Aransas National Wildlife Refuge boat tour question

[gll]

anyone know of a boat tour at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge they would recommend, will be there new years day for 4 days, any advice would be appreciate, we will be staying at Riviera near Kingsville. would love to get some shots of whooping cranes.
thanks
Gary

[rquiroga]

Yes there is a tour boat that is docked at Copano Bay. It's just north of Rockport.

[BrettN]

I've done the boat tours on the "Skimmer" and they have always been enjoyable. There is a platform on top of the boat where you can set up a tripod. http://www.whoopingcranetours.com/

[labmansid]

We did that last year around the same time, only we stayed in Rockport. The boat tour I went on was "The Skimmer". The boat operators were very nice, and seemed to be quite photographer friendly. The skipper did a good job of getting as close as possible to the wildlife, not just whoopers BTW, even had a group of dolphins playing in our wake for quite a while. The cranes were not real close to the water for the most part, but he did find a few that were close enough for my 300mm+TC. I was even able to use my tripod strapped to the railing on the top deck of the boat. While you're down that way, you might check out Goose Island SP,too.

[Will Rountree]

I always use the Skimmer tours as they are such a shallow draft they can run aground and get closer to the whoopers.

[Stephen P]

I've used this guy and he was excellent. It was more expensive than the Skimmer but I was able to get much closer to the whoopers. The owner's name is Kevin Sims and he is extremely knowledgeable and nice.

Aransas Bay Birding Tours

With him I was able to get photos like this:

[DigitalDiva]

Hey, we just took a tour on the Skimmer, I posted some pictures on another thread.

[gll]

thanks everyone for the tips, just curious about the tripod strapped to the rail?
I'm guessing that there's not room to open one up ?

Originally Posted by labmansid

We did that last year around the same time, only we stayed in Rockport. The boat tour I went on was "The Skimmer". The boat operators were very nice, and seemed to be quite photographer friendly. The skipper did a good job of getting as close as possible to the wildlife, not just whoopers BTW, even had a group of dolphins playing in our wake for quite a while. The cranes were not real close to the water for the most part, but he did find a few that were close enough for my 300mm+TC. I was even able to use my tripod strapped to the railing on the top deck of the boat. While you're down that way, you might check out Goose Island SP,too.

[BrettN]

There's plenty of room to open one up - they just strap one leg to the rail so that they are secured to the boat.

[Patti Edens]

Originally Posted by Stephen P

I've used this guy and he was excellent. It was more expensive than the Skimmer but I was able to get much closer to the whoopers. The owner's name is Kevin Sims and he is extremely knowledgeable and nice.

Aransas Bay Birding Tours

I can second this choice. It isn't fancy, but this boat goes where the Skipper can't go. When Randy and I went, it was just the two of us plus my nephew and his wife (non-photographers), so we had plenty of room and were able to move around. We saw the Skipper out there and it looked pretty crowded.

The Captain is a photographer himself so he knows about how to position the boat based on the light and he will pretty much do whatever you want. He also knows where all the cuts are and can navigate back in the marsh. I was shooting a 400mm lens and at times I couldn't get the whole bird in the frame.