Can You Spot the Copperhead?

As the leaves fall, be careful. Snakes like copperheads are very good at blending in.



Look closely in the yellow outline.

Oxford Alabama Indian Mound

There's an ongoing argument in Oxford, Alabama (near Anniston). The city is so pleased that a new Sam's Wholesale is coming to town that it has given them permission to use a prehistoric Indian mound for foundation fill dirt.

In an "Anniston Star" report, Oxford Mayor Leon Smith said leveling the mound is no big deal because it was only used for sending smoke signals. How would he know?

http://archaeology.org/blog/

A Coral Snake in Coosa County Alabama

There was an interesting article in the June 29 edition of the Birmingham News. A coral snake was captured and released in Coosa County, Alabama. They are rare in coastal Alabama and very rarely have been sighted this far north.

Coral snakes have the most toxic venom of any snake in North America. However, they are less likely to strike than pit vipers like rattlesnakes, copperheads, and water moccasins.

The saying is "red, then yellow, kill a fellow; red, then black, you're OK, Jack." I think I'd second guess myself with the rhyme. I'd just take a picture from a distance.

Here's a blog account of the story:


http://hogfoot.blogspot.com/2009/04/coosa-coral.html

Where I've Been - Chart Your Travel Map

I have found an interesting site.

http://www.whereivebeen.com/

Here you can chart your travels, places you've lived, and places you want to go. Its even got a free picture and video positing section.

Here's my profile:

http://whereivebeen.com/user/billco

Here's my "Where I've Been Map."



Haven't listed all of the cities that I've visited. That will take quite awhile.

Find Lakes Anywhere in the United States

With this Google map application, find over 40,000 lake, reservoir and pond locations. Shows street and highway access, as well as satellite and aerial photo imagery. Zoom in and pan out.


http://findlakes.com/

Never Before Caught a Stingray This Way

I've caught many stingrays on the Alabama Gulf Coast. If you're fishing the beaches and bays with natural baits its impossible not to catch them.

On our last trip to Gulf Shores, I hooked one. I knew it was a ray because my line suddenly went tight. I couldn't budge it. Like many do, this one had buried himself up in the sand. Even small ones are hard to drag out when they do this, and usually the fisherman has no choice but to cut the line, as I did.

I re-rigged and made a cast. I had a hit, but didn't hook the fish. While reeling in I noticed that I had hooked a line. I grabbed the line and pulled the stingray in by hand that I lost.







Notice the barb in the last picture. Even small stingrays like this one have prominent barbs that can be dangerous. Stingrays are gentile and non-aggressive, but they can be dangerous if you invade their space.

Read more about stingrays here

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

We recognize that your privacy is important. This document outlines the types of personal information we receive and collect when you use Billco's Outdoors, as well as some of the steps we take to safeguard information. We hope this will help you make an informed decision about sharing personal information with us.

Billco's Outdoors strives to maintain the highest standards of decency, fairness and integrity in all our operations. Likewise, we are dedicated to protecting our customers', consumers' and online visitors' privacy on our website.

Personal Information

Billco's Outdoors collects personally identifiable information from the visitors to our website only on a voluntary basis. Personal information collected on a voluntary basis may include name, postal address, email address, company name and telephone number.

This information is collected if you request information from us, participate in a contest or sweepstakes, and sign up to join our email list or request some other service or information from us. The information collected is internally reviewed, used to improve the content of our website, notify our visitors of updates, and respond to visitor inquiries.

Once information is reviewed, it is discarded or stored in our files. If we make material changes in the collection of personally identifiable information we will inform you by placing a notice on our site. Personal information received from any visitor will be used only for internal purposes and will not be sold or provided to third parties.

Use of Cookies and Web Beacons

We may use cookies to help you personalize your online experience. Cookies are identifiers that are transferred to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize the sites pages, or register with any of our site's services, a cookie enables Billco's Outdoors to recall your specific information on subsequent visits.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies by modifying your Web browser; however, if you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the site.

A web beacon is a transparent image file used to monitor your journey around a single website or collection of sites. They are also referred to as web bugs and are commonly used by sites that hire third-party services to monitor traffic. They may be used in association with cookies to understand how visitors interact with the pages and content on the pages of a web site. Browsers can be set to accept or reject cookies or notify you when a cookie is being sent. Privacy software can be used to override web beacons. Taking either of these actions shouldn't cause a problem with our site, should you so choose.

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.

In addition, Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads to our site. Google's use of the Dart cookie enables it to serve ads to visitors based on visits to our site and other sites on the internet. Visitors may opt out of the Dart cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Google may use interest based advertising where they recognize the types of webpages users visit across the Adsense network.This helps advertisers reach users on the basis of their interests.

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

This website is directed to adults; it is not directed to children under the age of 13. We operate our site in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and will not knowingly collect or use personal information from anyone under 13 years of age.

Non-Personal Information

In some cases, we may collect information about you that is not personally identifiable. We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users' movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. The information collected is used solely for internal review and not shared with other organizations for commercial purposes.

Release of Information

If Billco's Outdoors is sold, the information we have obtained from you through your voluntary participation in our site may transfer to the new owner as a part of the sale in order that the service being provided to you may continue. In that event, you will receive notice through our website of that change in control and practices, and we will make reasonable efforts to ensure that the purchaser honors any opt-out requests you might make of us.

How You Can Correct or Remove Information

We provide this privacy policy as a statement to you of our commitment to protect your personal information. If you have submitted personal information through our website and would like that information deleted from our records or would like to update or correct that information, please use our Contact Us page.

Updates and Effective Date

Billco's Outdoors reserves the right to make changes in this policy. We encourage you to periodically review this policy so that you will know what information we collect and how we use it.

Agreeing to Terms

If you do not agree to Billco's Outdoors Privacy Policy as posted here on this website, please do not use this site or any services offered by this site.

Your use of this site indicates acceptance of this privacy policy.

Digging for Shells - Orange Beach, Alabama

Kathy and I spent the weekend at Orange Beach, Alabama in my parents condo. My mother is a master shell hunter. She has found tens of thousands of beautiful shells over the years. She spends hours walking the beaches picking up shells, coral, sand dollars and anything else that washes up on the beach. She even gathers abandoned T-shirts and beach towels. No relaxing with a good book for her. When she hits the beach it's all work.



She finds most of her shells by digging. Most beach tourists would love to take home just a few good shells like she finds, but very think to dig. Unless you pay a little attention to detail, digging is not likely to produce much. Find a good spot, and you can take home a bag full.





The majority of the good shells that are found digging at the Alabama Gulf Coast get deposited there by dredging. The hurricanes and tropical storms of the last few years took away most of the sand and leveled the dunes. The State of Alabama has spent millions of dollars putting the sand back, most of it by dredging the sea. Tons of sand has been deposited on the beach, and along with it all of the stuff small enough to get sucked up the dredging pipes.



Occasionally a good spot for digging can be found just by looking for spots where somebody else has dug. Most people are good about filling in their holes, but unless it has recently been smooved over by beach maintenance workers, you will still be able to spot depressions in the sand. Try first at the edges that haven't been dug and work your way back away from the depression. Lots of small broken shells on the surface indicates that there are probably better, unbroken shells underneath.

Don't dig near the shore line in the space that high tide covers. Move back aways. Don't dig in the dunes. That's not good for the beach and will get you in trouble.



You don't need big garden tools to dig in soft sand. Small tools work fine and are less likely to damage shells.



It's permissable to dig small holes on the Alabama beaches. It's not a lot different than building sand castles, Whether you're digging for holes, or building sand castles, fill in your holes when you're done. Holes on the beach can be dangerous.

Find Fish Bait with an Online Locator

Have you ever been on vacation and decided to go fishing, but didn't have any idea where you could find bait? Here's an online bait shop locator with 8,000 bait and tackle shops in the U.S. and Canada listed. Search by regions, zip codes, and bodies of water, freshwater or saltwater.

Also included are locations of fuel, ice, and groceries.

Need a guide or a charter service? Might find that information also.

www.BoatUSAngler.com/bait

Gulf Shores, Alabama Photos

We took another quick trip to Gulf Shores over the weekend. Two weeks ago I cut one of my fingers while washing a drinking glass. I need to learn how to gently handle a glass. Fifteen stitches, not fun - even worse than getting them was having them taken out. Even worse it didn't heel correctly, resulting in a trip to the doctor at the beach, and one the next day, just before we arrived home.

Anyway, we made the most of the trip with the time we had.

A lot of people were fishing, but we didn't see anybody catching anything. This time of year is hit and miss from the shore, mostly miss. There are not any bait fish close to shore to attract bigger fish. Fishing structure in deep water will catch some fish on a good day this time of year. Otherwise, if fishing from a seawall like this, the occasional hungry fish swimming by will grab the bait.



This guy was perplexed as to whether he had a fish on the hook or not. He'd open his spool, and line would come off; he'd reel a little and all he could get is a tugging resistance. My experience has been that if I am fishing in current like there is here and wonder whether I have a fish on the line, I haven't got a fish on the line.



Blue herons are a common site on the coast all year. This one is resting on a seawall near a marina waiting on something tasty to come floating his way.



Canals like this weave all though Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, Alabama. Living on a canal is great if the homeowner has a boat. From here, he could be in the Gulf in minutes or in Mobile Bay in less than an hour via the Intracoastal Canal.



This man wasn't catching anything either. If he were in that same spot a couple months from now it would probably be a different story. It's nice to be on the water on a pretty last day of January. Always nice to bring a fish home though.



It is hard to tell by this photo, but this is Robinson Island.



Robinson Island is part of a three island chain near where Terry Cove meets Perdido Pass. The other islands are Bird Island and Walker Island. In 2004 the City of Orange Beach bought Robinson Island for $3.46 million. The previous owner had tried unsuccessfully for several years to get all of the necessary government approvals so that he could develop the island. He wanted to build an island community - no bridge; the owners would have to be ferried from the mainland. Anybody who would pay what it would cost to live on a barrier island at the mouth of Perdido Pass would have had to have been crazy (IMO). The city will keep it in its natural state for the good of both wildlife and boaters. In the summer these island beaches are very popular.

Perddio Pass Bridge



The new Turquoise Place on the Gulf is in the background. The Turquoise was originally going to consist of four towers. The state of the economy, including plunging coastal real estate values, has put the other two on indefinite hold. The four towers were going to be built to varying heights - the tallest at 33 stories. One sold preconstruction in the first tower for $4.3 million. Others were selling for as little as $2.5 million. The patios of these condos are bigger than most beach condos once were on the Alabama Gulf Coast. I'm not sure how much one could be purchased for today from a motivated seller, but it might be considerably less.







We didn't see many shells on the beach, but on her last trip, my mother must have. She has shell collecting down to a science. Out of tens of thousands of shells she has picked up, she hasn't found one artifact. I would guess that she has her eyes trained for shells, not rocks and metal. She doesn't care. She loves shells.

Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Alabama

We visited Gulf Shores and Orange Beach on the Alabama Gulf Coast this weekend. I needed some photos for my new site. The weather was a lot better there than it was here. So, off we went.

The State of Alabama is constantly replenishing the beaches with sand. When we first began spending a lot of time on the Alabama Coast in the early 1990's, sand dunes covered with sea oats were plentiful. Hurricanes and tropical storms coming in, one right after the other, has pretty much wiped them from the beach. Dredging and spreading has put thousands of tons of sand on the beach, but the dunes are slow to build. They usually get leveled before they are strong enough to hold up against even weak tropical storms. Fences like these are strung out across the beach to hold the sand in place long enough for vegetation to build the dunes from the bottom, up.



Hurricane forecasters are predicting a strong hurricane season this year. If that's the case, and they come ashore anywhere near Gulf Shores, what little dunes have been built will be swept out to sea yet again.

Until we began building out the beaches it was impossible to lose them. They just moved from one place to the other. Now we've plunked down billion dollar developments on the sand and decided nature should stay still.








Because our trip would be short, I didn't take my rods this time. Winter isn't the best time for surf fishing, but if you sit long enough something will hit - in January, usually whiting.



While I was taking pictures, Kathy was picking up shells.




Yes, believe it or not, people actually surf in Alabama. Here's a surfing family.



This one's caught a wave, albeit one that won't be confused with the smallest waves in Waikiki. The Alabama surf can get rough though, a lot rougher than most people think. While some coastal residents have moved inland to higher ground before a hurricane's landfall, others are hitting the beach with their surfboards.





The Perdido Pass Bridge is a favorite place to fish in winter.



The dolphin cruises guarantee that you will see a dolphin. That's an easy guarantee. Dolphins are always in the back bays. This one is in Terry Cove.



No problem finding a brown pelican either. Hard to believe that these birds were almost extinct at the early part of the last century. All big coastal birds were almost wiped out to put feathers in the hats of stylish women.



Mardi Gras trees have been catching on at the coast. Businesses and restaurants just take down the Christmas lights and out up Mardi Gras colored ornaments. I imagine there are some homeowners who do the same.



This is advertised as being the biggest Ferris Wheel in the southeast. It is at the Wharf, a new development in Orange Beach on the Intracoastal Canal at the toll bridge. We took a ride on it before the development was officially open. You can see all the way to the beach from the top.



The Wharf has been open a little over two years. Since Orange Beach doesn't have a city center, this was supposed to be it. There is shopping, movies, restaurants, entertainment, a marina, condos on the canal and even a amphitheater. Its taking off slow, largely due to the real estate crash. The poor (putting it mildly) economy isn't going to help it either.