Colburn's Sabine Connection

small trout under the terns

We had a difficult time finding any solid trout today, but the small trout were all over the south end of the lake hustling shrimp.  Most of the schools we found were under terns rather than gulls.  There were a few good schools of reds, but you had to be right there when they came up as they weren't up long.

The water on the north end is pretty dirty from all of the runoff, but it doesn't look bad at all from Whiskey Bayou on south.  We caught most of our trout on glow chartreuse or pumpkin chartreuse Sea Shads.   I don't know if the recent floods just haven't had time to mess things up or if it is just settling out that quickly, but it might get right in a hurry if we can avoid any more rain this week.

Don't run...fish deeper!

We woke up to a downpour this morning so I'll try to dry out everything in the boat that got soaked the past couple of days.  Does dry storage really exist in any bay boat?

We were able to get a couple of hours in each morning the first part of the week before monsoons would run us off the water.  Each day the water got a little fresher and a little dirtier, but it didn't seem to hurt the bite.  We fished live finger mullet on the shallow flats bordering the intracoastal and the trout were holding in 5 to 7 feet of water.  They will probably only back off a little deeper if it continues to rain.

I think the bite that will be slowed the most will be the schooling activity that was just starting to improve in the southern portion of the lake.  We weren't seeing a lot of redfish, but the average trout was larger than those showing up on the north end.  Once the rain lets up, it never completely quits, don't panic in the face of dirtier water. 

Before you pack up and head further south, check out the nearest deep water.  The water will be saltier and clearer regardless of what the surface water looks like.  We survived the last flood by moving to deeper water and fishing live bait until conditions improved in the lake.  That stretch of intracoastal between the north end of Sidney Island and the south end of Rabbit Island produced trout when the water was at its worst last month.  The trout hung right on the 12 foot break and would hit only shad for us, but it was a bite! 

Take advantage of slick mornings

Yesterday proved to be more of the same for us on Sabine.  You need to get it done before mid-afternoon as the wind and occasional thunder shower only adds to the difficulty each evening.  The morning bite continues to improve.  The home run ball is to find yourself at the right spot at the right time well out in the middle of the lake.  We failed to locate the easier bite, but the fish on the flats were still there.

In general ,the water has a little better clarity in the mid-lake area and we are starting to see specks chasing shrimp across the surface again.  There has been no bird activity, but the fish are holding when you can find them.  The more dependable bite, and we have had at least two fish in the five pound class this week, are still hitting She Dogs, Spooks, and Catch V's on the shallow flats.

We have found keeper specks and reds under both shad and large mullet.  Chrome and bone patterns are still working the best for us in topwaters while bone diamond and glow-chartreuse have been the better producers in plastics.  If you can tolerate the gafftop bite, drifting Sea Shad or smaller plastics, as well as live shad, under a cork will also help locate fish right now.  We have been turning to that option when the wind blows out our flats bite.

Slow, but improving in the lake

We stayed in the lake for a change today and it was tough.  We did find some solid redfish on the La. shoreline fishing bone diamond Assassins and glow-chartreuse Split Tails on quarter ounce heads.  The wind was just bad enough to keep us out of the open lake.  We had intended to fish trout chasing shrimp without the help of birds, but we couldn't see the shrimp in the chop.

We did run through two small schools before we saw them.  We never caught the first fish in the first one and missed one good fish and caught several small trout in the second one.  The water did not look as good as it has in Coffee Ground nor along the North revetment wall, but the water in the mid lake area was in great shape.  The wind just eventually shut us down about 3:30.

We'll try again tomorrow!

Paris "Boomer" Horton with rainy day trout.

Get in line at the jetties!

Sorry about the recent scarcity of reports, but the catching has been slow for me.  Had I been diligent enough to write one each evening, they would have all been the same for the past several days.  I have made two pre-dawn runs to the jetties and the fishing has been just as good as advertised.  I just hate the jetties, running the ship channel in the dark, and the traffic.  The bite down there seems to be hurt worse by boat traffic than the wind.

We dodged a bad storm one day, but the wind hasn't slowed the trout bite at all.  We have fished only the Louisiana side and caught trout on topwaters, Sea Shads in limetreuse or new penney, and Hoginars.  We caught more reds on Hoginars than trout.  After the sun gets up, the trout have been right in the rocks, so take a lot of jig heads with you.

I have no idea what the deal is with the lake, but I have struggled of late.  It could all change tomorrow, but we find a few trout in one area one morning and can't buy a strike the following day.  I haven't fished a lot of live bait, but the drift fishermen have done better than I have fishing shad and finger mullet in the mid-lake area. 

The water clarity isn't bad and it is plenty salty so we can't be too far from things breaking loose again.  This entire year has been very different following Rita, but I would still bet money on the reds schooling up in the next couple of weeks.  We haven't caught good numbers, but we have caught some very good flounder fishing the river.  They have been holding in about 12 to 15 feet of water. 

Wasting perfect conditions

We have had perfect conditions most of the day for the past two days and not cashed in on them.  We have caught a lot of small fish whether it be trout, flounder or redfish, but big fish have been scarce.  We have had better luck with redfish and that is hard to explain with the amount of bait in the lake.

The better trout bite has been in the river all week long. It is, however, difficult to hang around the points and cuts in the river when you know it could blow wide open any day in the lake with these kind of conditions.  The strong bite that preceeded this little lull was as good as I can remember for early July. 

While the water clarity is good all over the lake, it is exceptionally good from the north tip of Pleasure Island all the way to the La. shoreline.  If you haven't been out in a while, I would start in that area and key in on schools of shad and slicks.  Our better redfish came out of slicks just south of the tank nearest Stewts two days in a row.  We caught them on  bone-chrome She Dogs and bone diamond Assassins.

South wind has blown out easy bite

Over the past two days the wind has blown out what was an excellent topwater/Catch V bite for over a week.  It was better today than yesterday as the wind stayed a little more out of the east and waited a little later in the day to really blow.

We found some good redfish and scattered trout early, but never found any big concentrations of mullet working the shoreline.  That had been the key to the easy bite on reds and trout up to five pounds.  The lake has given up a lot of clarity to the wind from Stewt's to Coffee Ground Cove.

We caught our better fish today on bone diamond Assassins working shallow points on the La. shoreline.  The water was just perfect for working the cane for flounder, but we never found the first keeper fish.  I am not sure what is wrong with the flounder bite.  There are still a lot of small trout in East Pass and Middle Pass, but very few keeper fish.

Ted Takasaki puts new Lindy Paradise Popper X-Treme cork to good use on Sabine Lake.

bite continues to improve

The fishing on Sabine Lake continues to get better as all the runoff has had very little negative effect on the lake thus far.  We fished flats in water from 2 to 4 1/2 feet this afternoon and caught redfish, trout, and one 8-10 pound jack on Catch V's and bone or pearl topwaters.  We only stuck one trout in the five pound plus class, but all of the trout we kept were 18 to 20 inch fish.

It wasn't a real complicated program as we simply ran until we found good concentrations of mullet and shad working a shoreline.  The trout hit the Catch V better early, but got all over both a She Dog and Skitterwalk later in the afternoon.  We had several reds just assault topwaters, but most of them wouldn't stay connected.  The water still looks very good and the bite has improved every day this week.