Colburn's Sabine Connection

Back to Big Lake

We tried to make it happen on Sabine yesterday morning and just couldn't get anything going.  Since there was no Plan B in this case for Sabine, we packed up and trailered to Big lake.

We got on the water around 3:30 and the birds were already working around the old jetties.  A very stiff southeast wind made it a little more difficult, but we still managed to catch a few keeper trout and three reds in the 8-9 pound class on soft plastics.

There were at least two different schools of reds working for the better part of an hour.  We got started a little earlier this afternoon and had fourteen trout and eight redfish.  The wind was still a problem, but the birds worked a little better today.  We caught most of our trout on the northwest side of Rabbit Island in West Cove.  They were holding over the end of a  small reef in 4 feet of water.

I still haven't got a morning pattern, but I talked with a party at Bayou Landing that did well Tuesday morning on live shrimp at the jetties.  They also caught a lot of 12 to 15 inch trout fishing the ship channel at the mouth of Oyster Bayou.

The fish are turning on a little in the late afternoon right now on Sabine, but the trout are still small.  Aside from the size problem, the wind has been pretty tough to deal with every evening.  The short term solution may be to fish live bait and stick with protected areas like Bessie Heights, Keith Lake, and the Ship Channel.

Big Lake won today

We fished Big Lake today and did very poorly in spite of pretty darn good conditions.  We found a few flounder with pumpkin/chartreuse Sea Shads in the Wash Out early in the day.  The birds worked over small shrimp during the mid-afternoon, but most of the trout chasing them were small.

The water was in very good condition and, not unlike Sabine, there is a world of shad schooling all over the lake.  We will probably move back over on Sabine tomorrow and see if the bite has improved. The wind has made it difficult to locate any gulls the last couple of outings and it is hard to see shrimp skipping across the surface in a bad chop.

Trout still there, but gulls aren't helping anglers

I apologize for not taking care of business, but this has been a crazy week.  Afternoon winds were a problem most of the week and the bird activity really slowed down.  We are now seeing a lot more shad in the open lake again, but the key to getting on fish you can stay with is locating a few shrimp skipping across the surface.

We had a poor outing Friday only because the wind blew early on and we were unable to find fish chasing shrimp in the waves.  There was very little bird activity so you had to get it done on your own.  Don't pass up birds sitting on the water right now.  If you hang around long enough you will see why they are sitting there!

The best new is that the bite is now taking place all over the lake rather than just one small section which helps thin the boat traffic.  The reds have just now started beating up on shad from mid-day on and that action will only improve.  We also have done better on the lighter patterns like bone diamond and glow or glow/chartreuse this week.  The better trout didn't seem to care whether it was a smaller bodied plastic like the Sea Shad or Chub Minnow or the longer plastics like the Assassin or Sand eel.

The live bait fishermen are not complaining as they continue to do well on live shrimp, mullet, and shad fishing the breaks along the ship channel and Intracoastal.  The fish have been as shallow as 5-6 feet early, but move out to 12-14 later in the day.  The bite has been mixed between trout and redfish.

Do not forget that your Louisiana license is just about done.  If you intend to fish any of the cuts or bayous on the east side of the lake you have to have a current license in hand. Taking a chance can prove to be both inconvenient and expensive!

Small trout rule the weekend

We fished both Friday and Saturday on Sabine Lake and it was down right hot in spite of some serious wind Friday and a thunderstorm Saturday afternoon.  The problem for the most part both days was not catching fish, but catching keeper fish.  The fish got pressured pretty badly by boat traffic both days, but even when you had fish to yourself it was tough.

Easily the most success came fishing birds sitting on the water rather than working over schools of trout.  As long as they would sit you could work them for a while without attracting other fishermen.  Considering the modest number of flocks working in proportion to the number of anglers on hand, I thought most of the fishermen were pretty darn considerate.

Friday the wind really hurt us, but it still took two days to figure out that even the better fish wanted a smaller soft plastic.  They would hit it under a Mauler, but they wanted it closer to the bottom even when the gulls were working over them and you could see fish breaking the surface.

We did much better in the southern half of the lake.  For some reason there still aren't a lot of shad like there were two weeks ago, but the fish are still there.  The wade bite continues to produce the best fish early in the morning, but you better be there before first light.

  Black/chartreuse Corkies produced trout up to five pounds Saturday morning.  The best bite was in 2-4 feet of water just south of Rabbit Island.

Lots of seaweed and trout in Sabine

We made a quick "can't stand not to go" run into the lake this morning and it was predictably good with no wind.  If anything, the shrimp seemed to have moved a little further north as we found schooling trout less than a mile into the lake.

It appears that we now have a lake full of trout and sea weed!  We had one rod between us in the boat and a handful of glow/ chartreuse Assassins.  Every school of fish we ran across ate that color.  The keeper to non-keeper ratio was probably five or six to one in most schools.  We could have caught even more fish, but we had a very short time and spent most of it arguing over, "Who fished last!"

Sabine may be as good as it is going to get right now, with the exception of more schooling redfish.  That could start any day.

Bite getting more consistent on Sabine

It took us two days to get it done, but it was worth the extra effort.  Monday morning we were on Sabine well before daylight intending to wade a ridge on the North end of the lake.  A stiff south wind that refused to let up put an end to that and we retreated to the river.

We caught one red that we kept as well as a good box of flounder.  Most of the fish either hit live finger mullet or pumpkin/chartreuse Sea Shads.  I was cleaning fish when Ernie Eickenhorst and Craig Corder called to say they were working birds on the south end of the lake.  Thirty minutes later Gene Locke and I were on our way in spite of a long ride into the wind.

By the time we arrived, the action had slowed to a crawl.  There were a few birds still working, but the fish were small.  Ernie and Craig had already boxed 16 solid keepers fishing soft plastics.  Seems like everytime you call someone and it involves a long run that happens, but we knew that possiblity existed before we ever left.

This morning, however, a good plan came together.  We hit the lake before daylight again and were limited on trout up to five pounds by the time most folks were leaving for work.  We caught the fish moving up on a flat out of the Intracoastal and actually caught most of the trout in less than two feet of water. We were wading.

The fish weren't real particular as we caught them on a pearl Skitterwalk, a black/chartreuse She Dog, and a black/white ribbed Spook.  There was never a point where you thought one of the other lures could be any better than the one you had tied on.  Now that is unusual and long over due!

When we got back to the landing, another party had done just as well drifting live shad under a popping cork in Coffee Ground Cove.  They also had seven slot reds and had released several larger fish.  The north end of the lake is not as clear as it was a week ago, but the mid-lake area and Louisiana shoreline looks great.

That bite under the birds that we were a little late on the day before still involves shrimp rather than shad.  You find one shrimp skipping across the surface and there is a trout right behind it.

Trout still chasing shrimp

The wind finally slowed down enough on Sabine to allow folks to fish the open lake and it was good.  Not a lot of redfish, but a world of trout in the 16 to 19 inch class chasing shrimp.  The redfish cannot be far behind with all the shad beginning to school.

Small top waters and soft plastics worked very well fished either on a quarter ounce jig head or worked under a Mauler.  The majority of the better reports from fishermen that stuck with it until the wind laid, came off the east side of the lake.

There was an excellent bite on trout up to four pounds right at dawn on the flat behind Stewt's.  A pumpkinseed/chartreuse Crazy Croaker and a black/chartreuse Corky Devil produced nine very good trout and a throwback redfish before it ended as quickly as it started.  Look for all of the flats bordering the ICC to get really hot in the next week or two!

Don't forget the flounder bite should the wind once again push you out of the lake.  They are running large and they are hitting everything from curl tail jigs to finger mullet.  Start on the flats bordering the mouths of the major bayous and cuts off the river.

Wind is making it tough!

The wind hasn't given us a break in a week.  We beat it Tuesday and Wednesday by retreating to the river.  Wednesday we caught eleven slot reds that would have kept, seven trout, and nine very solid flounder up to four pounds.  All of the fish were in 12 to 15 feet of water.

The redfish and flounder were holding on sandbars, but the specks were hanging on points adjacent to very deep water.  All of the fish came on Carolina rigged shad or finger mullet.

Today we took a totally different approach and waded the islands on the north end of the lake until the wind finally drove us out.   We did well enough, but I believe we would have done even better had we gotten in the water before daylight.  We caught our fish on She Pups and small Skitterwalks.  Both bone and pearl/chartreuse were good colors in the off- colored water.

The wind has silted up the lake to the point that the river is much clearer.  At least ninety percent of the lake has had no pressure at all due to the strong south winds.  We tried to force the issue earlier this week and found two small flocks of gulls working fish that we blew through before we could all boat a keeper.

The phenomenal bite all week long has been the flounder bite in the river.  We would catch a few and leave an area, but several other groups limited and returned several times over on flounder up to four pounds.  The average flounder has easily been in the 16 to 20 inch class and they are eating everything from plastic to live shad.

The bad news for now is the wind won't quit, but the good news is that there is a solid Plan B!

Plan B saves windy day

I didn't expect to get two calm days in a row to fish Sabine and I wasn't disappointed.  After a perfect day on the lake yesterday we were greeted with 15 to 20 mile per hour sse winds this morning.  We made the run from the north end to the south revetment area and took a beating.

I fished Ray and Ann Smith from Linden, Texas and I was afraid it was going to be one of those, "You should have been here yesterdays".  We were able to fish three groups of gulls before being blown out.  We caught several nice trout and Ann caught her first redfish.  All of the fish hit pumpkin/chartreuse Assassins.

We ran out of the lake and back up the Sabine river to fish live shad on the deep drops.  When the trip ended we had a very good box of trout up to 4 1/2 pounds, a six pound red, and a 20 inch flounder.  We found the fish in the river anywhere from 8 to 22 feet deep on the points.

We ran the La. bank back all the way back when leaving the lake and the water was prettier than any other part of the lake.  We stopped only long enough to catch some bait in a bayou, but there was a lot of bait in the open lake.  Look for that area to get hot in the very near future!

No wind...lots of trout

Yesterday the wind and some bodacious lightning put an early end to some pretty good trout fishing.  The fish were chasing shrimp from Middle Pass all the way to Blue Buck Point.  It only took one or two gulls to mark a school of trout and most of the fish were running 17 to 20 inches long.  Good solid trout!

Today the bite started for us at daylight and didn't slow down until 2:15.  We found trout under the gulls behind Stewts Island and followed the action south into the mid-lake area the rest of the day.  We caught a world of good trout fishing a glow/chartreuse Assassin and a chartreuse/red flake Chub under a Mauler.

We also caught some of our better trout on a pearl/chartreuse She Dog.  The water was in great shape all over the lake.  Every school of trout we found were feeding on shrimp.  We never caught the first fish under a pod of shad!

Today was probably as good as I have seen it in the past month.  If the wind will continue to give us a break there is no reason the strong bite shouldn't continue.  Once the shad are a little larger, we should also start seeing more schooling redfish as well.  Don't crowd the gulls and these fish will hold for you long after the surface activity ceases.

We are catching more fish out of each school staying with the lightest head you can cast a reasonable distance. We also found the schools to be extremely tight even though the birds were working a fairly large area.  Don't give up until you've worked an area thoroughly as you may well run off and leave a great school of trout making only a handful of casts.

Take lots of water....it is hot!