HOUSTON -- Anglers may be getting their last casts at one of the most favored fishing spots on the Texas Gulf Coast.
State officials have asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permission to close Rollover Pass, a manmade cut across the narrowest point of the Bolivar Peninsula near Galveston.
State officials believe the 54-year-old pass about 50 miles southeast of Houston is hastening beach erosion along the peninsula slammed by Hurricane Ike in 2008. Texas General Land Office spokesman Jim Suydam told the Houston Chronicle the state will begin filling in the 1,600-foot-long, 200-foot-wide, five-foot-deep waterway as soon as the Corps issues a permit.
Fishers Ronnie Hickey and Auda Derby said they were saddened by the news. Derby drove 234 miles from Greenville one recent overcast day for a chance to catch fish at the prime location.
"I think it’s a bad deal closing it down," Hickey said.
Suydam said his office plans to replace Rollover Pass with a fishing pier in the tiny community of Gilchrist. Some there had opposed that plan, but most now consider the pier inevitable.
"If they don’t put that pier out there, they will destroy this area," said Warren Adams, a board member of the Gilchrist Association.
Original plans for the pass called for it to be 80-feet wide and 8-feet deep, General Land Office geologist Ray Newby said. Swift tides eroded it and eventually forced construction of a concrete retaining wall, he said.
Also, sand that should be carried to a nearby beach is being sucked through the pass and dumped onto the Intracoastal Waterway, he said. That costs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about $1 million a year to dredge, Suydam said.
But after catching one 3 ½-foot-long shark and a sizable red bull fish, Hickey and Derby disputed reports of erosion and seemed more concerned with losing a good fishing spot.
"It’s really going to be sad for this area," Derby said.
