On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 12:15:17 -0600, Swingman wrote:

On 12/15/2013 11:29 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 09:35:00 -0600, Swingman wrote:

Brackish water, depending upon the location.

I used to duck hunt in both Galveston and Trinity bays and it was not
unusual to break ice, of an early morning, going to the blinds in the
upper reaches where the water was brackish (more fresh water, less
salt), thus more subject to freezing.

Never would have thought that even brackish water would freeze in
Galveston. My wife lived in Houston (burbs) when she was young. She
tells amazing stories of the snowfalls (scrape an entire yard to get
enough snow to build a snowman) but never mentioned ground water
actually, you know, freezing. ;-)

It has indeed been a while, I was in jr high and high school at the
time, so it was mid to late 50's. Depending upon how old your wife is,
and whether she was a duck/goose hunter, she might have not experienced it.

She's 61, so lived there from 52 to 66ish? I asked her about it
again, when we were out for lunch today (great Mexican place here).
She never remembered such but wouldn't have been in Galveston during
the Winter.

Dad and I built a flat bottom, high transom, 11' plywood/fiberglass
"Jon" boat to specifically hunt the upper reaches of both bays, and I
hunted almost daily during the season as a youngster after I bought my
first car (at 14). I routinely hit the launch site around 4:30 AM, as I
had to travel up to 30 minutes get to the areas we had blinds, and on a
number of occasions broke a thin ice sheet the entire distance, which
wasn't considered remarkable enough to talk about.

Biggest snow I've experienced in Houston was around 1960. IIRC, we had
at least 4" of snow, with drifts up to a foot along our outbuildings.

That's probably what she remembers. The scraping the yard part is my
Yankee spin. ;-)

Times have changed ... Hunting alone, I occasionally had to ride out a
combination low tide/strong Norther' and couldn't get back across the
flats until the tide changed late that same evening.

These days parents would call out the Coast Guard, be worried sick, and
it would be on the evening news.

Mine had the attitude that I had been taught to take care of myself,
didn't blink an eye, and the only thing I had to explain was why I had
missed school, if it was a school day.

If that happened today?!!!