Holy Mackerel!

  It seems that there are a number of fish up in the Bay that just don't belong here at all!  I have been catching numerous puffer fish, ground mullet (which are not THAT unusual but not common) and now a Spanish Mackerel.  A SPANISH MACKEREL?  Yep, a Spanish Mackerel or at least a mackerel of some sort.  Several seasoned fishermen identified it as the Spanish sort so we are calling it that. (Personally, I could not give it a name other than mackerel since I had never seen one before!) To be totally honest here, I did not catch it.  Mark did.  He was out shrimping and caught the thing in his net.  Still, the presence of a mackerel in the Bay is sort of weird.  In all my days of fishing here, I have rarely heard of a mackerel being caught in the Bay.  Perhaps this guy was following the shrimp.  These fish are usually further out in the Gulf and not up in the brackish waters but, then again, the very large, white shrimp are usually out in the Gulf as well. Perhaps this guy was following the shrimp.  I cannot blame the fish, if that was the case!  The shrimp are huge and would give the mackerel quite the tasty treat for a meal.

   I was reading the other day that there is a humongous dead zone out in the Gulf of Mexico.  This started me thinking that, maybe..just maybe, all of the critters are avoiding that area.  Makes sense, does it not?  If I was a sea critter, I would definitely try to avoid swimming in an area that would most likely kill me!  Anyway, there has to be some reason that we are seeing quite a run of interesting critters up this far in the Bay. Whatever the reason, I sure am enjoying observing the variety of sea critters visiting the Bay and Bayou!