In this section: Fishing :: Hunting :: Birding :: Shelling :: Matagorda Island

FISHING

Port O'Connor has as many varieties of fishing opportunities as you will find anywhere. Its close proximity to the Gulf provides excellent fishing for red snapper, king, ling and jack fish, plus deep water fishing for sailfish, marlin, tuna, dolphin and wahoo. With the largest and deepest bay system on the Texas Gulf Coast, Port O'Connor has much more to offer to the avid sports fisherman. Favorite fishing spots include Matagorda Bay, Espiritu Santu Bay and San Antonio Bay. These pristine waterways are full of redfish, shark, flounder, pompano, gafftop, whiting, croaker, sheephead, drum, jack crevalle and Spanish mackerel. Most impressive is the "silver king" of inshore game fish, the tarpon.

This bay system has the best natural passes or entries to the Gulf of Mexico on the Texas coast. These include the famous Pass Cavallo, and the Matagorda Ship Channel Jetties (Big Jetties). Pass Cavallo is the only natural deep water pass on the Texas Gulf Coast. Pass Cavallo is renowned for being one of the best tarpon and shark fishing spots in the county during the summer and fall months. The tidal flows in the pass are swift. The variable bottom tends to channel the water into the "guts" where the fish will congregate to catch the bait fish being swept in or out of the bay. Unlike Corpus Christi Bay or other Texas bays that are huge expanses of water with little tidal movement, the local bays have a greater degree of tidal movement where fishermen can catch fish as they come in from or go back to the Gulf. However, the shoals in the pass change continuously with the tidal flows. For safety reasons, anglers should make sure there is someone on the boat familiar with the area.

Offshore rigs just five miles away from Port O'Connor docks are excellent places to fish for kings, ling, snapper and dolphin.

In addition to the bay and gulf areas, the local area includes undeveloped estuaries: Powderhorn Lake, Coloma Creek, Pringle Lake and Conti Lake. Pringle and Conti offer shallow water wade fishing with an average of a foot-and-a-half to three feet of water. These estuaries have good grass bottoms where shrimp and fish live.

Along the beautiful, unspoiled beaches around Port O'Connor, fishermen find excellent places to wade and surf fish. When weather becomes too rough, fishermen can still go to Espiritu Santo Bay, the little jetties or the fishing pier in Port O'Connor where the protected areas offer a safe haven.

Port O'Connor offers several bait docks, many places to acquire a license and fishing guides to help you find the most productive fishing spots.¹

Every summer Port O'Connor plays host to a variety of bay and offshore fishing tournaments. A typical summer opens with the Port O'Connor Offshore Tournament (POOT) targeting king mackerel, ling and dolphin headquartered at The Fishing Center. June is also the host month of the Pescado Grande tournament. July tournaments include the Cula Roja, Victoria Home Builders and Poco Bueno. Poco Bueno is the number one offshore tournament in Texas. August is the month for the Muske Tournament and the American Business Women's Association La Pesca Chica. La Pesca Chica organizers raise funds for community projects. The Fishing Center also sponsors several offshore one-day or weekend tournaments throughout the year.²

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HUNTING

Port O'Connor even has happy hunting grounds for superb duck and geese hunting, and all with excellent guide services.

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BIRDING

Bird watching is growing in popularity as a recreational activity along the Texas Gulf Coast, with Port O'Connor being one of the best birding "hot spots" in the state.

For the last five years the area surrounding Port O'Connor has held the record for the most bird species spotted, in not only the state, but the nation!

In April 1997, Port O'Connor was included in the first annual State of Texas Birding contest, the Great Texas Birding Classic. Noted as the longest birding competition ever conducted in the United States, teams of avid birders competed over a three-day period, throughout three different geographic regions, along a 624-mile stretch of the Texas Gulf coast. The object of the contest was to record the highest possible number of bird species spotted in each region.

Winners of the Birding Classic were awarded a $40,000 "Cash Grand Prize for Conservation," which was allocated to an approved coastal bird conservation project of their choice.

Springtime is the peak season for birds making their way to the Port O'Connor area. Throughout the town site and along Boggy Bayou visitors will see White and Brown Pelicans, Lesser Golden Plovers and Pectoral Sandpipers. Also to be spotted are wood warblers, buntings, orioles, tanagers, thrushes, a variety of terns and gulls, black skimmers, American oystercatchers and several species of ducks.

While visiting Port O'Connor and its waterways, a visitor must not neglect a trip to Sundown Island, also known locally as Bird Island. The island, made from the dredging of the Matagorda Ship Channel back in the 60s, has now become the home of at least 18 species of birds, such as snowy egrets, scarlet ibis, roseate spoonbills, reddish egrets, great blue herons, cormorants, oystercatchers, black skimmers, white-faced ibis and a variety of gulls and terns. An impressive 25,000 nesting pairs of birds hatch their young here during the springtime. It is advised that birders enjoy the view of this spoil island from their boat, so as not to disturb the birds and cause them to abandon their nests. The island is also one of the few brown pelican rookeries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

During the summer months, an estimated 37 species of waterfowl, songbirds and shorebirds are known to nest near Port O'Connor, specifically on Matagorda Island. This is the season to observe nesting white-tailed hawks, black-shouldered kites, wilson plovers and least terns, wood storks and the magnificent frigate birds.

A boat trip to Matagorda Island or to other Island beaches will provide additional opportunities to see magnificent Frigate birds in summer, Black Skimmers, Reddish Egrets, Nestling Ploves and Least Tern, Peregrine Falcon and migrating shorebirds in Fall.³

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SHELLING

Whether a serious or a casual beachcomber, Port O'Connor offers numerous shelling opportunities. Some of these areas include the little jetties along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Gulf beaches adjoining Pass Cavallo and several interesting spots on Matagorda Island.⁴

There are five classes of mollusks, containing roughly 400 different species, which may be collected on the Texas Coast. These include gastropods (snails), bivalves (clams, oysters, cockles, and scallops), scaphopods (long, tapering tusk like tubes), chitons (segmented to allow them to roll up like a pill bug) and cephalopods (octopus and squid).

One of the most sought after shells on the Texas coast is the Mitchell's Wintletrap. This shell, which can only be found on the gulf coast of Texas and Mexico, has been spotted on several recent occasions on the Gulf Beach of Matagorda Island State Park.

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¹ 1997 Visitor's Guide, Port Lavaca Wave. pg. 22-23

² Ibid, pg. 19

³ Ibid, pg 16

⁴ Ibid, pg 29

MATAGORDA ISLAND

A short boat ride away is pristine Matagorda Island State Park. Matagorda Island offers a variety of activities including fishing, swimming, beach combing, hunting, camping, birding and photography.

A barrier island, Matagorda stretches nearly 38 miles southwest from Pass Cavallo, near Port O'Connor, to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. By agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior, which owns most of the island, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) manages the nearly 45,000 acres. About 36,000 of these acres are set aside as a wildlife management area to protect endangered species, but the rest is open to the public as a state park. However, the island is still in its near natural state: no convenience stores, condos, vendors; in fact, no drinking water or electricity, just miles and miles of unblemished beaches where you can go swimming, fishing, picnicking, shell collecting or bird watching.¹

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¹ 1997 Visitor's Guide, Port Lavaca Wave. pg. 28