Colburn's Sabine Connection

Not the reef bite you expected!

I took a day off and cleaned the remainder of two days of wading out of the boat.  I also chased down some folks that I knew fished the reefs on the south end all weekend.  Last Wednesday and Friday they caught good numbers of trout up to three pounds, but they weren't bouncing plastic off the shell.  They were chasing the birds and that action held for most of the morning.

When the birds stopped they found the bite very difficult drifting the shell.  Most of the fish were caught on Traps, candy corn and limetreuse Assassins, and bone She Dogs.  Oddly enough, the bird action didn't last as long Thursday, but the drift bite improved.  They not only caught trout, but some huge drum and slot reds as well.  Morning glory-chartreuse was the hottest color.

Saturday morning the birds worked again, but there was more traffic on hand.  Still no big fish, at least the folks I talked with had no big trout, but they were solid keepers.  If the water remains as clear as it is now and the salinity levels continue to increase it will be wide open by the weekend.

There is already bait showing up in the river and Coffee Ground Cove is just loaded with bait.  Look for some big trout catches to start coming in off the north end of the lake.  It has received virtually no fishing pressure all spring long.  It is a nice feeling to finally leave the dock with more than one option.

The flounder bite is also just about as good as it gets all over the La. shoreline.  Both size and numbers have been better for me than they were all of last year.  I occasionally receive e-mails asking if I ever have really good reports.  Good is relative to how every one else is doing and I have done more fishing than catching thus far.

This is a good one and I am as tickled as you are.  Hopefully there will be more! 

Bad decisions on a good day

I am starting to feel a little like a search and rescue dog that can't find a survivor after this weekend.  I need to find something alive!

  We couldn't have asked for better conditions Friday on Big Lake and just bombed out.  We were wading in hopes of one more big trout and had two shots, but other than that it was basically casting practice.  I only looked at the water in West Cove and the Wash Out and the water was in great shape in both places.  The only thing that made the bust more bearable was the fact that I talked with three other groups of fishermen that suffered much the same fate.

Saturday on Sabine lake was another story all together.  The conditions were perfect.  The lake was as clear as it has been since last summer and the boat traffic wasn't bad at all.  We caught two trout right out of the box on red shad Assassins and I immediately went into a panic strut because the fish weren't hitting every cast and I was afraid the approaching front was going to spoil the party. The trout had been holding on a little 400 yard stretch of shoreline and I just didn't give them enough time to do their thing.

We switched our program to pounding the banks for flounder and did ok fishing pumpkinseed/chartreuse and red shad Assassins.  The flounder are starting to stack up around the mouths of the bayous and in every small cut as well as along the main lake shoreline.  We stuck only one redfish and that is unusual when fishing flounder on that program.

Frustration really began to set in when I got back to the truck,  I had a call from two friends that were fishing the same area we pulled off earlier in the day.  "Y'all weren't out of sight when the trout turned on right where you were drifting.  They only bit for about thirty minutes, but we caught two limits!"  That really cheers you up when you're soaking wet already agonizing over a day that should have gone better.

We would have left when we did anyway due to prior commitments, but it helped little that I got yet another call tonight from a good friend that was fishing with his son a hundred yards from us when we called it a day.  They stayed in that same area and caught trout non-stop in the rain from 4:30 until the mosquitoes drove them  off the water.

The bad new is that I really fished some very nice folks both days and did poorly.  The good news is that Sabine is improving by the day and I may even find them this week.  The water from mid-lake on south is in fantastic shape and the water all the way to Coffee Ground is as clear as you need it to be.  The folks I talked with that caught trout were using red shad and bone diamond plastics on quarter ounce heads.  The better catches came out of three to five feet of water.

I am going to church in the morning, hiding eggs after lunch, and looking forward to a more productive week.  Hope you have a great Easter with the family!

Sabine still no bargain

It gets a little embarrassing when I keep hearing great things about Sabine and I can't make it happen.

  For the first time this year, we did pick up six solid trout on one drift fishing a red shad Assassin under a Mauler.  We immediately turned around, started the drift over and never got bit again.  It wasn't the first time we'd caught six trout, but they were the first Mauler fish we've caught!

Those trout were holding over shell in 4 1/2 feet of water.  We scratched out two reds and three more trout on Catch 2000's and a black chartreuse Corky working the shoreline between Whiskey and the Pines.

We finished out the day working the mouths of the bayous and drains with Tube jigs and pumpkinseed-chartreuse Assassin Sea Shads.  We caught three small reds, eleven keeper flounder, and probably threw back that many smaller ones.  The water clarity has improved some, but the only bait we found was right against the bank.

I talked with Craig Corder tonight and he had a tough day on Sabine as well, but did manage to stick one seven pound plus trout on a tail.  He caught the fish over shallow grass.

Next stop.....Calcasieu!

Too much wind and dirty water on Sabine

The most unfortunate aspect of having a bad day in the guide business is that someone else gets to share in the misery.  Fished some very nice folks from Humble today and we took it on the chin on Sabine.

The wind ripped all day long out of the southwest and I haven't seen the water this off colored all year. Some of it is runoff, but most of it is wind damage on the southeast shoreline.  We had an exceptionally low tide making the conditions even worse, but it will take a few days for the lake to start clearing with no more rain or excessive winds.  What are our chances of that happening?

We did manage to find a few flounder, a red, and a couple of trout up to five pounds in the back of Johnson's, but even that water was dirty.  We caught the fish on red shad or pumpkin chartreuse Sea Shads fishing the edge of the exposed moss.

Calcasieu would be my choice of the two lakes for the next couple of days.  Should the bayous, Johnson, Madam Johnson, and Willow clear up quickly, the flounder are ready to temporarily fill the bill on Sabine.  They are holding near the small drains and along the grass on the outside bends.  Pumpkinseed and glow-chartreuse have been the hottest colors.

At this point I think the next good trout bite on Sabine will start on the reefs on the south end.  There is a lot of bait showing up on the incoming tide and the gulf water has been clean enough to significantly improve the clarity on the changes.  Its going to happen in the very near future!

She's still swimmin'

It took a tour of Hackberry and stops at two landings to find enough water to launch, but it was well worth the effort.  A very cold northwest wind turned the marshes into mud parking lots making most of the day very difficult on Calcasieu.

We had a brief mid-afternoon flurry catching and missing several solid trout on bone-chartreuse and pumpkin-chartreuse Crazy Croakers and a chartreuse-pearl Catch 2000.  When the lake flattened out around 3:30 we decided to make one more drift over an area that had been holding big trout and Kyle Barnett is glad we did!

He made one crank on a pink Corky Devil and the best trout of his life ate it.  He more than got his money's worth as the pot bellied sow circled the boat at least three times and ran off drag twice after we had touched her with the Boga-grip.  There wasn't a whole lot of breathing taking place until she came aboard.

His personal best was a hair over 29 inches in length and weighed 9 lbs. 4 ounces.  It was a  beautiful trout and well documented with pictures galore.  Kyle was extremely careful in handling her and she exploded out of his hand to deposit some potent genes following a very short resuscitation.

Any day on the water is a good day, but some are a whole lot better than others.  I congratulate Kyle not only on his catch, but his decision to release her and share her and her off spring with the rest of us for years to come! 

Too cold to enjoy it

A lot of pain on Calcasieu for six trout.  One good trout 27 inches, but the others were just keeper fish.  The wind was relentless and we drifted one stetch of shoreline over and over until we could stand it no longer.

The one good trout ate a black-chartreuse Catch 2000 and the rest of the fish hit a fast sinking pink Crazy Croaker.  They had to hit pink as that was the only color I had.  Haven't fished them much, but I think I like the slow sinker better.

Weather will not cooperate

We got out late and returned early.  It looks like we've traded off 30 mph winds and sunshine for 20 mph wind and rain.  If the trout don't start doing their thing on the reef on the south end, it could be tough finding fishable water.

By the time we made it to Johnson's Bayou we had already decide to swap waders for Frogg Toggs and Catch 2000's for pumpkinseed Sea Shad rigged on 1/8th ounce heads.  It was a good decision, but it didn't take long to enjoy all of the fun we could stand.

We fished three drains in Johnson's and the mouth of Whiskey.  We kept 13 flounder and 2 slot redfish before calling in the dogs.  In spite of all the wind that has been pounding that shoreline the water still looked decent.  We weren't tipping the jigs so I am thinking the flounder must be getting pretty serious.

While it is all ways a good idea to let someone at home know the area you will be fishing, it is an especially good idea with all of the wind of late.  Should they have to hunt you it helps eliminate some water!

Trout in the grass!

After getting blown away yesterday, there wasn't enough breeze to drift on Sabine this morning.  Yesterday's gale force winds left the La. shoreline badly silted up, but the back lakes and cuts were in great shape.

We fished only two dead end cuts and finished with two trout over seven pounds, five redfish, a couple of flounder and thirteen 15 to 18 inch trout that we kept.  All of the fish were in the middle of, or very near, the scattered grass in the extreme back end of the shallow lakes.

We kept only the reds and smaller trout and those trout hit red shad Sea Shads rigged on 1/16th ounce jig heads.  The two big trout and all of the redfish hit either an Assassin or plastic frog rigged weedless with a 4/0 worm hook.  We lost two other big trout that just couldn't be extracted from the matted grass.  Once they got buried in the grass they pulled off and there was no way to get to them.

We've caught a lot of redfish over the years on the frog, but I don't recall ever having trout chase it in the grass.  They may never do it again, but I put some more frogs in the bag tonight just in case!

Sabine slow down

The past two days have been extra tough on Sabine for us.  Adding insult to injury, we were rewarded with a twenty mile return ride directly into winds at least that high.  We spent most of the morning in the marsh checking out the flounder bite and found very few at home.  We missed a lot of fish that just pounded the bait one time and were gone or pulled off as soon as you set the hook. 

We only boated five trout and a flounder before a much stiffer than anticipated northwest wind turned Sabine Lake upside down.  We waited as long as we could,but the wind only continued to build.  It was a long wet ride and the waves were not only too high, but just a little too far apart!

Prior to the wind switch, the water on the La. shoreline was in great shape.  By the time we left it was dirty and silted up due to the waves breaking over the shoreline.  We never got in the water as my game plan was to check out a few backwater haunts until later in the day and then wade one or two main lake spots until dark.  Bad plan!

The trout we did catch hit red shad Assassins and glow-chartreuse split tails.  We didn't pick up a fish that wasn't hanging very close to a major drain.  We've got another little front due in right behind this one and that won't help things short term.  At least its not raining for the moment.

Thunderstorms and Crazy Croakers

With thunderstorms promised for today, Brad Deslatte passed on my offer to postpone his trip last night.  He must have known something that I didn't, but he still gets poor marks as a weather man.  We can tell you the exact spot where the thunderstorms were the worst today!

We were on Calcasieu around 7:30 and decided to make a quick tour of the east shoreline before running to West Cove to do some wade fishing.  We still haven't made it to West Cove.

The water was still very much off colored all the way to Hebert's, but we immediately found the trout eating Corkys and Catch 2000's like it was a training session.  We put on rain gear and never got out of the boat.

  On the third drift down the same stretch of shoreline, Deslatte decided to try one of two glow-chartreuse Crazy Croakers he had in his box.  That's when we discovered just how hungry the trout really were!

It was incredible.  I continued to catch a few fish on both Corkys and 2000's, but this was the Crazy Croaker show.  In a driving rain that just wouldn't stop, he was either hooked up, pulling off fish, or boating a trout darn near every cast.  We were forced to run for cover due to way too much lightning at one point, but as soon as we returned, he immediately started catching fish again.

We cleaned fourteen fish for a promised fish fry, but there is no telling how many we released, jumped off or whatever.  We saw only one other boat with four waders and one crab boat all morning long.  The trout were hanging in 2 to 3 feet of water and at times would hit the bait several times before they took it.  The largest fish we caught wouldn't have gone four pounds, but they were all solid 16 to 20 inch fish.

It is not like I didn't know about a Crazy Croaker.  As of right now I don't even own one and I never threw one today either, but I will have some in the boat the next time I hit the water.  It is an ugly humpback little chunk of rubber, but the trout obviously have a different opinion.  Yes...Brad did offer the use of the other one, but I was trying to prove to myself that another bait would work equally well.

I was wrong and Brad was having way too much fun to experiment.  We'll have to let the wind settle down a little for the remainder of the week before we know how badly the deluge screwed things up.  Calcasieu should recover quickly.  Sabine, on the other hand, was red hot and needed anything, but more rain.