We headed down to Seadrift this past weekend for our first big fishing trip of the year. We ate at Barkett’s again and had great food there. The next morning we checked out of the Seadrifter Inn and headed for the floating cabin off of Matagorda Island We didn’t rush into anything so we hit the water around 9:00am (low tide) and motored out. We found that someone had broken into the floater, but hadn’t done much more damage than tearing a screen window and breaking a hinge on the shutter. Still just a shamed to see that people have to do that kind of shit. We dropped off our gear and got lines in the water.

We didn’t have much luck wading the flats, so we headed for the birds and I picked up a 16″ trout, so the skunk was off. Later, we retired to the floater for a nap and I managed to catch a rat red off of it (15″, back he went) and another keeper trout.

Later in the afternoon Stu suggested we head for one of his “honey holes” and he was right on the mark. In less than 15 minutes he and I limited on Redfish (21″ - 27.5″) and Mike nabbed a very nice trout.

We returned to the cabin and setup the grill and lanterns (I had a new Coleman Northstar which is VERY bright and easy to work with.) and cleaned fish. We had a nice “Surf and Turf” dinner and turned in for the night. I slept on the porch as the breeze was nice and I could listen to the waves and mullet jumping.

We woke up Sunday morning and piddled around, had some breakfast (corned beef hash, yum!!!) and went fishing again. Wading wasn’t the thing, possibly due to the low tide. We hunted down the birds again and got into the trout, but they were all coming in around 14″ - 14.5″, just under. No matter, we caught 8-10 of them and had one triple hookup.

Headed back the Seadrift and disembarked, cleaned up and headed to the house. Was a GREAT time and I can’t wait to hit it again soon!

The New Braunfels Float Team had our first float of the year. It was good fun with good folks, as always. We didn’t get started until almost 2:30 due to some newbies from Austin arriving late, but that was just more time to down a few cold ones and chat with friends. The river was flowing nicely and the new chute around Stinky’s was nice, but still shallow…keep your butt up through there.

I don’t get it, I’m paying for service and food at these places and it seems more and more of them supply less options for either. My wife and I recently went to a restaurant that we have frequented in the past and they have a plate that I like. I really like a plate of fried oysters, fried shrimp and fried crawfish, which isn’t on the menu, but they have made the sub for me before. This time we were informed that the only way we could do this is by “buying” the fried crawfish ($6) in addition to the other two I wanted and the fried catfish, which I don’t like. The other option was to order the “Pick two” platter which could have any two of the 3 I prefer for $12. Neither option is what I wanted, so since we were there we picked a halfway point with my wife taking my catfish and me eating the shrimp and oysters. In the end, they didn’t get the add-on sale they were looking for and didn’t even get to sell two plates…we split one. Finally, we won’t be going back anytime soon since they have decided that I can only spend money there the way THEY want. WTF? I wasn’t asking for free food, hell, I would even pay a modest fee for what I wanted ($1-2). Oh well, less business for them.

We’ve noticed several other times lately from differing places and I just wonder, what is their motivation? Always play inside the rules someone made or take care of the customer and get them to come back and spend more money?

It’s penny wise and pound foolish in my mind…you may make money off of me this time, but I won’t be back and won’t recommend them. Who really wins in this scenario? If not the restaruant and not me, then who?

That’s just dumb.

By the way, it’s Clear Springs Cafe in Clear Springs, just outside of New Braunfels.

We took our 1st Quarter offsite on the road this quarter. Stu got his new (used) boat and we needed to go try it out.

We ran down to Seadrift, TX and stayed at the wonderful Seadrifter Inn which was very reasonable, clean and right on the bay. Thursday night we went about 300yds to Barkett’s restaraunt and had wonderful seafood. A dozen fresh oysters for $9 and 4 full softshell crabs for $11. The food and envrionment were outstanding!

Friday morning we took the boat out and ran the 12 miles across San Antonio bay to Matagorda Island and went to fishing. It was cold, breezy on the way out but Stu’s flats boat rode well. We did some drifting, a bit of wading and some messing around. The water was murkey due to the wind and water temp was cold so we only caught 2 rat reds, but had a great time getting ourselves in order for the spring / summer.

I’ve got to go pick up a couple of saltwater rigs and a bit of gear for the next trip, which we hope to be in about 2 weeks.

Our local Pizza eatery, Mr. Gattis has great pizza. They use nice ingredients on well sized pizzas, in short, we really like them. The pizza is hot when you pick it up, comes with plenty of extras and is reasonably priced. So why the rant? It’s their customer service. You can generally call them without much issue, but once you go to the store to pick the pizza up the shit starts. First off, they have 4-5 people behind the counter, but only ONE of them is normally minding the cash wrap and pickup window. This person is taking walk in orders, taking phone orders AND trying to run the register for the people there to pickup their pizza. This single person is way overloaded and often makes mistakes as it seems the least senior person gets cash wrap duty. They grab the wrong pizza, they can’t work the credit card machine and have a gaggle of customers staring at them impaitently. Maybe, just maybe, they should get some of those other folks back there to move their lazy asses and actually help out at the front where the cash is being delivered for a pizza.

It’s not a huge thing, just make someone back there have dual duty in high traffic times, I mean WTF they have great product, just shitty customer service and that shitty service isn’t the fault of the poor teenager working the cash wrap, it’s the fault of a manager or higher who’s deemed that one person on the register is enough.

My wife and I have been on a binge for it lately, it’s got the perfect amount of tartness with sweetness. It’s only 25% juice and it’s got high fructose corn syrup, but we don’t care. It’s good stuff!