Colburn's Sabine Connection

Trout fishing steady and improving

I managed to let an entire week get by without filing a report, but I am not apologizing this time.  I have fished everyday, but have been dealing with yet another kidney stone that does not want to pass.  At the end of each day I have been looking for a hot bath and bed and daylight has come all too quickly.

It has really been a different week of fishing.  Monday was a good day, Tuesday was horrible, and then things got progressively better through today.  We had to work for our fish and never limited, but we finished each day with very respectable catches of trout up to five pounds.  I did manage to miss a very good trout first thing this morning.

Mark's first trout was the largest of the day!

We have been catching most of our fish in 3-5 feet of water around scattered shell.  We caught a few fish on topwaters and a few on 2000's, but the majority of our fish were caught on swim baits and tails.  The best colors for us have been Texas Roach and Morning Glory.  The five inch Assassin has been very good early, but the smaller Sea Shad has worked better later in the day.

The birds are working a little right now, but I passed on the opportunity to race to each flock for a fish or two.  Johnny worked them hard the last couple of days and found a lot of small trout with only a few keepers.  We did run up on a huge school of redfish chasing mullet today, but were not in time to catch a single fish.

We were already fishing the last two days when the Redfish Cup fishermen blasted off out of Pleasure Island.  I did not envy any of them their long bumpy boat rides, but they eat it up in a hurry in some very cool bay boats.

I was also duly impressed with the weights they turned in each day.  Their numbers were misleading as it has been much harder than they made it appear.  There was a pile of fifteen pound- plus catches and that is strong.  Phil and  Kevin  weighed in !8 pounds the first day and  that is getting your money's worth out of two slot fish.  We stumbled up on some big reds in the open lake today, but I have not been catching many slot fish.

The water is in really good shape and we are seeing a lot of shrimp and ribbon fish in the mid-lake area. The gull activity has been much stronger on the south end of the lake since Wednesday.  I did talk with two good local fishermen this evening that limited on slot reds yesterday and today fishing Rat-L-Traps in the Blue Buck area.  They said they found their fish under slicks in the vicinity of the pipeline.

Flounder saved the day!

We fished Saturday, but abandoned the idea of chasing trout very early due to a strong southeast wind that had most of the boat traffic pinned on the Louisiana shoreline.  We switched gears and flounder fished until quiting around 2:30 p.m.                                           

Paul Giliam proved even a Sooner can fool a flounder!

A big incoming tide helped our cause by flooding the grass and cane.  We wound up with a solid box of flounder up to three pounds, but released far more smaller fish.  We also lost three very good flounder right at the net, but that goes with the territory. We stuck with a spinner bait and Sea Shad rigged on a quarter ounce head.

We never fished inside one cut or bayou all day.  We started to fish Madam Johnson's, but it looked like they were giving something away judging by the number of boats running in and out.  The best news was that we caught keeper fish all the way from Green's to Coffee Ground Cove.  The water in Coffee Ground Cove is still the most off-colored water on the entire Louisiana side.

I canceled a trip today after fighting the crowded shoreline yesterday and did Church with Karen.  It did not surprise me that so many of you sent emails saying that you included the Racy family in your prayers.  I thank your for that and encourage you to continue to doing so.  Hopefully we will all rejoice in a positive update from Jennifer in the near future!

Please pray for the Racys!

I will be on the water the next two days which is most unusual for me as I very seldom fish on Sunday.  I do not have a report tonight, but I do have a request.

I got an email today from a client that took great courage for her to send and left me in tears.  Jennifer Racy wrote to say that she and Joe lost both of her parents and their eight year old daughter, Mykell, in a car wreck three months ago.  Their oldest daughter, Brandy, was also critically injured, had her skull cap removed due to her brain swelling, and is currently fighting her way back, day by day at Texas Children's Hospital.  She still has a long way to go, but the Racys have a strong constitution.

Joe and Jennifer have only been away from the hospital one time since the middle of March and that was for the funerals.  Jennifer, who is passionate about fishing, mentioned that one of her fondest memories of her daughter was the delight in her eyes after catching a five-pound trout on a MirrOlure.

Tonight, I ask you to hug your own kids and take time to pray for Brandy, Joe, and Jennifer.

Thanks.....Dickie

SALT Tournament could be a good one!

We had a very decent day Wednesday that could have been better.  The wind was not a factor and we were able to fish where we wanted, but we could not get the fish to the boat!

We missed very few trout the day before, but that was not the case Wednesday.  I lost three nice trout and a good red on a crankbait in the first hour and we missed several more trout on tails that either jumped and threw the bait or pulled off.  Faye Alder was the only one of us that consistently put her fish in the boat.

Thursday morning the wind switched around and we were pinned on the La. shoreline.  We eventually got wet and had an early rough ride back, but we were climbing out of the boat when the hail and gale force wind hit. We scratched out a few flounder on the more protected shoreline, but the bite was slow.

I know lots of folks are getting ready for the SALT Memorial Day Tournament on Pleasure Island this weekend and it looks like you may get a break in the weather.  I know this sounds a little generic, but I believe the  fish are just going to be where you find them.  There is no one bite dominating the scene.   The water all over the lake is in pretty good shape and we caught fish this week on several different patterns.

The one exception, and I do not know why, has been Coffee Ground Cove.  It is the only area in the lake that is badly off-colored right now.  The Causeway reef clears with each new tide and the rest of the lake from Blue Buck to Three Bayous looks good.   The one bite that has been good and may suffer with the added traffic is the trout bite under the gulls.

The best gull action has been mid-lake on south and the flocks are not large.  If you will not press them too hard, however, they will hold a long time.

They bit in the wind!

Somewhere between the front door of the motel and the truck, I decided that we would trailer around the lake today rather than fighting that long rough boat ride.  It proved to be a good decision as a west-southwest wind kept the lake in white caps all day long.

Unlike the day before, we scored well on some big trout with 2000's and tails working the south wall right off the bat.  It was rough and we only picked up eight fish, but they were 3 to 6 pound trout.  Faye Alder actually got us started with a nice slot red that she picked up under the birds right in front of the launch.

Delbert caught the first big speck on a Sea Shad

By the time we called it quits, we had tapped into every program the lake has to offer. We caught keeper fish on the rocks, on the Causeway reef, and under the birds.  The birds worked all day long and it was so rough that it was hard to even stand up in the boat.  I thought I had a pretty good program going on the north end of the lake, but it cannot touch the south end right now.

Aside from the birds working as long as they did in those conditions, I was even more surprised that  there was still a very good bite going on down on the reef.  We only made a hand full of drifts, but caught a fish or two on every pass.

 

Daniel caught his best trout only a few casts later!

We caught some solid redfish along with the trout. I spoke with some folks that said the water looked terrible at the jetties and I can believe that with that wind.  The water in the lake still looked great.

Southwest wind slowed down a good bite today

After two very good days in a row I should have known it was coming.  We had a good day Sunday and possibly an even better day Monday.  Today, however, was a struggle.  We had been starting out each morning picking up 8 to 10 very solid trout either drifting the flats or fishing the rocks.

Steve and Jimmy with part of Sunday's catch

Yesterday Steve and Jimmy Osborne fished with me and we did exactly that.  The morning was a little slow, to some extent because Jimmy was trying to force feed the trout a fly when they wanted an Assassin or 2000.  To his credit, he stayed with it while his Dad and I continued to catch fish.  He eventually went with the flow and caught his share of fish under the gulls and even managed to catch some of those fish on a fly.

Once again the trout under the birds were chasing both ribbon fish and very small shrimp.  Most of those trout were 17 to 20 inch fish and there were some nice slot reds mixed in with them.  Steve put the largest one in the boat after a heck of a fight in some pretty serious waves.

It was already blowing when I hit the lake this morning  with Don Antley and his two sons, Jared and Robert, and it never stopped.  Our best flat was getting pounded, but we still managed a few fish on Assassins and Catch 2000's. We worked out tail off for four more keeper fish the rest of the day!

We only fished two small groups of birds that broke up quickly all day long.  We fished from Sidney to Blue Buck and we just did not see any birds.  Outside of spending the day with some very nice north Louisiana folks, the only other good news was that the lake was still pretty clear in spite of the wind.  We had a shot at a few more good fish that escaped at the net and one real good redfish, but they would not have saved the day.

Three good days in a row was just too much to ask.  We will try to turn things back around tomorrow. 

We may have finally turned the corner!

I fished Jeff and Jaime Schultze and Duncan Perkins today and the fishing could not have been a whole lot better.  We caught fish everywhere we went  except Coffee Ground Cove.  We caught trout behind the islands, in the open lake, on the La. shoreline and both revetment walls.  The only shocker was that the dirtiest water we fished was in Coffee Ground and that is seldom if ever the case.

Jaime got us started with this nice trout on a pumpkin-chartreuse Assassin.

The only two flounder we kept were 15-inch fish, but all of the trout they kept averaged 3 to 4 pounds.  We had all the fish they wanted by 10:30 so we enjoyed non-stop catch and release for the next four hours.  We did keep one more nice slot red for the pit that Jeff caught on a Sea Shad.  We worked two schools of trout in the shadows of the pipeline south of Johnson's that held forever with out the first gull showing up.  Those fish were chasing ribbon fish and shrimp and they were some big healthy trout.

We never found any big groups of gulls, but anytime we found one or two holding tight they were on trout or redfish.  The water was in great shape from mid-lake all the way south.  I feel certain the water on the reef must have been green, but we never made it that far south.  We caught the majority of our fish on dark colored Assassins, but I am not sure color made much difference today.

Jeff caught his share of nice trout as well.

We ran one short stretch of shoreline right before we quit to check on flounder and they were there.  We caught two keepers and missed at least five more that we got right up to the boat fishing Texas Roach Assassins.  Brad Deslatte called while we were on the water to tell me they had just pounded the reds that morning and Jeff caught the one he decided to keep while we were talking!

Mike Rector called tonight and said that he hurried back from the fly fishing seminar in Lake Charles in hopes of making an afternoon run and it was wild by the time he got there.  He was still catching fish at dark.  Lord only knows what tomorrow will bring or what the wind will do, but the best news of all was the water clarity all over the lake.

We fished an outgoing tide and overcast skies all day long.  The wind was not a factor most of the morning.

Fish one...postpone two.

We backed another trip up this morning and I rescheduled one for tomorrow as well due to the unstable weather.  I will scout tomorrow, but we decided it would be too iffy for clients to gamble their fishing money on.  I fished yesterday with Albert Bates and Damon Mayfield and we had to run a few marsh ponds to find fish.

Damon steers a nice red around the troll motor.

We were in by noon, but were still able to find some very solid reds up to 29 inches.  I enjoyed sitting in the back of the boat, watching those two guys fish, and taking pictures.  They are both good fishermen that fish together very well.

We got bit on a Baby 1-minus, a spinner bait and topwaters.  It was windy and overcast all morning and the fish were scattered all over the marsh as opposed to bunching up in the thicker grass.  We seemed to do better in the ponds where the water was a little more off-colored.

This 24-inch fish was the only red they kept for dinner!

We ran some water on the north end, but spent very little time in the open lake as it was pretty rough.  If we can get any kind of a break at all with this wind the fishing should get better in a hurry as the water clarity is not that bad.    

Friday was a hot windy struggle for most.

We spent a long hot day on the water Friday.  It did not help that the wind blew twice as hard as predicted, but outside of altering the game plan, that was nothing new.  We had to leave a little early and the trout reportedly bit better in the evening, just as they had the day before.

The Causeway reef and the jetties were tough on us all morning. The water on the east side of the jetties was beautiful and the bait was there, but the fish were not doing their thing.  The water was very dirty on the reef all morning, but cleared up around noon and we finally caught a few fish.

There was a small company tournament in full swing and I had an opportunity to talk with a number of very good local fishermen at their weigh-in that fished every thing from the game reserve to the jetties.  Most of them were beaten down at the end of the day and struggled to find fish.  The two best reports included a trout bite on soft plastics in the ship channel south of the Causeway and some solid bird action just before dark east of Blue Buck.

Capt. Adam Jaynes worked a group for me and they struggled all morning as well, but did manage to find a few trout under the birds late.  An incoming tide that just ripped in all morning long really hurt the reef fishermen.   Any time we were able to slow our drift enough with drift socks, troll motor, and half ounce jig heads we got bit, but that is a tough gig with three fishermen.

The best news is that for the first time in a long time, the water is starting to clear in more extended areas along the La. shoreline and the south revetment wall.  We also ran back in through an isolated stretch of clear water in mid-lake that was so dark that it appeared to be shadows off a cloud from a distance.  There was at least a foot and a half of visibility and that is great for right now.

Water prettier... a little gull activity.

Johnny and I worked a big group today and it looked better at the cleaning table than it really was.  We flat out struggled much of the day with the wind and off-colored water on the south end of the lake.  We were able to fish the east side of the jetties, but everything else was blown out.  The water looked pretty bad in both the ship channel and the gulf side.

We came back into the lake and drifted the reef and caught a few keeper trout and one slot red, but the water had cleared up pretty good by then.  We saved our day hustling 16 to 18 inch trout under a handful of gulls  in the open lake.  Color of plastic did not seem to matter if you could keep up with the schools.

We did not count the fish we cleaned, but it was somewhere between 20 and 25 total for both boats.  I have not seen the south end of the lake as clear as it was late today.  We are supposed to have a much more favorable wind day tomorrow so maybe the fishing will be a little easier.