A winter beach

Winter is my favorite season on the beach.

Sure, you miss-out on being able to get into the water. The fishing, too, is different ... maybe a bit slower.

But cold-weather beaches are campfire beaches and flotsam and jetsam beaches and beaches without bugs. Often they are beaches without other people.

They're also pompano beaches, and, in the dead of winter, trophy trout lurk between the sandbars.

I go to the beach as I fish: that is, I go when I can. Not when the weather is perfect, nor when the Solunar tables say it's dinnertime for the finny classes.

Looking at my calendar last week, I realized the first weekend in December might be my last chance this year to hit the sand. I asked Patrick if that's how he'd like to spend his Saturday.

"Sure," he said. "Can we fish?"

It made for a long day ... nearly 500 miles of driving, roundtrip, for a couple of cold hours on the rocks, beachcombing 'til dark and a stop at Padre Pizzaria. Patrick outfished me 3:1, and then consoled me by assuring me that, had I used bait and a circle hook, I too could have caught whiting until I was bored.

"Besides, Daddy," he said, "Usually you always catch the biggest fish."

Later -- much later -- as he was crawling into bed back in Austin, I asked him if going to the beach in coat and galoshes was worth the long drive.

"I think it was," he said as he slipped beneath the thick comforter. "It was our last chance to go for the whole year."