Port Mansfield

Port Mansfield is a tiny village located north of here on the Laguna Madre (the bay between Texas coast and South Padre Island). It also includes access to the intercoastal waterway which leads to Port of Brownsville.
  If you want to be a fisherman this is the place to be...residents have long piers from their homes, or live on the harbor with a "drive in" boathouse under their home. There are public boat launchs and fishing piers for those without water access. Some just fish from shore...
   While there we met a local resident who was in town from his ranch to mow lawn at the beach house. We talked with him awhile and learned about farming and ranching. Crops currently being planted are cotton, some corn and soybeans, and a grain called milo (used for livestock feed and biofuel production). Cattle still roam the thousands of acres of scrubby ranch land; when they need to round-up the cattle many ranchers use helicopters to locate the herd, then send in the cowboys on horseback, thus blending new and old technology!