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!
What a great day fishing Dickie. I look forward to coming over for a trophy wade in a few weeks. Best of luck to you.
Pat VanWinkle
Posted by: Patrick VanWinkle | November 15, 2009 at 06:48 AM