Survival Tips for the Coast

THE MARINE FORECAST for the Upper Texas Coast called for 5-10 miles per hour winds with 2-3 foot seas.

Experienced offshore anglers know that usually means 15 miles per hour with four foot seas, but for anglers with offshore boats, that’s a doable day for fishing.

A few hours later, the forecast switched.

As a tornadic thunderstorm system swept through the region and swung a little lower than expected, the forecast changed. 2-3 foot seas, changed to 8-13 feet with 25 miles per hour winds gusting to 50.

That’s extremely dangerous and that scenario happened during the third week of January 2023. There were no reports of marine fatalities but there have been during similar extreme weather outbreaks in recent years.

The coast is an awesome place of fishing, fun and adventure but things can go dark quickly. While weather is the obvious big threat there are others on the coast that rarely get addressed.

Continuing our “staying live” series, we bring you things to be aware of on the coast, so you can make informed decisions.

SUDDEN STORMS: Other than wearing a life jacket, always, the most important thing you can do for boating safety is to stay aware of weather. Having weather apps on your phone helps as alerts can signal changing situations but you also need a good VHF radio and keep it on.

Sometimes apps fail and so does your cell signal, but the VHF alerts are pretty consistent. It doesn’t matter how good the fish are biting, if it seems dangerous - leave. Period.

Also, be cautious when leaving. Don’t think you can “beat the front” in. At best you might need a chiropractor when you get home and at worst you could capsize.

RIP CURRENTS: Rip currents have killed numerous wade fishermen along the coast. Anglers need to be hyper aware.

According to the United States

Lifesaving Association (USLA), there is a myth that rip currents are always visible. They are not.

“Spotting a rip current can be difficult. To check for rip currents at the beach, stand back from an elevated position, like a dune line or beach access, and look for places where waves are not breaking.”

Any of the following clues may indicate that a rip current is present:

• A channel of churning, choppy water;

• An area of water that is a notable difference in color;

• A line of foam, or debris moving steadily offshore; or

• A break in the incoming wave pattern

ROGUE WAVES: Last year we did a major feature on rogue waves that have been linked to numerous boating accidents and at least one fatality on the Texas Coast.

These waves originate from ship traffic and catch many anglers and boaters off guard. They are extremely dangerous and in our opinion, the danger will only increase as larger ships move into our bay systems, particularly along the Houston-Galveston Ship Channel.

This certainly includes people wading along the edge of ship channels. Be super cautious as this issue is only going to increase.

CRIMINAL ACTIVITY: I’ll never forget when several anglers had cinder blocks dropped onto their vehicles from a bridge along the Intracoastal Canal. The same year there were reports of people in boats stalking other anglers night fishing along a popular dock.

Remote areas bring out criminals. They are vastly outnumbered by nice folks, but criminals and psychos are present along remote areas of our coast and operate under the cover of darkness at boat docks, remote bank fishing locations and various public access areas.

Do not go alone, especially at night, and if you get a bad feeling about a place, do not go. If you’re already there when it comes, leave.

Not everyone visiting the remote surf at 2 a.m. is trying to catch the best tides for bull redfish. I interviewed a man who witnessed a white van dumping something on the beach at High Island in the 70’ s. A few weeks later, bodies were found. He and his father had seen serial killer Dean Coryll and only been a few hundred yards from him.

No one else is talking about this stuff but we feel compelled to share.

SNAKES: Cottonmouths and rattlesnakes are common around certain beaches and islands along the coast. The number of rattlesnakes on some of the islands in Upper and Lower Laguna Madre can be high. There are quite a few in the Aransas Bay complex as well.

Upper Coast marshes are loaded with cottonmouths, so be careful when wading some of the shoreline and especially when duck hunting in the early teal season.

SHARKS: Shark numbers are on the rise. And that includes some of the most dangerous species like bull sharks.

We can easily say you are more likely to be struck by lightning than bitten by a shark. Tell that to the guy bitten by a shark.

Be cautious when wade fishing, swimming and diving and don’t ever get comfortable around sharks. If you see a lot of big ones in a particular area, you might want to consider wade fishing somewhere else.

Better safe than sorry.

Texas Fish & Game has promoted shark conservation in numerous issues per year for the last two decades and we’re glad to see sharks doing much better. But we also know people sometimes get attacked and with more sharks and more people in the water, attacks will happen.

(If you have a dangerous encounter along the coast, we would like to share your story with others. You can email them to chester@chestermoore.com.)

IN 2019, I BEGAN A QUEST

to raise awareness to wild turkey conservation. The goal was to use photojournalism to show the story of wild turkeys in Texas and around America. I believe that as turkeys go, so does the health of the forest.

If we get forests right for turkeys, everything else benefits.

I photographed Eastern turkeys in the Pineywoods of East Texas, Florida’s Osceola, Gould’s in Arizona, Merriam’s in Colorado, and Rio Grandes in numerous locations.

This journey was epic, challenging, and fun. But most of all, it was revealing.

The very fact that wild turkeys were down to 1.5 million birds in 1973 and here we are 50 years later with around

6.7 million is an incredible testament to conservation.

The National Wild Turkey Federation was founded that year and has been a force for positive change on behalf of turkeys, and to this day serves as a point of fundraising, expertise, and motivation for turkey and forest health projects. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is doing a great job managing turkeys and bringing Eastern turkeys back.

But there are problems with turkeys in America.

In New York for example, there has been a large decline in birds. Just across the border from me in Louisiana, a similar change in turkey numbers has occurred.

Other challenges, including development, are challenging not only to these great birds but other wildlife. I got to see that firsthand while traveling from the eastern seaboard to the Sky Islands of Arizona.

This journey clarified that wild turkey conservation is not only a worthy pursuit but a vital one.

Wild turkeys are animals that hunters can get behind and everyone in America can understand if educated. Forest health might be a big pill to swallow but ensuring the future of such an iconic, American bird has appeal.

During this process, I have done numerous presentations at schools, foster group homes, and for families and found that kids connect with turkeys too. And while the current crop of biologists, forestry workers, and other environmental professionals are doing a good job, what will the future hold? ere are programs in existence and kudos to them. e following are some things I have done with kids involving turkeys over the last few years and they have been wildly successful, judging by the smiles on their faces and feedback from parents and educators.

I believe the charge to keep is not only to keep conserving turkeys but also to inspire young people to take up their cause. It’s great to have kids turkey calling contests and events like that, but it needs to go deeper.

It needs to touch the heart and go to a broader audience.

Maybe there can be others who see a photo of a turkey in a magazine, clip it out and place it in a scrapbook as I did when I was a kid. And maybe one day they will end up writing about their turkey conservation journey.

I’m no one special, but I have been able to do special things involving wild turkeys and my beloved wild sheep and it began in childhood with a scrapbook.

How much more powerful would it be if programs designed to inspire a love of wild turkeys and turkey conservation were to touch the hearts of children across the wild turkeys’ range?

Many states have license plate programs bene ting conservation. Texas has license plates featuring desert bighorns, horned lizards and largemouth bass and Florida has manatee plates.

A fun project for kids is to have students design a wild turkey license plate. ey can either draw it or use a photo editing program. Have them use their imagination for any state, using any of the ve varieties of wild turkeys.

Parents can email these designs to chester@chestermoore.com. We will post entries on our Higher Calling Wildlife social media and will have an annual contest via our social media platforms to determine the best design. The winning entry will receive a special wild turkey prize package.

If you have mounted turkeys, calling expertise, enough photos for a PowerPoint presentation, and a love of kids, try a turkey day at school.

My friend Cindy Childress is a teacher at Mauriceville Elementary in Southeast Texas. For the last two years, I have done presentations on wild turkeys and wild sheep at different times.

In November 2022, when everyone is thinking about turkey, I did a presentation called Beards & Bighorns that addressed wild sheep and wild turkeys.

I connected with NWTF and The Wild Sheep Foundation to give the kids turkey and sheep decals and let them learn about all wild turkeys, with a special emphasis on Eastern turkey restoration in their area.

You don’t have to be an expert or educator to do this. Teachers love to have people come to their classes and it’s always a hit with kids.

Easter egg hunts are a long-held American tradition that goes along with the global holiday.

In 2022, students at Little Cypress Christian Academy in Orange, TX, and Empowerment Church in Port Arthur, TX got a conservation twist with their egg hunts.

Through our Higher Calling Wildlife outreach, we put on turkey egg hunts.

The idea was to raise awareness of the presence of wild turkeys in East Texas and point school-aged kids to their conservation needs.

For each hunt, a dozen wooden eggs were painted to look like wild turkey eggs. Kids were instructed to turn those in to get a special prize package including caps, decals, and rulers, courtesy of NWTF.

Many other plastic eggs were set out with special wild turkey wooden challenge tokens and other items inside.

Our model is to partner with schools, churches, and other groups already doing an egg hunt, and to add to what they have.

It blesses them by making their event bigger and it gives them a unique chance to captivate the imagination of kids regarding wild turkeys.

A full-body Rio Grande turkey mount was on display, and while handing out a prize package to a third grader who found one of the wooden turkey eggs, I heard something that blew me away.

This little third grader walked up and pointed at the turkey mount and said, ‘We need to help these birds and raise money for them. They’re cool.”

You can not only make a difference in turkey conservation but in the life of a child.

That’s a win-win and our world could use a whole lot more of those these days.

And we could use more kids thinking that wild turkeys and raising money for them is “cool”.

That is revolutionary.