Colburn's Sabine Connection

It is getting right!

The front that rolled in Wednesday night was just what the doctor ordered for trout fishermen on Sabine Lake.  I helped Johnny with a group of his clients Thursday and Friday and once again, they hit it just about right.  We didn't catch as many big trout as we caught earlier in the week, but we caught a lot of solid trout as well as a bunch of slot reds.

Scott, Jerry, Mark, Toby, and "Mr. Wayne Riley" came with their "A game" and we fished all the way from Lighthouse Cove to East Pass and back.  A north wind blew pretty good each morning, but died before noon.  We started each day with an outgoing tide, but finished with a pretty good incoming tide.  The water south of the Causeway and the water on the north end of the lake looked pretty darn good, but the water on the reef was still ugly.

The front took a little toll on us Friday as the bite slowed on the south end, but we still found enough gull action up north to put together a good box of fish.

This morning I hit the lake at daylight expecting to find a flotilla, but it wasn't very crowded at all.  It should have been!

The lake was dead calm and the birds were working over big schools of both trout and reds.  Steve Osborne and his son, Jimmy, fished with me and it was just about as good as it can get.  When I cranked up  the big engine for only the third time this morning we were already limited on trout and had four slot reds in the box.  There was a point when we just could not get away from the reds...not that we really wanted to.

We were strictly catch and release by 8:30 and checked out two other areas just to see if the bite was that easy all over.  It was.  We caught and released much larger trout than we kept by cranking suspending baits and Swim baits over shell in 3 to 4 feet of water for the next hour or so.  Jimmy fished A Kwik Cork and jig until it wore him out.  It was almost like the jig was too heavy as it did not stay on top very long.

I don't think it can get a whole lot better than it was today, but I talked with a group that was just going out when I was washing my boat this evening.  They said that they have been hammering the big trout on an outgoing tide in the afternoon fishing Super Spooks south of the Causeway.  They showed me some pictures of trout on their cell phones that they had released and they were big even on a tiny screen. They caught 14 trout over 25-inches Thursday evening and their largest fish weighed just under 8 pounds.

I never fish much in the afternoons as I have either already finished a guide trip or I am baseballing or both.  The way the tides are working out right now, however, I have no doubt that the evening bite is much stronger than the morning bite on the south end.  I would also bet that the action in the surf was unreal with the Gulf flat.    

Redfish bite is tough in Kansas!

We got a little more wind than I planned on which really slowed the bite under the gulls down for us.  I have no doubt that the fish were still there, but they were hard to find in the whitecaps with no help from our feathered allies.  Perhaps the best news as far as the north end of the lake is concerned is that it hasn't yielded any clarity thus far.

Drew gave our redfish high marks and says he will be back for more later in the year!

We retreated to the river just long enough to lose 3 or 4 flounder at the boat, but once again put enough slot reds in the box for a redfish on the half shell supper.  Drew Dogget won his battle with our two largest and says he will be back for more.  He had never caught a redfish, there aren't many in Kansas, and he enjoyed watching the line peel off his reel time and again!

The reds are roaming all over the lake, but those hanging in the river have not moved ten feet for the past month.  Some days they are all too small, some days they are all too large, and some days they are just the right size, but most importantly...they have been there every day.  The hottest lure for both the reds and some very nice flounder has been a Texas Roach Sea Shad fished on a quarter ounce head.

The trout bite on the south end of t he lake is apparently still going on as well.  Tails and topwaters are producing a lot of 23 to 25-inch fish on a good tide change.  I am assuming the bite is still good in Lighthouse Cove as it continues to look like a parking lot most days. The bite on the Causeway reef slowed a little, but it can turn back on in a heart beat.  

Game on!

I knew Sabine lake fishing was going to light off pretty quickly, but the last few days have just been as good as you could hope for.  Parts of the lake that would clear up one day and be dirty the next are now holding their clarity and we have a much larger playing field.

David Norton and Steve Eason kept a few reds for the pit after doing a number on the flounder!

After doing well on the south end Wednesday, we returned to the river and bayous Thursday and caught fish all day long.  We caught redfish early and late and flounder all day long.  Just before calling it quits, we even found the trout feeding on shrimp on a point in five feet of water and worked on them for fun.

Today we returned to the south end of the lake and had one of the best days that I have had since late February.  Johnny  worked a big group with me and we easily limited on 2 to 5 pound trout fishing topwaters, Assassins, and Sea Shads in 3 to 7 feet of water.  Johnny caught the best fish of the day, a beautiful 28-inch trout that ate a She Dog.

Rob, "Double L", and Henry went through lots of nice specks today!

Our best trout was a little over six pounds, but we went through a world of 22 to 24-inch trout.  By ten-o'clock we were done with trout and hunting reds. We finished with 13 between the two boats before calling in the dogs around 2 pm.  We found our reds in 6 to 8 feet of water on the Causeway reef and Johnny found their reds under the gulls in the open lake. Rob lost two long battles with really big reds, but they were fun while they lasted.

What a dilemma! The flounder on the north end are so solid right now (we caught only one under sized fish yesterday) and the big trout are going nuts from the Causeway to the jetties.  I am going to leave it up to my clients...I like both choices!

The SALT Club is hosting their Memorial Day tournament out of Pleasure Island all weekend and it should be a good one.  Its a two day affair with a $30 entry fee.  They always have a good time and it is a family affair.  If you are going to fish this weekend, you better get there early....every launch we passed today was full, but they weren't too crowded at 5:00 am.      

We left the flounder alone today and ran south to trout fish.  A north wind was about ten miles per hour stronger than forecasted and it was cold at daylight. The water on the reef was as ugly as I have seen it this year.  We joined the crowd and fished shell breaks along the ship channel in much better looking water and caught a bunch of trout.  We probably pulled off as many as we caught in a strong outgoing tide.

We saw trout feeding on shad, shrimp and ribbon fish as long as the tide was moving.  When the tide died it was over for us.  We caught fish on everything from topwaters to Sea Shads. We never caught any redfish, but I talked with a lot of folks that did well on the reds fishing Gulp and live mullet at the jetties late this evening.

I can't quite figure all of this out unless the Neches is really muddy.  The water in the ship channel looks good enough, the jetties are in good shape, and the water in the Sabine river is in great shape.  Stuck right in the middle is the lake and for the most part it still looks bad....not as bad as the Causeway reef, but bad.

I think we'll stay north tomorrow and do our flounder-redfish thing.  We have really enjoyed a good flounder bite this month and i'd like to get a few more swings at them. 

It's hard to leave the reds and flounder!

Albert Bates and his partner, Damon Mayfield, took home darn near all of the money in the Speckledtrout  USA tournament based out of Orange this past weekend.  Albert blew away the rest of the field with 6 trout that weighed 31.74 pounds and Damon took second with 22.33 pounds.  Albert's big trout was about two shrimp short of the 8 pound mark!

They caught their fish at the Sabine jetties, but they had to fight the elements the second day to do it and Albert's stinger Sunday was even heavier in all of that wind.  They just did a great job of fighting the waves and figuring out how to catch those fish. I would have never even found those trout, must less figure out how to make them bite.  They earned their money!

Before I report on today's fishing, I need to clarify something for folks that book trips with me well in advance and then read these reports hoping for great news right up to that date.  Do not panic if there are no reports for a few days.  Sometimes I simply get busy and forget, sometimes I screw up the computer so bad that it takes my wife a while to straighten it out, and every once in a while, I just get tired of taking the time to post!

I got one of those panic calls today, but there was a justifiable reason for not reporting much last week.  When I wasn't guiding, Johnny and I were scouting Big Lake and Sabine for the trout tournament.  He finally found a few fish on Big Lake and I decided that it wasn't a strong enough bite to split the fish.  He went at it alone, I coached our last two baseball games of the season and went to church Sunday and he was indeed able to grind out a fourth place finish and earn a check.

It pleases me to no end to share information and have folks call or email me that something worked for them, but I did not feel obligated to share anything we found last week.  I have never required a deposit and will postpone a trip at the last minute due to weather or even a poor bite in hopes of giving you the best possible chance of catching fish.  If I don't call you back just prior to your trip, you can be confident that the weather looks favorable and I am at least catching fish at that time.  Whew...that tired me out!

Not too bad for just playing around and checking a few spots!

I just scouted today and had a great time doing what I wanted to do.  That may sound strange, but all of my trips are tailored to whatever the client wants to do and more importantly, can do.  I had all but forgotten that I could fish in the game reserve without clients and was not surprised to find lots of flounder and reds in the protected bayous.

Gene just got back from Alaska and I had to train him all over again.  The first flounder he caught was larger than anything he caught in Alaska. They had a bad day chasing halibut.  We caught reds and flounder in the river right off the bat on Sea Shads fished under a cork and on the bottom.  We then went to the bayous and caught the heck out of flounder on the same baits.  On the way in we found two schools of reds chasing shrimp under the birds and had a ball with Swim baits and Hoginars.

The water in the Sabine River is in great shape right now.  The water in Cow bayou and Black's looks pretty good as well.  Coffee Ground and the east shoreline did not look as good as it has, but we found some clearer water well out in the middle of the lake.  The water in the bayous leading into the reserve looked a little better the further back you fished.  Johnny called and said the water on the Causeway reef just looked terrible today.

If you are trout crazy I think you are still going to have to stay south for a little while longer, but if you don't mind catching reds and flounder, most of the lake is now in play.

Small field posts very solid totals!

We finished up another baseball season this afternoon and I hustled over to the Cabela's speckled trout tournament just in time for weigh-in.  I scouted with Johnny two days last week and he had a pretty good program going, but just couldn't catch the right three trout today.  He's still in the hunt, but he couldn't find that one big fish.

I think that in talking with most of the fishermen that were willing to share any information with another day to go, that the majority of the leading catches were made on Big lake rather than Sabine.  I talked briefly with Albert Bates who is at the top of the leader board with 15 pounds and the big trout as well with a 7 pound fish and he was obviously pleased, but sweating tomorrow's weather forecast.

Ironically enough, Albert and I talked every night last week as he scouted both Sabine and Calcasieu every day.  As late as Friday afternoon he was discouraged with the results and decided that he would blow it off and go bass fishing.  His partner, Damon, wouldn't hear of it and insisted they just stay on Sabine and fish the water they knew best.  It looks like they made the right decision!

I think Albert's big trout will hold up, but it is still a dog fight for top money with some great local  anglers bunched in there with 9 to 12 pound totals.  The wind has been such a major factor in putting a consistent pattern together that no bite is a guarantee two days in a row.  If the front rolls in tonight with a stiff north wind it will be a whole new game tomorrow.

If Albert can put 9 to 10 pounds on the scales Sunday, he will make it very tough on the rest of the field.  I am hoping that the weatherman has screwed up the forecast for next week.  We have finally turned the corner with some pretty consistent trout fishing and now they are calling for a strong north wind most of the week.  What the heck is going on!    

We're getting close!

Not surpisingly, I tried to cram in a week's worth of fun things like, cutting the grass, oil change, paying bills all in one day and the wind died.  I did, however, enjoy eating boiled shrimp and visiting with lots of fishing folks tonight at the Golden Triangle CCA Chapter Banquet in Beaumont.

We fought a very tough wind yesterday, but we knew it was going to blow.  Kirk McBride wanted to get in a quick trip with his son, Matt, regardless of the weather and I am glad we did.  Kirk had been diagnosed with a brain tumor recently and was awaiting a call from his doctor that day to determine the path they were going to take.  He spends lots of time on the water and it is going to be extra tough being dry docked for a while.  We've got a striper trip  lined up for November. Keep Kirk in your prayers!

We caught a few flounder and small reds before calling it a short day, but the water in the river and bayous looked much better.  The late afternoon bite is still the best bite of the day, especially for trout.  We are getting really close to some super action as it is only a matter of the wind slowing down.  The bite south of the Causeway along the ship channel is improving each day.

To heck with the trout....I'd rather eat flounder anyway.

We fished the south end of the lake Monday and struggled most of the day.  Over the first 7 1/2 hours we caught 3 small trout, 2 redfish, and a couple of gafftop drifting plastics over shell.  We cranked up and started back in around 3:00 or so only to run up on one small group of gulls working over ribbonfish.  Thirty minutes later we had a limit of pretty good trout (I should say dang good trout after working our tails off all day long).

It was windy and the water looked terrible. We never saw another bird work, but the final results looked like we really had a good game plan.  It has been a late bite on trout for me anyway and yesterday was no different.  Today I went back to the bayous and caught and released a pile of redfish on Swim Baits and Gulp.  I never had a real good tide change, but the fish were still chasing shrimp and small shad on the shallow flats bordering the deeper canal.

I think tomorrow will be another flounder expedition.  I should have fished them today, but the redfish were just too much fun and they never quit biting!

The flounder bite is for real!

I called Wednesday night and tried to get Kenny McGlasson and James Cobbs to postpone Friday's trip as it looked like it was going to blow even harder than it had Wednesday and Thursday.  James was flying in from New Mexico and they wanted to fish come hell or high water and we got both.  Unfortunately, the weatherman got it right this time.  The tide was pouring in and the south wind was howling when we left the launch at daylight.

Kenny had the touch all day long.

The good news was that both of them were good fishermen and patient.  We covered a lot of the same shoreline over and over, but when all was said and done we finished with a very solid catch of flounder. Once again we caught maybe one throwback and while we didn't have any doormats, they were all in that 15 to 18 inch class.

We caught a few fish early on plastics, but oncethe water got dirtier and the bite slowed, we switched to GULP and continued to catch a fish here and there until quitting time.  We didn't catch any redfish again yesterday, but the marsh ponds were flooded and I feel certain they were cruising the backwater.

James said the flounder fishing isn't this good around Hobbs, New Mexico!

After a very consistent week of catching, I am now convinced that the flounder are doing their thing, but we are only getting to sample very small areas due to the wind.  I would like to fish farther south if for no other reason than to see if the majority of the fish all over the lake are over the 15-inch mark.  According to the fish and game biologists I have talked with, we must be really beating up on the female fish and even with reduced limits, I still can't see how keeping only the girls can be a good thing over the long haul.

The wind is much more favorable today, but I am headed to Humble this evening to eat crawfish and have a good time with the folks at the Northeast Houston CCA Chapter.  Chapter President, Brandon Jones, said they have some great auction items and lots of boiled crawfish.  It kicks off about 5:00 in the covered Pavilion right next to the Civic Center.  If you live in that area come on out and let's visit!

Blown out today...decent flounder bite yesterday

We were blown out early today.  The group wanted to fish trout and I just don't have anything going with the water high and dirty and the wind blowing 25 mph.  We never put the boat in the water with the wind already howling at daylight.  They were voting on whether to go golf again or gamble when they drove off!

We had another pretty decent day Tuesday.  We spent the entire day in the bayous fishing for flounder and missed far more than we caught, but still did okay.  Once again we caughtonly a couple of throwbacks with most of the keepers in the 15 to 19-inch class.  The redfish were a no-show, however, and I don't know where those fish went unless they opted to feed in the flooded marsh ponds.

I talked with some folks that fished the Game Reserve canals and they said that was the prettiest water they found.  I can believe that as I ran up in Burton's at the end of the day and that water looked really good also.  Albert said they checked out the Causeway reefs late and marked very few fish in very dirty water.  They had been marking lots of fish, but just could not get them to bite prior to yesterday.

Until we can get out and run the lake it is going to remain a difficult task figuring out what the trout are doing.  They are eating somewhere, but the wind just will not allow us to check out many areas.