This is great information! Thanks to everyone who has responded!
-----Original Message-----
From: Conchologists List <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of steve rosenthal
Sent: Monday, June 13, 2022 9:41 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CONCH-L] Beachcombing along the Texas Coast
I concur with Doug's assessment. Here's some more detail:
Quintana Beach (aka Quintana Beach County Park, near Freeport, TX) is hands down great over the years. From the jetty by the south side of the ship channel to about 1 mile south of there. Look for small shells and drift trapped in the spaces between the brick-like jetty rocks where they are lowest adjacent to where the beach begins, and take it from there. After storms the beach may be littered with shells, and always look for Epitoniums both high and low on the beach.
As Doug notes, Olives are common, and moon snails (both species!
delessertiana and duplicatus) seem to get more frequent as you walk further south, again both high and low. Surfside Beach, a bit to the NE of there, is also good. If it has rained heavily before your arrival, the beaches may be littered with land shells that wish up as/after they are carried out to see by the nearby rivers. If there is lots of sargassum weed washed up it may obstruct the beach and mess up the collecting, but when there is sargassum there might be Janthina.
If you want to go even further northeast, Sea Rim State Park near Port Arthur is great for small shells. I've made about a half dozen visits (spread over 2 trips) and have always found hundreds of small wentletraps from the lowest part of the beach (areas of fine grit) to where the grasses begin higher up on the beach, trapping small shells, including infintie pairs of Scissula iris, and everywhere in between. Even further east, into Holly Beach LA, you can find things like Strombus alatus and gorgeous nutmeg shells, while I found tons of alatus on Holly Beach, I've never found one on the adjacent TX coast! The same small wentletrap species were at most LA beaches I stopped at along the way too....look for grit drfit near the tidelines, or where the height of the sand changes slightly.
I have found South Padre Island to be rewarding (and I'll disagree with Doug in that its not expensive at all, at least not in Dec/Jan, or anytime I have been there- just find a motel on the bay side of the island, skip the high rise places). Or stay on the mainland near Port Isabel (a lot of variation in motel quality, check TripAdvisor.).
Unlike others, I've never had much luck on the ocean beaches at SPI (timing is everything) but I've done very well collecting on the bay side of the island and along the shoreline in Port Isabel. The little beach areas on SPI at Isla Blanca State Park by the boat launch area and just south of the Coast Guard Station can have interesting things, along with the mudflats at various places along the bayside of SPI, like e.g. near the convention center. (use google maps to look for them)..... If you pull over right as you reach the island from the causeway, the shorelines with a bit of mud will have species typical of that kind of habitat, such as the endemic Cerithidea pliculosa. I agree with Dougs comment that on a good day, you would think you are in FLorida (left-handed whelks, cockles, banded tulips, pear whelks etc- but keep in mind that the whelks, and tulips are different species or forms than the ones in FL ! for example the ubiquitous banded tulips are Cinctura lillium, not hunteria, the left handed whelks are pulleyi (though now shown to be the same as the other left handed whelks
genetically) , you get the idea......
All these places are best visited at low tide, of course.
Steve
On 6/13/22, Stemke Douglas
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi John.
> I used to live in Texas (1979-1985) and have a decent collection from
> across the state.. This April (2022) I once again returned and
> actually did quite well (relatively speaking). My best finds were at
> Quintana Epitoniums (including a Mitchelli!), lots of Olivia, Murex
> fulvescens (poor), a nertina, and a few small Buscycon, an interesting
> fossil. I also collected south of Port Aransas to Corpus Christi and
> then down near the Mexican border. The beaches were covered in Sea
> Whips which in tern had numerous Siminia on them as well as large
> barnacles. I found my best ever Architectonica down by the border and
> several pieces of Cymatium cingulatum (I arrived mid day with crowds,
> likely much better). Typical Sinum, Polinices, and hosts of bivalves
> which I largely ignored (lots of Raeta for example). I was pretty
> bummed that shelling South Padre Island was going to be so expensive.
> Usually winter low tides are storms are what you are after. You can
> find some fantastic minatures. No, not Florida. But nothing to complain about.
>
> On Sunday, June 12, 2022, 06:07:54 PM EDT, dseasheller dseasheller
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> John, I went shelling in June, 2013 from Port Aransas to Brownsville.
> What I found at that time was very disappointing. I found only a few
> young juveniles-almost nothing mature, and a lot of small, old, dried
> shells that appeared to be sub-fossil. It wasn't until years later
> that I learned of the terrible killing freezes in the winters of
> 2010-2011 and 2011-2012. The last being only 18 months before I was
> there. Those two killed millions of tons of fin fish and anything in
> the shallow waters of the Intra-Coastal Waterway. It was a local
> extinction, and I happened to be there before many species could
> recover much. My research showed that Southern Texas suffers these
> freezes about every 10-15 years. We are talking about the ICW freezing
> deep enough that people drove (pickup) trucks out on it to clean up the dead fish.
>
> Keep in mind that this last February there was another terrible freeze
> over much of Texas, and you may encounter a similar situation.
>
> I also found many bivalves on the outer coast at Brownsville/Port
> Isabel that should have been white, but had become discolored bright
> orange and black from anoxia. That would have been a result of burial by heavy storms.
>
> I don't want to deter you from your trip. I just want you to
> understand what may have happened if you don't find many good shells.
> And collect for scientific value. That's how I turned my
> disappointment around. I could show what had been before the freezes and enriched my collection that way.
>
> By the way, if you plan to shell at South Padre Island, I hope you
> have a 4-wheel drive truck (A ranger advised me not to use an
> all-wheel drive vehicle when I asked if it would be good enough) so
> you can get a few miles up the coast from the town beaches. Cars are
> allowed on those beaches, and almost everything there is crushed. But
> locals told me that if I went about
> 5-10 miles up the coast I would find all sorts of great shells.
> Unfortunately for us, we had only a sedan, so didn't dare risk getting
> stuck in sand. When the tide is out, the sand dries quickly and you
> can get stuck.
>
> I hope you have a great, successful trip. Please let me know (one on
> one) how you fare.
>
> Dale Snyder
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> On June 11, 2022 at 5:45 PM John Bell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> Aloha CONCH-L friends,
>
>
>
> In August, my wife and I have the chance to spend a few days along the
> Texas coast. I have not had the opportunity to collect in Texas
> previously. My wife has done a little beachcombing in the Corpus
> Christi area at Port Aransas and Mustang Island. This appeared to be
> fairly productive. We would like to know what suggestions you might
> have for beach collecting, including micros.
>
>
>
> Mahalo nui loa,
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
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