Where we are

Late last week I took a cyber-stroll by this site and realized it had been nearly a month since I'd posted anything new.

Kinda made me feel guilty.

So, below, you'll find a recap (with photos) of the most recent leg of the Texas Kayak Safari. Most of that information also lives at http://www.texassportingjournal.com/, so if you bopped on over there last month you probably already have read it.

There's more, and a different version, coming out in the magazine in the May/June issue. Pick it up at Barnes & Noble or your local news stand, or -- better -- go to the magazine Web site and sign-up for a subscription.

Weather forced a postponement of the Easter weekend paddling leg from Port Mansfield to Yarborough Pass; we had sleet and snow in Central Texas, and gusty north winds and temps in the 40s and 50s on the coast. It was a good weekend to do other things.

Hopefully that will be the last big blast of cold air until sometime around Thanksgiving. Bay waters are warming, spanish mackerel and kingfish already are showing up on the middle coast and with big bait balls moving along the shore the tarpon shouldn't be far behind.

Speaking of tarpon, I recently read an unpublished manuscript by Hart Stillwell. Stillwell was a legendary Texas writer who penned Hunting and Fishing in Texas and Hunting and Fishing in Mexico along with a novel and more. Back in the day, you could find his articles in True and Cosmopolitan (I'm not making this up) as well as Field & Stream and Outdoor Life.

This book, unearthed in an attic box at Texas State University's Alkerk Library by my colleague Steve Lightfoot, was to be titled Glory of the Silver King.

It's a fascinating look at changing conservation ethics and -- especially interesting to me -- the tarpon and snook fishery in South Texas and northern Mexico from the 1930s through the 1960s.