Thursday, June 21, 2001

With ‘one foot in the grave,’ ship finally came in for 87-year-old angler

Handley

Last week, Jack Handley caught three flounder that weighed between six and seven pounds each.
   So Saturday, he reluctantly entered the Coastal Conservation Association STAR tournament, thinking he might have a shot at winning a boat, the top prize in the contest's flounder division.
   I say "reluctantly" because the 87-year-old angler believed that throughout his long life, he'd poured enough money into drawings, raffles and contests without any discernable return.
   This attitude was shaken three days later.
   Tuesday at noon, while fishing near Shamrock Island, he caught a CCA-tagged redfish that should qualify him as the fourth winner of a new Ford pickup, 22-foot Blue Wave boat, 150-horsepower Mercury outboard and Magnum trailer.
   "Now that I've got one foot in the grave, my ship finally comes in," said Handley, the third Corpus Christi resident to catch a tagged redfish this summer. Last week, Rick Rosenberg was the first to qualify for one of five truck/boat package awarded during the annual CCA statewide contest.
   A second local angler caught one of the 60 specially tagged redfish released along the Texas coast, but is not eligible to win because he wasn't registered in the tournament. This happens every year. Imagine the disappointment.
   Other tagged redfish were caught recently in the Matagorda and Port O'Connor areas, each by eligible anglers.
   STAR tournament director Bill Kinney was as puzzled as he was surprised that three of the first five tagged redfish were caught so near Corpus Christi. What are the odds?
   Last year, no registered Corpus Christi anglers caught tagged redfish. The year before, only one Christ Christi angler caught a tagged redfish. And in 1999, only one local angler caught a tagged red.
   Over the tournament's 12-year history, upper coast anglers for some reason have won most of the truck/boat packages.
   "This has never happened before," said assistant STAR director Gina Saenz about the inordinate number of locally caught tagged redfish. "We distribute them evenly each year between Sabine and Port Isabel."
   The next qualified angler to catch a tagged redfish will win the fifth and final truck/boat package. Then the following five qualified anglers who catch tagged redfish will win a Blue Wave boat, 150-horsepower Mercury and trailer.
   The contest ends Sept. 3.
   Watch for the birdies
   Coastal Bend sportsmen share the outdoors with hundreds of different birds.
   Twenty-three of these species breed on our islands from March through August. At any given time during this period, 10 to 12 species could be nesting on your favorite fishing shoreline.
   It's up to boaters and anglers to know when these close encounters are most likely to harm the next generation of birds.
   When a boat or wader causes a mother bird to leave her nest, it only takes about five minutes of midday sun to destroy the eggs or kill the hatchling.
   This is against federal law, and punishable by a substantial fine. Yellow and blue signs are posted on or around many of the more popular nesting sites. Audubon wardens and others from the birding community will be patrolling these sites through August 31.
   These wardens have no enforcement authority, but they will report violators. If you see someone disturbing the birds, get the TX number off their boat and call Tom Mason, the federal game warden stationed in Corpus Christi, at 289-5037. Or call the phone number on the signs.
   The recommended distance for boats to maintain from a nesting island is 1,000 feet. It's never a good idea to beach your boat or walk on an island where birds are nesting.
   And by all means, don't let a dog - colonial waterbirds' natural enemy - loose on a nesting island. But it's possible to wade a reasonable distance from an island without disturbing the birds, said Gene Blacklock of the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program.
   Use your good judgement. If the birds grow noisier upon your approach, or if they take flight, you are too close.
   With as many birds as we see around here, it might be difficult to imagine that we pose a threat. But Blacklock has recorded a significant decline in wading birds over the past 10-20 years. While he's seen an increase in brown pelicans, sandwich terns and royal terns, numbers of reddish egrets, white-faced ibises, great blue herons, snowy egrets and roseate spoonbills are down.
   These are indicator species, which signal the relative health of an estuarine system, said Ray Allen, executive director of the CBBEP.
   We have two of the top 10 most important nesting islands in Texas here in the Coastal Bend, Pelican Island and Shamrock Island, both in Corpus Christi Bay. But dozens of other islands between San Antonio and Baffin bays are nesting sites, which should not be disturbed.
   Other important rookeries include Causeway Island in Nueces Bay; Second Chain of Islands, just south of San Antonio Bay, many of the spoil islands near the JFK Causeway, and, of course, Bird Island, north of Bird Island Basin.
  
  

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