Monday I was thinking, "It can't get any better than this." Then I said the same thing yesterday, but today was even better. We had perfect conditions and the fish were just going nuts!
Jerry Hennington said he just might start fishing again after this trip!
I fished with Louis, Gerald and Jerry yesterday and I am not sure how many big fish we went through all told, but we still managed to keep a great box of trout. I was rigging up rods for each of them and made the first cast of the morning to make sure the drag was set, etc. Before I could hand Gerald the rod a four pound trout hit a 10w40 Assassin and it was that way until we quit.
I ran back to the same area today with Duane, Mike, and Chris and the fish were still there. We could very easily have been limited on trout up to six pounds by 7:30. Once again I don't know how many big fish we actually went through, but we were limited an hour later.
Mike was already in the catch and release mode at first light.
I was in the process of fighting our largest trout of the day when my cell phone rang. I waited until I could see how big my fish was to answer the phone and then handed the rod to Mike to finish the fight on a trout that was easily over seven pounds. Just prior to sliding the net under her she broke off and no one really cared. That is when it is going well!
When they tired of catch and releasing 20-inch trout well before noon, I decided to make one run through the middle of the lake to see if the redfish were schooling up. Had we been struggling and had no fish in the box I would never have found the first gull. With three limits of trout in the box, however, we immediately found a small group of gulls working over ribbon fish.
And then we found an acre of redfish blowing ribbon fish out of the water!
Before I could lower the troll motor, an acre of slot reds started blowing holes in the water and we had three or four fish on at the same time for as long as we wanted to fish them. I have seen some incredible schools of redfish over the years, but I can't remember anything any more impressive. I called Johnnny and Jim Wallace and we just sat and watched the reds churn the water to a froth while we waited for them to come meet us. When we left, Johnny and Jim were both hooked up and the fish were still on top.
There were some big trout mixed in with all of those reds, (they had to big to survive in that massacre) but we were trying to shake them off at the boat to take another shot into the copper madness. It was crazy!
Larry Strickland was fishing a short distance from us this morning and called to tell me that he had just landed a 28-inch plus trout that was over 8-pounds on his scales. We have put some fish like that back recently because I haven't fished anyone entered in the STAR tournament, but Larry was entered and I urged him to get to Bridge City Bait as quickly as possible.
He made the run only to discover that his 8-pound 6-ounce trout was fourth best even at this early stage. We were both disappointed that he had to kill the big trout for nothing, but we had no way of knowing. Larry has really focused on catching a double-digit trout this year and I wouldn't count him out just yet.
I don't know what it is going to take to win the upper coast trout division, but we have already put a couple back that would be leaders and have narrowly missed two more fish that were even larger. I honestly can't tell if they weigh six pounds or nine pounds when they are plowing across the surface on forty feet of line, but i am a pretty good judge when they are on six feet of line.
A lot of the 3 to 4 pound fish that we have cleaned are full of eggs so you are going to get your money's worth out of every inch of fish right now. There has been no secret bait for us other than the fact that we have been using the 5-inch Assassin rather than smaller Sea Shad. Some of the largest trout that I have released also hit the larger TopDog and the MirrOdine XL.
Dickey, I know it was good since one of your photo's had a background other than "water and grass"....you were too busy to turn the boat....says the fish must be everywhere!!! we are catching trout on the East Bay reefs and reds are boiling the mud in Trinity, but it has not quite truned on over here like Sabine has... I always enjoy your reports and utilize them, THANKS!!!!
Posted by: Jonathan | June 04, 2009 at 08:56 AM