Colburn's Sabine Connection

Bite remains strong in yuk conditions

I am still cold and wet, but I am at least indoors with a cup of coffee.  We postponed and rescheduled a trip booked two months ago to death for the past two days and finally decided to go at 9:00 this morning.  We were gambling on beating the predicted front that was a little late in arriving and squeezed in two good hours and two really bad ones with the late start.  John and Jay Fuss and Jr. Trahan proved to be extremely tough individuals!

By the time we hit the lake in a soupy thick fog mixed with drizzling rain, the only other two groups out had already limited on trout up to four pounds.  The fog soon yielded to a howling north wind and much harder rain.  In spite of all of that, we kept nine 15-19 inch trout that hit soft plastics in 3-5 feet of water.

The color of the day was a color I have never thrown, but there was little doubt they wanted it over anything else.  One of the fishermen that had already limited was kind enough to share that information before he ran for cover.  As a matter of fact, I had to come home and look it up as I didn't even know what it was called.  The color was sort of a laminated limetreuse and dark green that I had in a Tidal Surge Split Tail. Tidal Surge lists that color as "Hulk".  We caught some fish on the a glow-chartreuse Assassin Sea Shad, but the longer T.S. split tail produced larger fish.

The water was getting very milky by the time we called it quits and left in search of a dry clothes and heat.  The birds continued to work over small shad and shrimp and probably worked better for us in the whitecaps than any other time.  Very early and very late have been the optimum periods for the past two weeks,

Big fish still a "no-show"

I didn't get to take advantage of today's warmer and drier weather, but we did pretty well yesterday in all of the fog.  We spent most of the morning on the reefs on the south end of the lake drifting 8-12 feet of water.

We fished the tail end of an outgoing tide and the beginning of a good incoming tide before calling it a day.  We finally kept 14 fish, but I don't think we had a speck that weighed three pounds.  We did hang two huge drum, one that we never stopped and another we released at the boat.  It was easily in the 25-30 pound class and it ate up a lot of fishing time!

Easily the hottest color was red shad, but we caught a few fish on limetreuse and smoke-chartreuse.  We fished a one-eighth ounce head much of the morning prior to the tide picking up speed and the fish seemed to be about three feet off the bottom.  As a matter of fact, we caught two of our better fish retrieving the lure for another cast.  We stuck with the shorter Assassin Sea Shad as the trout weren't real aggressive.

I talked with another guide that was scouting for a trip today and he found trout very late in the afternoon with Catch V's drifting the flats.  His fish were about the same size as ours.  It has been hard to come by any big trout of late.  The rain hasn't hurt us at all and a little more cold weather may well put the larger trout on the move again.  I really hate to ask for cold weather.

Speaking of cold, the weather couldn't have been much worse for an outdoor boat show last weekend, but the folks at Texas Marine perservered and were rewarded with a very decent turnout.  I really enjoyed talking with the group of folks that hung around for my seminar Saturday afternoon.  They proved to be a fun bunch to talk fishing with.

Thanks again to Phil, Johnny, Dennis and all of the guys that keep us running throughout the year.  They did a great job in getting me back on the water last week.  There is no substitute for service after the sale.

  Unfortunately, we now know that a Yamaha will continue to run for a while with nothing but saltwater lubricating the gears.  Bad scene, but it got us home!

The wind will not give us a break

The wind has absolutely blown us away the past couple of days.  Wednesday morning we were able to work several solid flocks of birds early with Assassins and Split Tail eels and did ok before the wind got up.  Glow-chartreuse continues to be our best color. We stayed on the north end which means we never saw the first redfish, but the trout we kept were nice.

We did run south to look at some of the back lakes and bayous, but never caught the first fish.  It is amazing how silted in some of the old haunts are as a result of Rita.  I was telling  Capt. Chuck yesterday that we finally found a small shell reef south of Johnson's Bayou that was burried in at least a foot of mud!

Because the river is in terrible shape right now, we stayed in the lake today and took it on the chin.  We were able to catch two trout over five pounds on Catch V's, but we made a lot of casts between bites.  The brief temperature drop apparently had very little effect on the shrimp as there are still plenty of gulls and terns chasing them in the wind.  Chuck and Johnny Cormier made a rough run all the way to Garrison's yesterday and in spite of good water conditions, never got bit.

There has to be more going on than we are currently fishing, but the wind keeps us pinned down day after day.  We have gotten a few of Rita's leftovers either marked or pulled up on shore, but you still need to run with care.  If you should hit one, please try to mark it and e-mail me the location so that we can try to get it out of the lake.

I will be at Texas Marine Saturday afternoon for their in-house Boat Show and will host a seminar at four o'clock.  If you get a chance come by and we will talk fishing.  They are going to have a lot of good stuff going on and you just might win a new boat, motor, and trailer!

Wind shortens redfish trips

We gave it a rest today and may well have passed when we shouldn't have.  We did about three hours Sunday afternoon just to see if the reds were still schooling on the south end and they were.  The terns worked just enough in a horendous wind to put us on two schools of fish.

There was absolutely no finesse to the program.  We tied on 3/8th ounce jig heads and chunked red shad Assassins as far as we could into the wind.  When the troll motor failed to hold in the whitecaps, we gave up and drifted with the wind after catching our third fish.  We could  still catch them, but we drifted over them so fast that we seldom caught more than two fish before we had scattered them again.  It was a bad game plan, but we weren't that mad at them anyway.

Yesterday was more of the same.  More wind and a few more redfish.  We did catch two or three solid trout mixed in with the redfish.  The terns were no where to be found so we just drifted the same areas we caught fish in the day before.  We couldn't buy a bite on red shad, but eventually got around to bone diamond and started catching fish.

We only caught four or five fish, but our constitution wasn't as strong as the day before.  The water still looked good, but we never saw the first bird working on the north end on the way out or coming back in.  The fish on the south end were chasing mullet and shrimp.  If the fish get back on a mullet diet with this colder weather we should see the larger trout working the flats again.

I just got a call from a dependable fishing friend and it appears we didn't miss a whole lot today.  They did catch one nice trout, a six pounder, on a black She Dog just before dawn.  They gave it up at ten o'clock with six keeper trout and no reds.  That has been the story on the north end.  They  worked a few small groups of birds early and caught several undersized trout along with most of their keepers.

Shrimp, gulls, and good company!

I hitched a ride with Albert Bates while my boat is down and we had a great morning.  Albert guides as well so we were on a busman's holiday guiding each other.  We squeezed the trip in right in front of the norther and were pulling out when the wind switched around. Before it switched, a light variable wind made for perfect fishing conditions all morning long.

We caught fish on Skitterwalks, Catch V's, and Assassins rigged on quarter ounce heads.  We caught more trout on glow chartreuse than any other color.  The gulls and the fish were chasing shrimp all over the north end of the lake.  Most of the shrimp were small, but occasionally we would see some large shrimp for this time of the year skipping across the surface.

We caught more small fish today than we have been catching, but they have a way of showing up when shrimp are the main course.  If we caught eight or ten fish quickly without a keeper we just moved to the next flock of birds.  We really caught and released a higher percentage of keeper trout early.

Our biggest trout ate a Catch V in about three feet of water.  I also got some good reports on redfish action on the south end of the lake.  Oddly enough, they were struggling to catch trout on that end and we never caught the first red up north.

We will just have to see how this front plays out, but I don't expect it to hurt things too badly.  The surface temperature today was 66 degrees!

If you haven't been over here lately don't run by the terns.  They are just as dependable as the gulls are right now.  They will break up and leave the area as soon as you lower the troll motor, but the fish are still there. If we get a week of cold weather look for the big sow trout to move right back up on those shallow flats.  We found most of the schools of mullet that had been holding over the shallow mud well out into the lake.  The water still looks great following Wednesday's downpour.