Background: Since Texas Pelagics started in 1992 there have only been 4 Texas Pelagic trips run in October. It had been 10 years since a Texas Pelagic had been run in October, the last one being on 10/1/2004. On that trip we found Texas’ only accepted record of a South Polar Skua. There have however been 4 November trips since 2004. The sparse pelagic coverage at this time of year provides us with only limited data on what species could be seen in the late fall in offshore Texas waters. The primary reason that more Texas Pelagics aren’t run in the fall is that seas are often uncooperative (code for too rough) during the fall, winter and spring months, making a calm weather window tougher to encounter on an weekend where the trips are planned way ahead of time. And this October proved no different. All week long I watched the weather forecasts with much trepidation. First on Monday a disturbance in the Gulf of Campeche formed and then developed into Tropical Depression NINE on Wednesday. The forecasts still predicted it to calm down in the Gulf of Mexico off of South Padre Island by Saturday as the depression was expected to move east over Yucatan and then into the Caribbean by Thursday night. Fortunately this whole weather mess dissipated over Thursday night and by Saturday at 4:00am the seas had really improved. It was dead calm on Saturday morning in the dark at the dock. As we cleared the jetties just after 6 am it was probably as rough as we would see it all day. It was hard to tell in the dark but seas were still in the 3 foot range. It continued to calm down and by dawn we were cruising in calmer 2 foot seas. By the time we reached the deepwater Gulf of...
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