Port Bay Hunting and Fishing Club

This is a private club; the plaque stands by the public road, and the grounds are for members. Andrew Sorenson's grandson, interviewed in 1972, said the captain had hunted ducks for market as a young man, shipping them to the cities, before he turned his own camp into the club. Early members came from Vaseline, Fleischmann's yeast, Pierce-Arrow and the Klapp shoe company, and stayed for weeks. Membership was capped at 100 and often passed from father to son. Sorenson later ran the Swan Lake and Oakshore clubs.

What the plaque says

Port Bay Hunting and Fishing Club Danish native Andrew Sorenson (1864-1941), established a reputation as a hunting and fishing guide in this area in the early 20th century. He bought 240 acres of land (.5 mi. W) in 1909 and in 1912 incorporated the private Port Bay Hunting and Fishing Club. Charter members included prominent citizens from Texas and the U.S. Adjacent waters teem with ducks and geese in season. Despite hurricane damage to club structures over the years and a reduction in size to 46 acres of land, the club continues to attract members who embrace the traditions of conservation and sportsmanship. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fulton Mansion State Historic Site — 5.9 mi
  A French Second Empire house of 1874-77 on Aransas Bay, paid for with hides and tallow, with gas lights, central heat and hot running water no other house nearby had.
• Goose Island State Park — 11 mi
  A bayside park between St. Charles and Aransas bays, home of the Big Tree, the state champion coastal live oak, thought to be more than a thousand years old.
• Port Aransas — 13 mi
  The fishing town at the north end of Mustang Island, reached by a free state ferry that crosses the ship channel day and night, with a university marine lab begun in a one-room shack.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 22 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Simon Michael Gallery — 3.7 mi
• Site of Heldenfels Shipyard — 3.8 mi
• Rockport Volunteer Fire Department — 3.9 mi
• The Cedars — 4.0 mi