Peripheral Vision

  Last Friday I decided to take a day trip down to the Gulf Coast to visit a few friends. My current status of "unemployed" has found me with more time on my hands than I'd like, so I am trying to fill the voids with productive activities. I spent the morning with Captain Freddy Lynch in Corpus, then later that afternoon drove over to the town of Rockport to visit another close friend.

  Rockport has historically been my family's home base for angling. I have been going there since before I could walk, and to be honest all of my earliest memories revolve around Rockport Texas. Up until 2007, Rockport was still my go-to spot...that is until I started fishing the Laguna Madre with Captain Lynch. As the crowds around Rockport grew and the fishing pressure increased, my tolerance for such things was receding. So I began to concentrate on destinations more remote and further south. Then in 2010, my parents decided to sell their home in Rockport, so for all intents and purposes, there wasn't much reason for me to go there anymore.

  Friday afternoon I drove up from Corpus, and before visiting my old friend, I spent some time just driving around the city just to see what had changed and what still resembled something like "the good ol days". Unlike many other famous angling destinations, Rockport is still very much recognizable. It's growing but not say like some of the locales in Florida. The important thing is that so many of the old personally historically significant landmarks from my youth are still there. The Balboa Courts Motel where we stayed when I was a kid, The Cove Harbor Marina where we used to launch our old boat, Charlotte Plummers Seafood Restaurant...all still there and thriving. More importantly, though are the fishing spots I used to frequent. Yes, they too are still there, and surprisingly enough, most are relatively unchanged.

  On the way home I stopped by an old favorite spot down a dead-end dirt road that gave those of us "in the know" direct access to Port Bay. The road is a little more gentile than it used to be, with far fewer ruts and holes to bust an axle. And, the county has laid a gravel base for folks to safely launch a kayak along the bank, but other than that, it looks very much the same.

  I decided to park the car for a few minutes and reminisce. It's hard to believe that 25 years have passed since I stalked two 25" Speckled Trout with my first custom-built 7wt fly rod and a red and white #4 Seaducer no more than 100 meters from where my car was parked. I can't begin to remember the number of sunrises I have had the great privilege of witnessing appear over the northwest shoreline of this beautiful stretch of water. I am going to make the assumption based upon some intel from a colleague that the fish are still there too, and hopefully, they're still doing what fish do...swim, eat and make baby fish.

  Moments like this have become far too infrequent in my life. And it's in moments of reflection like this that I begin to appreciate the peripheral experiences that angling brings into our lives. Cloudless sunrises, the smell of the salt air, the wail of a seagull, the gentle resistance of a skiff as it parts the water's surface in front of it. It is these memories that I can still feel so cerebrally as if they just happened yesterday. And, I suppose that compared to the timeline that humans have been walking this stretch of the Gulf Coast, it is almost like it was just yesterday.

  As I get older, it is the peripheral sights, sounds and smells that remain imprinted on my memory as much as the fish themselves do. And in all honesty, I welcome that, as it simply adds to the intensity of the memories I have of this place.

Photo above taken in 1998 Port Bay Texas

Hope you're all having a great week,

Andy