It is that time of year again!

    I should know better by now.  If there is anything that should not take me by surprise, it should be anything to do with the Bayou.  Nope.  I was caught unawares once again.  Mark headed out fishing this afternoon and I stayed behind on the pier.  Seagulls were in a feeding frenzy which made me think that perhaps a school of shrimp was meandering about the Bay.  I watched until the birds were close and then decided to throw the net a bit.  Obviously, these were not shrimp. I caught an entire net full of baby white trout, one fat mullet and one menhaden.  Oh, did I forget to mention that I caught a whole mess of jellyfish and one huge sea nettle?  It was that sea nettle that was my undoing.  Yep, with the next cast of the net, I was hurting!  

  I am one of the folks that throw the net in the "old school" way.  I still put the leadline in my mouth.  Yeah, I know that this is probably not the best idea but old habits die hard.  This time when I popped the cording in my mouth, I also popped a few strands of the sea nettle's stinging tentacles in along with it.  Not fun!  My mouth began to feel like it was on fire!  For those who do not know, even the severed tentacles can still cause severe pain. Well, I figured that no matter what I did, the burning was not going to cease so I kept fishing.  

  The sea nettles make their way into the Bay and on up into the Bayou each fall.   Some stay year round but we do seem to see more during this time of year.  This presents a problem since this is also the time of year that the shrimp to come into the bays and bayous.  There is nothing more aggravating than to get a netful of sea nettles when you are expecting a netful of shrimp!