Friends of Padre Beach Report 10/21/2013

Water is clear the entire length of the beach but Sargassum owns it from one end to the other. Large mats still coming in are visible in most areas. A few jack Crevalle, Spanish Mackerel and redfish are available in small areas but it is a hard grind with the weed and most of the beach is unfishable. The beach is hard packed and driving is good although weed covers much of the beach front and traveling on high tide is tough. Only about one mile North of the Port Mansfield jetties is clear of grass. Finger mullet are scattered. I have never seen the grass this bad at this time of year and my impression is it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Birds were hard to observe in the cloudy conditions and with all the Sargassum but my count came up to 1,360 Red Knots (probably this is less than were actually present), 30 Long Billed Curlews, 5 Peregrine Falcons, 1 Merlin and 2 Caracara.