Goose Island State Park…

A short 10 to 15 minutes drive from our RV park just over the Capano Causeway is Goose Island State Park. Goose Island State Park is located on Aransas Bay and is known more for its fishing than for its beaching or swimming. In fact there is no swimming area demarcated in the park. One of the benefits of us having purchased the Annual State Park pass is that not only do we get free entry to the park (normally $5.00 per person entry) but we also don’t need a fishing license to fish in the park.  Texas Parks and Wildlife allows anyone visiting a state park
to fish anywhere inside the boundaries of that park without a license. A license even for us as a state resident is nearly $50.00.

Goose Island State Park allows RV camping and there are some nice spots right on the water if that is your cup of tea… no sewage but they do have 50 amp service and a dump station. They also have a huge lighted fishing pier that drew my attention. I noticed as we walked out on the pier that there were some people catching a few sheepshead and most were using live shrimp. I was going to try fishing with artificial lures. After many casts of various lures I proclaimed all the fish in Aransas Bay safe from me for the rest of the day… Not a single bite…Sharon, it seemed, was just happy to be beside the ocean once again.  She happily read a new book while I was fishing taking occasional breaks to use binoculars to observe the shore birds or boats passing by.  Despite my bad luck in catching a fish dinner, we both were glad we came to visit the park on this beautiful crisp sunny day.

Upon leaving the pier and heading back toward the exit we saw and decided to drive the inland loop of RV sites..  The RV sites in this loop were quite different than the waterside sites in that they were tucked into the trees affording much more privacy and spaciousness, Within this loop we stumbled upon a parking area alongside a nature trail we chose to investigate. Although we did not encounter many birds to identify, we did enjoy the walk through the wooded area hearing the sea breeze rushing through the trees loosening a few dead leaves that floated down around us as we walked reminding us it is still wintertime even in these mild temperatures.

Our next destination near Goose Island State Park was the Big Tree. This massive Live Oak tree is said to be over 1,000 years old and measures over 38 feet in circumference. I am not real sure how they determined this tree to be that old since the only way to age the tree is to count the tree rings of the trunk… but I will take their word for it. No matter how old it is this tree has a lot of character and no doubt has “seen” a lot of history. While looking at the tree I saw a pair of whooping cranes flying over the adjacent pasture. These endangered species are making a nice rebound thanks to the efforts of conservationists protecting not only the birds but their habitat as well. We plan a future visit to their coastal home near here at Aransas Wildlife Refuge.