running through the bottom like a catamaran.  Its supposed to run smoother in the chop because they don't have a lot of freeboard  -- the boat sits very low in the water -- .  We went out in the boat that Jim is standing by and it felt like any little wave would wash you overboard.

These boats are very stable and no one seems to have a problem with them out in the Laguna as far as falling overboard.  Although even if you fell overboard all you have to do is stand up.  The water is running about three feet deep. 

The weather is finally better without the threat of real cold -- low 30's.  The problem with cold weather down here is they threaten rolling blackouts because of the high demand with all of the electric heaters in use.  

Hillbilly Goldpanning

Guess what happens when you get really bored - you will try anything.  Jim saw a Youtube video on how you could find gold in a bag of Quickcrete.  So we went to the local Home Depot and bought a bag of Quickcrete sand-- the all purpose sand not the play sand kind.  We ran it through our gold wheel and did find some black sand.  Gold will stick to black sand because black sand is pretty heavy just not as heavy as gold.  There was also some nice little pieces of quartz -- all good signs of potential gold.  So the idea isn't as crazy as it sounds and in the Youtube video the guy did find some tiny specks of gold.  I guess it just depends on where the sand comes from -- obviously our bag wasn't from the right place. 

The weather got fairly cold and wet down here - hovering in the low 30's for almost two days.  The whole Rio Grand valley was on notice to be prepared for rolling blackouts because the power company couldn't keep up with demand.  We were lucky -- we only had a few hours where the power was on and off -- of course right during primetime tv watching.  We can run our furnace on battery power for awhile but we really don't want to find out how long the batteries would last. 

The Red and the Black

Who knew that vultures could be interesting.  Here in Texas we have the usual Turkey vultures with the red on their head as well as the Black vultures with grey heads.  Turkey vultures are found throughout the U.S. but Black vultures are only found in Texas and across the Southeast.   Turkey vultures are a little bigger than their black cousins.  Vultures play an important role in cleaning up carrion and are said to be able to smell something dead up to 10 miles away.  In the mornings they like to perch and spread out their wings to dry. 

Our water heater decided to start leaking.  It was a leak in the tank so we had to have it replaced.  It works on either propane or electricity and holds 10 gallons of water which is a good size for an RV.  It was quite expensive to replace but its no fun not to have hot water.  Especially here where the bathhouse isn't heated and we've had days in the 30's and 40's.