Temporarily Suspending This Blog

Due to the serious nature of my wife’s illness at the present time, I need to temporarily suspend posting to this blog. I am unable to get to the beach to learn of and write of the interesting things that are occurring. If you read this blog, I hope that you will bookmark the address so that you can easily check back at a future date. Also, if you are a person of faith, I would appreciate it if you upheld my wife in prayer. Her name is Sue.

Fishing Cart

I don’t know how many people are going to brave the wind and cold to walk the beach or fish today or any day this weekend. The wind is strong from the north about 14 mph but gusting into the mid 20s. The current is very strong and the ocean is on the rough side with lots of whitecaps.

Today is a day to think of other things. For fishermen, one other thing might be a fishing cart. Fishing carts are popular with some surf anglers. Last week I saw the fishing cart pictured. As you can see, it is a homemade cart. It stands taller than most carts I’ve seen. I posted pictures of 2 other fishing carts on October 31, 2008 and November 29, 2008.

Beach Going Vehicles!

I took this picture this past weekend. Most people walk to the beach. Some small children, however, are lucky enough to ride to the beach in style as evidenced by the two children “vehicles” pictured. Don’t you wish they had such “vehicles” when you were a child?

If you walk the beach today, you won’t encounter many people. Not only does it feel cold, but there is a cold north wind. In the morning, the ocean was rather calm, but I think it will kick up as the day progresses.

I have not seen many fish caught in the surf recently. What I have seen caught have been on the small side (Jack Cravelle, whiting, sharks). If any legal sized pompano were being caught, I did not see it.

Full Moon at the Beach

I seldom go to the beach at night time, but last night was an exception. The moon looked so gigantic in the eastern sky that I just had to go down and take a look at how the moon looked from the beach. As you can see, it was quite a site. A couple came walking by as I stood there. I said hello to them, but they must have been so enamored by the romance of the evening that they never returned the greeting!

Unlike so many days the last couple of weeks, today doesn’t look like a good beach day. It is overcast and perhaps a little drizzly. I expect the beach will be as deserted this afternoon as it was packed yesterday afternoon.

The northerly wind is light today. The water appears clean and the ocean is pretty flat. I don’t know how the fishing will be. The people with whom I talked with the last couple of days were not catching much. I wonder where the pompano went?

Gator Orange Sandspikes

When I walked the beach yesterday afternoon, I saw a fisherman using orange colored sandspikes. I would have called them Gator sandspikes, but they were missing blue! He had not caught anything when I talked with him, but he will be a happy fisherman today if he rooted for the new national champions, the Florida Gators.

Speaking of Florida Gator items, someone had orange colored flowers delivered to my wife in the hospital yesterday that were in a blue vase. I think there was an orange ribbon around the top of the vase.

Although the fish were not biting along the portion of Indialantic’s beach that I walked yesterday, I think that today could be a better day. The water is very clean. Perhaps the northerly wind will cause more wave action among the otherwise calm waters.

Today should be another great day for walking the beach. There have been some great beach days during the last couple of weeks.

Beach Morning

I walked down to the beach before sunrise this morning. There wasn’t another person to be seen. That the beach isn’t crowded is one nice thing about living in Indialantic.

It invigorated me to breathe the salt air and listen to the ocean sounds. I also enjoyed the fellowship of the numerous birds prancing on the beach. There was some cloudiness and I know a front will move through the area later in the day. Maybe this chamber of commerce weather that we’ve been having will go away and more normal January weather return.

From a fisherman’s standpoint, the water isn’t clean. After the front passes through the water will probably clear and make fishing good. Hopefully then I might grab my rod and try to catch some pompano!

Like a Great Lake

I took this picture not long after sunrise this morning. As you can see from the picture, the ocean in calm. This summer I was in Michigan and saw Lake Huron. The ocean today reminds me of what Lake Huron looked like.

There were a few people walking and I could see someone fishing way down the beach. The conditions are not good for catching pompano, but it might be a good day for whiting. The water isn’t overly clean and the winds are calm but they probably will pick up out of the southeast later in the day.

Sand Fleas

Non-fisherpersons who read this blog may not know what critter is pictured above. Anyone who fishes for pompano knows that these are sand fleas. This is not an insect but an arthropod (crustacean) called an amphipod that lives in sandy beach environments. Its diet consists of organic and decaying plant material (such as seaweeds on the beach). Very simply you may describe them as a small crustacean light in color and oval in shape up to an inch in length. You can often find them burrowing into the sand after a wave breaks.

At this time of the year they get difficult to find on the beach. The cold weather makes them burrow deeper in the sand. The warm weather we’ve been experiencing the last couple of weeks should make them readily available at times. Check my post for December 1, 2008 for what sand flea colonies are like when the fleas are plentiful.

If you are interested in fishing, the conditions are decent for today. There is a southeast wind, but the water is still fairly clear. There are a goodly number of people on the beach today taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

Sea Shells in a Pile

There are a lot of things I observe on the beach but don’t understand. One of the things I don’t understand is how shells can accumulate on one part of the peach and not another. I was walking the beach and you could see a few shells scattered here and there. At one spot, however, there was a pile of shells. Today’s picture shows what I saw. From what you can see on the rest of the beach, there are very few shells.

There have been times when I have seen piles of shells much deeper than what is pictured. Why do shells sometimes accumulate on one point on the beach? And, what is the significance of shells accumulated at a certain spot?

Yesterday the wind was strong and there were many whitecaps visible. The water, however, was clean since the wind was out of the northeast. Today the wind is out of the southeast, but the water is still clean. I encountered only one man fishing this morning, but he was not catching anything.