Colburn's Sabine Connection

We squeezed in a good one!

We waited until the absolute last minute Thursday night to cancel Friday's trip.  It was pouring and the lightning was non-stop with more of the same forecast for Saturday when we made the call.  The front did arrive last night with more rain, but the eight hours in between were as good as you could hope for.

I was pacing the driveway and cursing the weatherman when Jason called to see if I was on the water.  "I may get caught in it this evening, but I am going...meet me at the ramp."  I didn't even finish my coffee.

We caught fish from the time we stopped the boat until we had to quit.   The water looked better than expected.  We never found any birds working, but we didn't need them.  We caught most of two limits of trout on Mirrodine XL's over shallow shell.  We caught two slot reds and some smaller trout drifting red shad Assassins in 8 to 10 feet of water.

The folks I talked with that fished the bayous caught slot reds and some very nice flounder on GULP in the morning.  The wind is blowing pretty good out of the north right now which will change things a little, but the high tides of late will keep more water in the bayous and drains than a January front will.

We'll do it again Monday and see if anything has changed. 

Just too much wind right now!

I was parking the truck Sunday morning when my wife walked back out of the church crying and we were off to the hospital.  A very good friend of ours, George Craft, had been rushed to the emergency room and was not responding to treatment. It was later determined that he had suffered a subdural hematoma sometime during the night.  He never regained consciousness and passed away today.

George and I have gone to the same Church for 63 years and shared lots of great days on the water over the years as well.   I have revisited every single trip over the past 24 hours.  Good friends and any day spent on the water are blessings not fully appreciated until they no longer exist.  I won't be fishing the next few days.   

I locked up my wife's computer again last week and she just found out and fixed it .  I was kind of afraid to tell her as I usually mess something up every time I touch it and she needs it for real stuff not related to fishing.  She was in a more forgiving mood this time!

Here is a quick catch up report.  We did well last Wednesday, but struggled a little the next day.  It was windy early and that apparently slowed down a very good bite under the birds.  We finished with a pretty good catch of trout that we caught on swim baits and glow-chartreuse Assassins, but we worked for our fish.  Most of our fish came off the west side of the lake for a change.

Friday was the worst day that I have had in a long, long time.  It was cold and windy most of the day and every boat in the lake was pinned down on the La. bank.  We never found the first set of birds working all day long.  That night the wind settled a little and the gulls were back doing their thing the following morning.  The redfish on the La. shoreline showed back up and they were looking for any kind of topwater lure in 1 to 3 feet of water.

Areas like Old River Cove and Hickory Cove have really dirtied up, but most of the La. shoreline and the middle of the lake are still in great shape.  If the wind blows every day like it did today, however, even that water will be silted up by the end of the week.  I heard that Bessie Heights was muddy also, so it may be the Causeway reefs or nothing if this wind persists.    

A few birds and a lot of boats, but it is still good!

I had a 100 things to do today with the rest of the week booked up, but I walked outside to pick up the paper this morning and it was dead calm.  One call and I was fishing on my one day off, but I would have just wasted the day anyway trying to priortize that many jobs.  Being old and irresponsible is not all bad!

This was easily the prettiest day I have fished all year long and the fish were doing their thing.  There was decent gull activity all over the lake, but at times there appeared to be a boat for every bird.  I still cannot understand why folks will crowd another angler when there are other groups of birds in sight with no one working them.

We put together a little different pattern to avoid the mayhem and just caught a bunch of slot reds and trout up to 5 1/2 pounds.  Only because it appears that it is going to be every man for himself for a while, I am not going to say exactly what we did a little differently, but I feel certain there were fish caught on everything from tails to topwaters in a variety of colors.

No boats or birds around...just solid fish!

The fish are all over the lake, but you are going to have to outfish the crowd to do well.  The good news is that you do not have to chase birds to catch quality fish right now!

The north end of the lake was a little muddier than yesterday, but most of the lake is still in great shape.  I will share this simply because I think it can be done anywhere in the lake and may save your day once you grow tired of bumper boats.  We fished other programs, but we caught some of our best trout fishing an Assassin shad under a Kwik Cork with no birds are boats within a mile of us.  We drifted a cast or so to the west of the pipeline and did the best any place we could find a 2 to 3 foot depth change.

We'll see you out there tomorrow. 

Great bite on a beautiful day!

Monday started off cold and windy, but we were shedding clothes on a calm pond by mid-afternoon.  I think the bite was actually better early, but the fish bit all day long.  Jason Barth caught a 21-inch trout fishing a Sea Shad under a Kwik cork on his second cast of the morning and the game was on.  We caught redfish and trout on everything, but topwaters.

Jason Barth was on a roll Monday!

Glow chartreuse, Texas Roach, and pumpkin chartreuse in Assassin Shads were all good.  We caught a few fish on swim baits and Traps, but tails were the hot item.  When all was said and done, Jason not only caught the largest trout of the day, but both the largest and most reds as well.  Both he and his brother were fishing spinning gear and decided at some point that one of the reels was cursed.

I don't know if it was cursed, but it got cursed as they were both having trouble with line twist.  Remarkably enough, when Jason hung the best red of the day, the first thing I noticed was a ball of 8-lb. mono knotted up and hovering just above the surface between the rod tip and the fish.  He fought the fish forever and eventually reeled the entire mess through the eyes and onto the reel before landing the fish,  When you're hot....you're hot!

The water temperature was back in the low 50's following the cold wet weekend, but it was back up to 65 degrees when we left.  The river and the north end of the lake were starting to muddy up a little, but most of the lake was still very clear.  All of the fish we cleaned were full of small shrimp so I think it is safe to say there has been a change of diet.  I still haven't gotten a good report off the reefs and I am not going to leave a solid bite to hunt fish right now. 

I am still cold!

I can't recall having a better day and enjoying it less than I did today.  It was both colder and wetter than I anticipated and the fog never lifted.  I have wasted two good scouting trips this week.  We scouted half a day Wednesday so that I could get back in and get things together for a talk at the Golden Triangle CCA Chapter membership drive in Beaumont that evening.  As usual, the food was great and they had a very good turnout.

We caught fish on topwaters, Catch V's, swim baits, and under the birds.  We caught redfish, trout, and flounder.  When I got home that night, I learned that my trip for the next day had been canceled due to a bad weather forecast.  The weather was indeed bad, but not nearly as bad as today!

And then it started raining!

I fished alone today only because I couldn't think of anyone that I disliked enough to ask them to fish in those conditions.  By the time I decided I just wasn't that mad at the fish, I had on my wade jacket, a wet under armor shirt that I found in my rod locker, and two slicker suits!

On the first cast of the day my cell phone rang and I dug it out with out reeling in my lure.  When I finished the call I tightened up the line and discovered that a four pound flounder had caught itself.  I put that fish back and caught 2 slot reds pretty quickly.  At that time, the fog was bad and a north east wind was blowing, but it was just drizzling.

I ran out into the lake and stumbled up on 5 or 6 gulls just south of East Pass working over a big school of redfish.  I caught several before I realized it was raining much harder. I continued to do the "just one more" thing until I was really wet and put on the first set of rain gear over the wade jacket.  When I couldn't get warm, I took everything off, put on the wet shirt and the extra set of rain gear.

I think I was warmer at that point, but I spotted another group of birds and hung with a school of very solid trout until I just couldn't stand it any longer.  Oddly enough, I never caught a trout mixed with the reds nor a red running with the trout.  I don't know what the reds were feeding on, but the trout were chasing shrimp to the surface well after the gulls disappeared in the fog.

I don't know what the temperature was, but I was freezing my tail off and could not believe the water temperature was 64 degrees.  The runoff may eventually dirty up the water, but the river and the north end of the lake were still clear.  It proved to be yet another wasted scouting trip, however, as we canceled tomorrow rather than endure another cold rainy day.

If you can hang in those conditions, I think the fish will do their thing again tomorrow.  I don't know for sure that it mattered, but I caught every fish on a baby bass colored 5-inch Assassin swim bait rigged on a quarter ounce screw lock head.  The reds would probably have eaten anything, but I threw several other tails that I usually do well with at the trout and they would not hit them.  I fished an outgoing tide the entire time. 

Make up your mind to get it done in the wind!

We fought the wind all weekend long, but did manage to catch a few nice fish that included one trout over 7 pounds.  For the most part, we squeezed what we could out of the open lake early each morning with Corkies and Catch V's and retreated to the bayous for the rest of our fish.  The bite in the bayous did not improve much for us Saturday , but there were a lot of undersized reds willing to eat GULP and Texas Roach Sea Shads.

Terry saved the best for last!

I catch very few trout on GULP, but Terry Roe caught our largest trout on a New Penny GULP shrimp rigged on a qquarter ounce head. He had just boated a slot red and we thought It was a larger red until it broke the surface on the dead run. It was the last fish of the day and the Longview angler's best trout to date.

I think his wife, Danita, and I enjoyed the tug-of-war as much as he did.  She took a pile of pictures and Terry released the fish in good shape. Adam Jaynes fished the other half of the group and they elected to fight the waves and fish the lake most of Saturday morning.  They did pretty darn good on some solid trout up to 6 1/2 pounds on Corkys.  Terry was happy for them, but said there wasn't a fish in the lake he wanted to catch bad enough to join them in those waves!

Redfish stole the show Sunday and today for folks fishing both live and cut bait in the mouth of the drains or flats on the ICW.  A lot of the reds are over sized, but they are still fun to catch.  I haven't seen many big drum yet, but they are coming.  The water is looking better on the Causeway reef, but the trout haven't really turned on down there yet.

  

The wind is making it very tough!

Aside from the fact that I enjoyed talking with lots of fishing folks that I only see once or twice a year at the Holder Show, this has been a slow start to the month of March.   We started it with a quick afternoon scouting trip the first of the week and didn't find the fish until right at dark.  The trout were slicking up and had moved back up on the flats following the cold front.

The following morning we did okay on redfish and flounder on the La. shoreline, but we worked our tails off in the wind. Wednesday I made the Holder Show.  Thursday we found the fish in the bayou and the river and while it doesn't sound that great, we finished with 9 flounder, 5 redfish and 2 trout in a howling southeast wind.

Today the wind howled all day again, the tide was too low to fish the same fish I had been on the day before and we made a world of casts with very little to show for our efforts.  We cleaned five flounder, two reds and two trout.  A 7.4 lb. trout saved our day right at quitting time.  The big sow hit a GULP shrimp in 12 feet of water in the river!

The wind is supposed to blow even harder tomorrow, if that is possible, so it is going to be a challenge.  Water temperature is no longer much of a concern and the clarity was pretty good on the outgoing tide and terrible on the incoming on the north end.  I know this is a little sketchy, but I never managed to put anything really solid together all week long.  As soon as you get a decent program going, you can't fish it for the wind.

I will get a picture of the trout in here tomorrow or the next day, but I've got a ton of things to get done tonight.  I just wanted to give you some idea of what has been going on this week before you load up the gear.  I have not had an opportunity to check out the Causeway reefs, but they could be the answer to beating the wind if the trout are there!