Colburn's Sabine Connection

wind remains a problem

High winds once again kept everyone either in the marsh or drifting the shell on the south end of the lake. The drift bite remains pretty good depending on tide changes. Strong south wind held up tides, but pushed in a lot of new bait. Best bite (12 keeper trout and three redfish) came out of 14 feet of water on morning glory-chartreuse Assassin eels. Caught a lot of throwbacks on limetreuse sea shads.
Boats working the marshes found good numbers of small flounder and a few redfish on pumpkin-chartreuse grubs tipped with shrimp. The largest flounder were caught on mud minnows at the mouths of the major cuts on the Louisiana side of the lake.

wind still a problem

A northeast wind pinned us down Monday morning. The net results were six trout, one good fish in the six pound class that ate a Corky Devil in three feet of water. The other fish, all keepers, were taken on red shad Assassins and a black-chartreuse Catch 2000. In spit of the poor catch, the good news lies in the fact that these fish were taken on the north end of the lake and that has been a long time coming for us. The first fish caught was actually a ten inch bass so you know the water on the North end is still a tad fresh!
The reserve is now open and some of the folks that managed to make the run to the backwater caught flounder up to three pounds and a few keeper redfish. The best bite was on mud minnows rather than jigs tipped with shrimp. The reef on the south end is still producing when the wind permits. It's still a little on the slow side, but we are getting close now.

Reef Action Improving

Fished the reefs on the south end of the lake for the past two days and it looks like the trout bite is getting even more consistent. Don't be afraid of the water clarity or lack thereof. Surprisingly enough the fish bit as well Wednesday on an outgoing tide as an incoming.
The traffic doubled as good word spreads fast and folks were catching fish from 7 to 18 feet deep. The best colors for us were limetreuse, fire-tiger, and red shad. We never had to fish anything larger than a quarter ounce head. All of our fish were taken on Assassins, Chub minnnows, and Tidal Surge split tails. There seems to be a world of trout in the fourteen to seventeen inch class right now. The largest fish we had was only a little over three pounds. We also caught redfish up to 26 inches and several nice flounder working the same technique.
If you can catch it just right, the birds are even working over small shrimp in the open lake. We ran into them twice last week on our way back in. The wade bite is still on, with trout up to seven pounds taken Wednesday afternoon. Those fish were in two feet of water hitting Catch 2000's and Cork-e's. More fish are being taken on the Corky look-alike simply because of the availability. Our largest trout hit Catch 2000's or Corky Devils at the same depth.
The flounder fishing is also improving in the bayous and marshes off the lake, but you have to work them slowly and commit to chasing them to wind up with a good mess of keepers. It will only get better.

Sabine Lake

Patches of clearer water following tide changes have been enough to hold a few trout as we move into the weekend. By the time the afternoon rolled around under bright clear skies during the mid-week, the surface temperature was as high as 71 degrees on the shallow flats. The most productive area through Friday was a stretch of shore line from Johnson's Bayou to Garrison's ridge. While numbers were hard to come by, we still caught a few trout up to six pounds and a lot of small redfish on Corkies, Catch 2000's, and Assassins rigged on 1/16th ounce heads.
Red shad, morning glory-chartreuse, and glow chartreuse were the most productive colors in soft plastics while bone, chartreuse-gold, and black-chartreuse were the more productive colors in the Corky and 2000. When the trout weren't hanging around the mouths of the cuts they were on isolated patches of shell in 4-6 feet of water.
We also started picking up keeper trout Friday on the reefs north of the Causeway. Limetreuse, red flake, and black chartreuse all caught fish on an incoming tide. With more rain expected through the weekend this bite could well prove non-existent for a few days. Flounder are also moving into the lake, but most of them are small at this time.