Corpusfishing.com

[67 Shellback]

We got to the beach around 8:30 this morning and stopped around the 18 MM. We were there for about 20 minutes when my wife noticed that our Sheltie was chewing at her front paws. She checked on the dog and found that she had gotten in a lot of tar. We cut off some of the large pieces and tried to clean her as best we could. Headed home to clean her up. After we got home, my wife cleaned the dog's paws real good. The dog was sick 4 times this afternoon. Guess she ingested some of the tar. There is a lot of tar on the beach and it seems to start in the mid-teens.

Only got to fish for 20 minutes and we caught 2 whiting and a hardhead.

Go prepared for tar removal this weekend!

[Team Buddhahead]

Was there a lot? Heading down tomorrow for a couple of days?
Thanks..
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[Fishbrains]

I think that tar comes from those offshore rigs & crewboats that spill oil. Once in saltwater it turns into that tar looking stuff. I've seen lots of it on the beach clean ups.

Thanks on the heads up, tho it won't be doing me any good

Hope your dog gets better.

[larry meinert]

The tar comes from vents at the bottom of the gulf. This event has been reported long before there were oil rigs or tankers.

[larry meinert]

We have reached that time of year when Texans mourn that the Gulf of Mexico is not the Mediterranean and South Padre Island is not Nice. Whatever the virtues of Texas beaches -- they are open to the public, and they beat Kansas by a long shot -- it is safe to say that they are not likely to be confused with the Côte d�Azur. The water is a murky green and the sand a dismal gray, conditions that are imposed upon us by the Mississippi River, which deposits the silt of Middle America into the western Gulf. Still, we might be able to cope with the aesthetic deprivation were it not for a single dark icon of misery: the tar ball.

Tar balls have been washing up on Texas beaches at least since the days of the Karankawa Indians, who used them to waterproof baskets and pottery. Today the tar ball can be found on the feet of almost anyone who spends an afternoon on a Texas beach. In seaside towns such as Galveston children are taught early that after a trip to the beach they must not step on the floor before applying kerosene to their feet. Some coastal hotels even provide their guests with complimentary oil-cutting solvents to remove the tar (baby oil, suntan oil, and peanut butter also do the trick).

[The Trash Heap]

As larry says, some is from natural seepage, and was used by pre-Columbian Native Americans for decorative as well as water-proofing purposes. At least as much tar still appears in patterns on the outsides as it does coating the insides of the local ancient pottery known as Rockport Ware.

Spills occur on land as well as on the sea. Some are tiny initially, like leaks from vehicles, but add up when a whole city's drippings are washed down the storm drains. Some dumbasses pour the results of an oil change down the same drains, and to make a few bucks so-called moonlight dumpers will follow that with thousands of gallons of waste oils and chemicals.

You may recall that Hurricane Katrina washed refinery tankfulls of crude and refined oils into neighborhoods and eventually into rivers and out to sea.

Well blowouts and ship sinkings are notorious sources, but bilge pumping and flushing cargo tanks occur much more commonly. The Coast Guard is cracking down on the latter, with sophisticated ways of detecting sheens and matching the chemical make-up of a spill to a particular ship's cargo.
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[iflyabeech]

I spent a little over a year in northwest Florida on the gulf. (Panama City)
They have beautiful beaches, clear water, sugar white sand, no tar, etc....But guess what--you can barely access the beach, let alone drive on it! I love our beaches!

Here is a letter to the editor of the caller-times from a year and a half ago that I wrote pointing this out....something to think about!


http://www.caller.com/news/2006/jan/21/letters-to-the-editor-012106/

Keep beach access

My wife and I grew up in Corpus Christi, and we still call it home even though we live in Florida now. Corpus Christi cannot allow its beaches to be closed to vehicle traffic.

Here in Panama City, you can hardly even see the Gulf because there are so many condos lining the beach. You have to park blocks away and walk with all of your things to the beach. The beaches around Corpus Christi are still open and give you a sense of being outdoors.

It would be such a shame to see our hometown beaches start to look like the overcrowded beaches of Florida and elsewhere.

If you allow one development to close the beach to traffic, more will follow, and the beaches will lose their uniqueness.

I cringe when I drive down the main drag here, a block away from the beach, because the beach is not visible due to the high rise condos.

I cringe when I think this could happen to the beaches of the Coastal Bend. Please keep our beaches the way they are and the way they have been. Keep them unique.

Kelly Harlan

(Panama City Beach, Fla.)
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[surfdragon]

I spent two days 7-12-07 - 7-13-07 south of bob hall,No tar there if it helps any one.
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[ironmanstan]

I wonder how much tar is still rolling around from the bay of Campeche?
For those of you who remember, that was a huge blow out and spill.
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I LIKE MINE FRIED.

[The Trash Heap]

If it stayed in the water, I'm sure the Ixtoc mousse biodegraded long ago. There may still be some with shells cemented into it and buried on the upper beach at Big Shell, though. Still see stuff suspiciously like that after a good storm has come through. Some of those Ixtoc tar balls were big and hard enough to park a truck on after they filled up with shell fragments and cured a while.

I hope I never see another spill like that, much less have to clean another oiled bird. Those blue herons were hell, and the industrial strength Lux Amber Liquid used to clean feathers cleaned the skin off your hands after a while.
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[ironmanstan]

I remember seeing miles of it floating in the gulf, kinda like weed lines except it was tar balls. Everybody that went to the beach got it on there feet. It was everywhere, especially in vehical carpets.
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I LIKE MINE FRIED.

[Flyfisher]

[dospescadores]

I've been to the beach (mostly PINS) over a 100 times in the past 5 years and I have never experienced or even seen tar.
I went to the Pacific near LA last month for less than an hour and our feet were covered with that stuff.
Definitely a pain, so I'm glad I haven't experienced it down here.

[Bluffer]