Port Mansfield Texas
TODAY’S UPDATE: DREDGING UNDERWAY at Port Mansfield
THE LAND CUT JETTIES at Port Mansfield
A SIDE NOTE: A new story in the Lone Star Outdoor News this week shocked my senses back to life – strictly for the purpose of bringing you – very slowly and surely – the series on my trip to Port Mansfield this past October. If you think I am lacking in motivation? You don’t know the half …
CULLING THE HERD
Along the streets of the sleepy little fishing village of Port Mansfield, Texas, there roams a sizable herd of very healthy whitetail deer. While I was there, they were already getting frisky at feeling the weather change, but mostly they just stood and stared at we humans, seeming like dogs looking for treats. Fast-forward to the Lone Star Outdoor News story, and you will learn that the Mansfield herd had to be “depopulated” this fall.
ON WITH THE STORY!
Probably the biggest story in Port Mansfield, the story of this decade (what days are now left of it), is the dredging of the channel (CUT) that goes between the jetties that CUT South Padre Island due east of Mansfield. Sand has, for years now, put a strangle hold on the CUT. That’s because the channel is now so extremely shallow that waves, ocean rollers actually break in, YES IN, the channel that is supposed to be a safe passage for vessels. What is supposed to be safe passage is actually a gauntlet of waves that challenge a captain’s skills, and can lead smaller boats to turn back on a regular basis. Southeast and east winds are the bane of anyone expecting to make their way through to go offshore.
IF YOU GO: There is a deeper slot against the inside of the NORTH jetty that takes less wave action and is your way through the gauntlet – TYPICALLY.
ATTENTION LONGBOARDERS! SURF’S UP!
This break I speak of is a long one, very long and predictable. What I, the former surfer, see is a 500-yard break that is custom made for a long boarder. It appears that because of the way it sanded in, the south jetty has the majority of the sand, with a deeper passage along the northern jetty. Skills would be required, but I am shocked that there is so little talk about this break among Texas surfers. Chalk up another + for the isolation that is Port Mansfield and the northern reaches of the Lower Laguna Madre.
ALL GOOD THINGS
All good things must end though, and the same goes for this fantastic long board break at the CUT. While the only upside is a wave that no one surfs, the downside is the devastating economic impact this shallow passage has had on the Port Mansfield economy. Apparently, the powers that be, have finally gotten their act together and are starting the dredging process this month. Of course, the old salts in town say, “they’ll believe it when they see it.”
Always the optimist, I tend to believe they will dredge the channel, and the Mansfield economy will be changed, and perhaps the Port Mansfield of 2019 is a snapshot of the “before.” We have a duty to see what the after looks like, if for nothing else than to report it!
Unless you are headed to, or out the jetties to the open Gulf of Mexico, the challenges of the CUT can be left to the big boys and their big boats. I imagine my little fifteen-footer there, and laugh. A fifteen foot skiff is only about three or four feet longer than a long boarder’s board!
No, we’re going to concentrate on the inside this time.
DREDGING UPDATE Dateline 12-19-20
I am just off the phone with Poco Loco Bait & Tackle in Port Mansfield, and they tell me the mouth of the harbor – right there at Mansfield – has been dredged. I was also told that the dredging is going on in the Land Cut right now
NEXT TIME – THE WATER GOES ON FOREVER AND THE PARTY NEVER ENDS
Category: Adventure, Culture on the Skids, Fishing Reports, Texas Gulf Coast
