Colburn's Sabine Connection

Okay...the word is out, but it is good!

Once again I apologize for a gap in the reports, but I think that I have an even more justifiable excuse this time than occasionally losing a battle with my type pad.  I really didn't know how to handle all of this from the "get-go", but the rumors are now outweighing the facts.

Here's the deal thus far.  I got a phone call while on the water on Sept.2 that I never hoped to get. The Doctor on the other end of the line said, "I hope you are catching fish, but your biopsy shows you have prostate cancer and you need to take care of it."  Rather than cancel everything scheduled for the next three months, I elected to keep it as quiet as possible, fish those trips, and go to Houston for surgery this past Monday evening.

It all went well. I was pacing the halls the following morning and released the next day.  Aside from constantly feeling like I am dragging a stringer around while wading everywhere I go, there is some discomfort, but the wife and I were already out shopping two days after surgery.  The weather warmed up a little today and I am thinking a catheter may actually be an asset when wade fishing.  There are far too many downsides to the extra tubing to truly consider it a plus long term, but for the next few days.....?! 

I can obviously never thank Dr. Miles nor the entire crew at Methodist Hospital enough.  I also thank each and everyone of you that knew what was going on for your prayers and support.  There is no substitute for the power of prayer. I also thank those of you that had no idea what was going on for your patience. We have a few more trips to make to Houston, but it looks as though I will be back on the water by early January.

So the bottom line is that God is great and I have been blessed. This will obviously be a very special Christmas for our family and I pray that yours will be special as well!   

I will continue to share reports as they come in from guides and friends that fish with me on a regular basis.  There is nothing like actually being there, but the folks I rely on key on the same factors that I do to catch fish. Thanks again and I hope that one of these reports will lead to the best fishing trip of your life!

Good, but not as good as anticipated!

I called Brad Deslatte as I walked out of Church yesterday and we were wading by 12:30.  I thought we might kill them just ahead of the front, but it didn't happen.  We did catch several nice fish on Corkys, but not the numbers I would have expected.

How can it get any better than this? 

We pulled out a little early as I had to get back to clean up the boat for today and the bite was improving when we left.  There was very little tide movement and we never found much bait activity.  For some reason, we both missed a lot of strikes which was strange in that every fish we caught just inhaled our Corkys.  I stuck with a Fat Boy, but Brad probably got more strikes on the Devil as it got later in the day.

Brad won his tug-of-war with this nice trout. 

I am not complaining as it was a very enjoyable afternoon, but we have been spoiled by several incredible outings of late.  We eventually postponed today's trip and had the wind been just a little lighter, I would have grabbed the rain gear and fished anyway.  Hopefully this little front won't slow things down much as we are way ahead of schedule on the big fish bite.

  

A great morning with the kids!

Once again, I had to wait until my wife could make the computer work so I am a day late in posting a very good report.  I took my grandson and two of his cousins fishing Friday morning and we had a ball. They are all between the ages of 8 and 10- years old so the anticipation level was high even after a very chilly boat ride.

They let me throw a Corky just long enough to quickly catch a trout that we measured at 27-inches before putting her back.  That did not interest them at all as they could see at least 4 or 5 flocks of gulls with no other boats around them.  I bit the bullet and we spent the remainder of the morning fishing around the birds.

After running down several groups early on, we shut it down and spent the remainder of the trip in one area watching for surfacing shrimp.  The kids caught 34 trout and reds big enough to keep had they chosen to do so.  Believe me when I tell you that they kept score. I gave them the option of fishing longer if we did not have to use some of their alloted time cleaning fish and they agreed to that deal.  We did keep a few slot reds for a fish fry.

We caught most of our fish on bone diamond Sea Shads and pumpkin Crazy Croakers.  Once we quit chasing birds and stayed in one area casting around surfacing shrimp we caught very few undersized trout.  I have no idea what retrieve worked best as one minute the kids were skipping their lures across the surface and the next minute their lure was lying on the bottom while they ate snacks and checked the score.  

At the same time I was fielding calls from friends that were on the lake and they were just killing me, especially those grinding for big trout.  It was a perfect day and the flats on both ends of the lake produced trout over seven pounds.  Corkys and Catch V's produced most of the better trout. It looks as though we may have to fish our way through a little more wind and rain the first part of this week, but that hasn't bothered the fish thus far. 

You shoudda been here the last two days!

I am done for the weekend, but yesterday and today were to kill for.  It was probably still in the 60's about 2:30 this afternoon and I thought I was going to freeze to death.  It had been raining most of the day, but it was raining even harder then and a 20 to 25mph east wind was driving spray into every opening on my wading jacket. .

Yesterday I made a scouting run that turned into an all day affair simply because I was having so much fun.  I wanted to go back and check on those big trout, but Brad DesLatte called around mid-morning and said that he was on the water alone as well.  It worked out well, however, as Brad had found some stuff I hadn't been fishing and we fished only a cast apart for an hour or so. Brad fishes a tad better than the average dude!

Believe it or not, he was catching his trout and reds on the same magic color.  That came as no surprise, but I was surprised that he was throwing a Corky  under the birds and easily averaging three pounds a fish.  He was already catching some nice fish when he saw the gulls and didn't want to change lures.  It paid off!

I did make it back down to our big trout hot spot that afternoon, but there were some wade fishermen too close to check it out.  I fished another spot a couple of hundred yards away and caught a few nice fish, but they were wearing the big fish out and keeping everything they caught.  If a Game Warden would have checked them they would have needed a stimulus package just to post bond.

 
It doesn't get any better than this.  I could have taken this same picture time and again as Doug really got on a roll!

Doug Reynolds and Bill Vautrain decided to go ahead and take a chance on today and we are all glad that they did as I would not have scouted in these conditions.  Bill caught a 4 to 5 pound trout on his third cast with a Corky Devil and it never slowed down the rest of the day.  In the event that you even cared, the color that has been so good for us the last two days is strawberry black.  I thought it was red shad, but I looked it up on Paul's web site and (03) looks like the color.

 
Bill got in his share of catching and releasing as well!

When our spot got blown out early, we ran south and worked birds the rest of the day.  The birds never quit nor did the fish and we caught a lot of 18 to 20 inch trout under nearly every flock we harassed.  I don't know if it was just a case of good fish everywhere or sticking with the Corky and a longer Assassin  that made the difference.  Both Doug and Bill caught and lost a bunch of redfish that also liked the 5-inch Assassins in red shad and limetreuse.

The water was over the dock at daylight....about a foot and a half higher than the evening before.  When we got back in today, the water had fallen and the tide was still going out.  The surface temperature never changed much all day staying around the 62 degree mark.  The gulls are picking up much larger shrimp right now than they were a week or so ago.  Don't worry about the water clarity if you get out this weekend because the fish aren't!

Color made a difference today!

MY type pad format just changed (always newer and better) so I may be typing this for practice.  There will be no pictures even though I have a couple of great ones for 2 reasons.  The first being that my fishing partner had to come down with the flu in order to leave work and the second is that my wife is going to have to explain all of this new stuff to me.  He will be back at work tomorrow as he was already feeling much better at dark and my wife will be back in a little while to help me get this posted.

We did not intend to fish long, but the big trout changed our minds.  We weren't catching a fish a minute, but in the first hour we released 4 fish over 27-inches.  We were standing in about three feet of water casting to a small ridge of shell in about five feet of water.  After I hung up and lost the last of our 3 Corky Fat Boys in the the magic color for the day, we never got another strike.

Convinced that it was the color and that the fish had not left, my old buddy decided that he was not going to waste a day that he had risked a job to fish.  I really do not believe there was any great risk as all he would have to do is take his boss to the same place the next day. Anyway, he decided to drive back to the landing as he thought he had two Corky Devils in his truck that were the same color.

I chose to stay and try other colors and even other lures.  He was gone about 45 minutes and I never got the first strike.  I was ready to go try a different spot when he pulled up, but he insisted that we fish a little longer with the Devils.  I crawled back in the boat to off load a diet coke and he had a 3- pound fish on before I could unhook my waders!

When he finally lost his last Devil the score was 11-0.  I did get one strike, but for the most part, I was the net boy and camera man all evening.  He caught several more 5's, another 27-inch fish, and lost a huge fish that he under estimated and tried to grab while it was far too green.

The conditions are not going to be as favorable for fishing that spot tomorrow, but I will be back with an arm load of Fat Boys in the same color just to see.  If the same thing happens again, I probably will not share the color as I need some advantage.  I will tell you this much...it wasn't pink (my favorite color) or pearl chartreuse and a Catch V does not come in that color.  I would be willing to bet that dyed-in-the-wool Corky disciples have already figured out the color.

It may all change tomorrow, but I left the lake a believer today.  I have never seen trout get that color specific in water with less than a foot of visibility.  The bad news is that there will probably be two people already there when I get there tomorrow, but the good new is that big trout appear to be a quick cure for the flu.  Big trout will cure almost anything!  

We have survived the runoff nicely thus far!

I had a bad feeling when I arrived at the launch well before daylight Saturday mroning and the parking lot was full of trucks and boat trailers.  Then I realized most of them were single axle trailers and it was the opening day of duck season!

Dr. Bill Wood and Doug Childress hit it just right!

I fished with Doug Childress and Dr. Bill Wood and we could not have had a better day.  It was cool and overcast and even more surpising was the fact that there weren't many folks fishing.  We limited on reds under the first two flocks of gulls and caught a number of very solid trout up to 22-inches as well.

Most of our better trout came well after the redfish madness slowed a little.  We drifted the same areas fishing with plastics under a Kwik Cork, a Swim Bait and a Crazy Croaker.  We caught a couple of very good trout working the color change at the mouth of Willow, but the majority of our fish came out of the mid-lake area south of the separators.

The river continues to drop and clear up and the bayous are in much better shape.  Catching a two-fish limit of flounder is not real hard right now, but there are just a jillion rat reds in the bayous as well.  Some large trout are just starting to show up on the flats, but  you have to be patient as the numbers are not there yet.

If the water continues to clear and this front pushes the surface temperature to the 60 degree mark, look for the stripers to start showing up in the river.  We have survived all of the flood water nicely up to this point.

"You were right, Pat.......Fishing the BLURP under a cork like it was a live shrimp worked well!"   

Muddy water hasn't hurt the bite, but if we get too much wind........?

This has really been a crazy week.  The Sabine River stayed above flood stage all week and we have started or ended every trip with the water over the dock.  Tuesday and Wednesday were bad days to be a sea gull or a guide as you had to work your butt off to survive.  The wind was just brutal and never slacked up even a little..

Larry picked up this nice flounder fishing a Roach Sea Shad up against the flooded cane.

You had to really want to fish or be getting paid to do so and I qualified on both accounts.  Mike Alexander and Larry Stancik booked both days and apparently really wanted to fish.  We got beat up, especially the first day, but we still finished both days with very decent catches.  The trout were solid, the reds were all in the slot and we even picked up a few nice flounder.

Mike caught the best of several slot reds we picked up fishing the gulls in some very bumpy seas!

We had a good bite going Tuesday in a pocket of clear water on the La. shoreline, but the wind swung around just enough that night to blow it out for the following day.  We struggled until late in the day Wednesday until for no good reason several small flocks of birds started working in some serious whitecaps.  If you could reach the fish they would bite and there were some darn good trout mixed in with the reds.  As we were driving off the lake Larry said, "If that wind stops...y'all are going to kill them tomorrow!"

Thursday was even crazier from the very get go.  The flag on top of the courthouse was starched due to a howling north wind at 5:30 that morning.  The weatherman had promised it was going to lay down so I was not prepared for that sight.  The water was also over the launch again, but by the time Pat Van Winkle and Tom Odom drove up, the wind had indeed died.

We were in the mid-lake area 30 minutes later and we had to drive through flock after flock of gulls to get there, just as larry predicted.  We saw ten times more gulls on that one run than we had seen in the previous 2 days.  The water was still just as muddy, but the fish were hungry.  We limited on slot reds on the first two stops and culled reds the rest of the day.

We limited on trout up to three pounds, but there is no telling how many we caught and released as there was always another flock of gulls in sight.  We visited with Rick Roberson and friends on the water and they started the day wading the south end.  They had picked up some big trout and a huge flounder that weighed just over 6-pounds.  They ran north just to get in on the redfish and we shared a school before leaving to chase more trout.

We caught reds and specks on Assassins, She Dogs, Crazy Croakers and a Mirrodine.  Tom limited on reds right out of the box with a red shad Assassin, but we did equally well later with bone diamond, Roach, LSU and strawberry.  We also probably caught as many fish under a cork as we did bouncing a jig off the bottom.  Pat had it going on for a while swimming his Assassin just beneath the surface.

I think we are going to have more wind tomorrow, but hopefully the birds will work all over the lake again and folks won't crowd one another.  Don't crowd the birds with your big engine and even if they immediately fly away, you can still catch a lot of fish. The water is very dirty and the fish will not travel far to chase a bait, so keep it slow and you will do okay! 

We're talking fishing and eating good Monday night!

 I don't know how much more runoff we can handle, but it is really making things tough on the north end of the lake.  I left the dock at daylight Saturday morning with Trey Smith, Dr. Dan Martin and his dad and we never saw the first bird working until we shut down at the mouth of WIllow.

Trey caught the best red of the day on a Spoiler Shad.

The water started clearing about Bridge Bayou, but there just weren't any birds moving around.  They may have worked a little later as we never came back that way, electing to just keep moving south.  We never worked the first set of birds, but we still finished with a very nice catch of trout and reds with several of our trout in the 3 to 4 pound range.

 
Trout like these made it easy to forget about the absence of gulls! 

We caught them on everything from a Creme Spoiler Shad to tails under a Kwik Cork.  Once again, color did not seem to be as critical as speed of retrieve.  There was some bait working the surface in two of the areas we fished, but we were more concerned with depth.  Every fish we caught came out of 3 to 5 feet of water.

I had an opportunity to throw anything I wanted as the rest of the group were steady catching fish, but I never stuck the first big trout.  I caught a couple of pretty good fish on a Catch V, but no better than anything Trey or the Martins caught on a Swim Bait or Assassin.

I haven't even stopped to fish this program, but there is a good flounder bite going on right now.  The mouths of the drains and any of the bayous that you can run are producing very nice flounder up to 24-inches.  The redfish are in there as well, but a large percentage of them are 15 to 19-inch fish.  Most folks are just fishing fresh dead shrimp on the bottom, but some of the better catches are coming on GULP shrimp fished on a Carolina rig.  The larger shrimp has worked better than the 3-inch version.

I am going to eat dinner with the Orange CCA Chapter at Cornbreads on McArthur Drive tomorrow night at 6 pm.  After that, I am going to speak to the group and we are going to have a question and answer session.  Hopefully I will have some answers.  It is going to be fun as we are going to talk about everything from matching tackle to winter patterns.  Come on out...the worst you can do is enjoy a terrific supper and visit with other fishermen!   

Birds are struggling right now with more water on the way!

The lake is getting muddier and fresher by the minute.  The Sabine is roaring down hill and the river won't crest until tomorrow night. A strong current was noticeable well out into the lake.  For the first time in the past week or so, there were more boats on the lake than birds, but we knew it was coming.

 
Suzanne had bragging right for about ten minutes with her 8 pound red, but...

I fished the Langs this morning and we did catch a few nice trout under the 2 or 3 flocks we worked, but they drew lots of attention very quickly.  The good news in spite of all of that was that the redfish are still on a tear and we were still able to catch trout and reds the old fashioned way.....chunking and winding over structure. 

 
.....Wayne won his tug of war with this 31-inch bully before we could even get hers on ice!

Most of the north end of the lake has not only the same color, but the same texture as chocolate pudding. The fish are still there and feeding on mullet and small shrimp, but you have to fish for them to find them.  We drifted some of the same areas where the gulls had been working the hardest this week and the fish were still holding tight.  Texas Roach and Mardi Gras were our two best colors and we did far better with a lighter jig head.

You could completely miss what is still a pretty good bite by running around looking for the birds.  At least for us, and we have been doing this even when the birds were everywhere, the more consistent approach for keeper fish has been drifting 4 to 6 foot flats, birds or no birds.  The fish are not moving great distances, they just can't keep the shrimp on the surface very long.

I know tomorrow is going to look like the Indy 500 when folks start racing to the few birds that do show and it is going to make it even harder for those willing to stay put.  I seldom fish weekends, but I will be on hand to see it tomorrow.  Slow down, don't panic when you realize the water is ugly and the birds aren't going to help you....and just go back to fishing like you were a month ago!

I visited with Mike Morgan while cleaning fish and he had two very nice flounder up to 22-inches (that's a limit in Novemver) that he caught in one of the bayous.  You can only keep two right now, but that program is yet another option.  He said the farther he ran up the bayou the better the water looked.

WATCH OUT for the floating debris in the river and the lake, especially if you are running at first light.  There are some huge floaters in the river!

Another day of runoff water but the bite is still holding up.

There were only a handful of boats on the water early. but a perfect afternoon drew a little larger crowd.  the bite was not as crazy as it was yesterday or across the weekend, but it wasn't bad...just different.

We had a good outgoing tide, but the water in the lake is getting a little dirtier and a little fresher each day.  Johnny Mallory painted a bleak picture telling me that he could hear the water roaring out of Toledo Bend and see the mist spraying off the spillway while standing on the deck of his camp in Indian Creek.  He added that he had never seen the lake come up that fast and that we have more fresh water than we could ever imagine headed our way!

Thus far it still hasn't bothered the trout, reds, or shrimp.  I checked most of the lake today and while I didn't see the numbers of gulls we have been seeing, I did find gulls scattered from one end to the other.  Once again, catching slot reds was no problem, but I had a hard time locating solid trout until later in the day.

I wasn't keeping fish, but every solid trout I boated hit a MirrOdine XL, a Catch V, or an Assassin fished just below the surface.  I probably caught 15 or 20 redfish and the majority of them came out of two schools on the west side of the pipeline just south of Johnson's.  The water looked a little better in that area than anywhere else, but I don't think it made the fish much difference.

I fished several different programs to cover all my bases for tomorrows group, but I will start with Texas Roach or pumpkin tomorrow.  I caught far too many small specks and sandies on lighter colors.  The reds didn't care what color it was as long as it made it to the bottom.

I have been fishing this lake a long time, but I had something happen this morning that I have never had happen before.  I was chasing a flock of terns on the troll motor that were obviously feeding over fish, but it took forever to catch up to them without spooking them.  When I did catch them, a fish immediately slammed a Texas Roach Sea Shad and went airborne.

To my surprise, it was a flounder and it fought on top like it thought it was a trout.  Are you ready for this.....five casts in a row produced five flounder that all hit the lure before it sank a foot and immediately cleared the surface.  Another fishermen a healthy cast short of the action watched it all and acted as though it was old hat.  His take on the whole thing was, "You know you coulda kept two of them flounders!"

As good as this bite is, the fish are obviously going to have to deal with a lot of fresh water over at least the next week.  The bite in the river is history for now, but the lake bite might hang in there.