What's in the cast net today?

The instructor's demo cast hauled in some menhaden. Or do you call them shad?

Ninth-graders used cast and seine nets during a Back to the Bay class to get a peek at what's below the water's surface.

On this warm October morning at Baytown Nature Center we mostly found menhaden, brown shrimp, comb jelly and old oyster shells covered in barnacles and hooked mussels.

But it's always fun to catch something.

A guy looking for bait fish wanted this catch. Sorry, dude, this is a catch-and-release class.

One group caught a 5-inch blue crab with their seine net.

But mostly they caught little brown shrimp and comb jelly.