Colburn's Sabine Connection

The lake could get crowded Saturday!

Weather permitting, tomorrow could be a very busy day on Sabine Lake.  The OCARC tournament will actually start tonight and end tomorrow afternoon and that event alone annually draws in excess of 200 fishermen.  David Thibodaux called me this afternoon recruiting teams for a redfish tournament scheduled out of Pt. Neches  tomorrow.  That event somehow managed to stay under the radar making it tough to draw the field that it should have attracted.

Everyone around here spent the day yesterday hunting J.B. Arrington and Nolan Foreman, a pair of Orange fishermen that made a 911 call  saying they were stuck in the mud and never made it back to the landing Wednesday night.  They found them late yesterday evening after a long night in the marsh with the mosquitoes.  They took their lumps, but both men are okay.

The wind howled again Wednesday, but we still finished strong in spite of the fact that we fished where we could rather than where we want to fish.  We also got our wires crossed as to where we were going to meet that morning and caught just the tail end of a very good early morning bite.

Max and Rodney finished up strong on the redfish!

Once again our larger fish were holding in 18 to 22 feet of water, but we caught better numbers in 3 to 5 feet of water.  Most of the shallow fish hit Gulp or live bait under a cork.  Surprisingly enough, the water in the ICW looked better rather than worse even after all of the rain.  There wasn't nearly as much bait parading down the shorelines, but it was stacked up deep on every point.

I also do not know how badly three days of southwest wind may have messed up the water on the Louisiana shoreline, but it will undoubtedly draw a lot of traffic tomorrow.  The conditions should be perfect tomorrow morning according to the weatherman, but I have been misled before.  Good luck to all of you tournament fishermen!

Redfish are stealing the show!

We traded the rain for wind today and while we don't need anymore rain from a fishing standpoint...it sure beats too much wind.  We finished the morning with two limits of very nice reds and we broke off or pulled off 5 or 6 more.  We never gave the lake a shot as the wind had the ICWwhite capping by 8 o'clock.

Monday, on the other hand, was a day to kill for.  The wind was supposed to blow and it did, but it didn't start until around noon.  We caught and released several limits of reds up to 28-inches on a couple of spots on the ICW before running out in the lake.  Brian wanted to keep a limit of smaller fish to eat, but most of the fish were in the 26 to 28-inch class. We were fishing vertically in 22 to 25 feet of water and the fish were very tightly stacked on structure.

When we hit the lake it was dead calm, but we never saw the first bird working.  Larry Strickland called and said that he hadfound a few solid trout on the north end early with topwaters, but I wanted to look at the Louisiana shoreline.

We eventually pulled up on a couple of gulls working over ladyfish and the next two hours were as good as it can get if you enjoy watching copper colored torpedoes demolishtopwater lures.  We caught some solid trout also, but it was primarily a non-stop redfish frenzy.  I motioned the only other boat in the area over and when we left in a modest effort to beat an approaching storm, they were still catching reds!

Brian was trying to cull down rather than up before we ever hit the lake!

Brian Bommer has fished with me a number of times, usually with Dr. Fred or his kids, but this was a spur of the moment solo trip for him.  I didn't realize until we were talking while cleaning fish that he had never caught many fish on topwaters prior to yesterday.  He schedules most of his trips in the fall to target flounder and reds with ultra-light and he is very good at that game.  He is now a topwater convert as well!

The river and the lake are finally starting to see a negative impact from the recent thunder storms.  The water still looks plenty good enough for now, but we have given up about a foot of clarity in the river and parts of the lake. If my yard turns brown, so be it...we do not need any more rain!  

More rain....more fish!

We have fished right through some serious downpours the past two days, but we were fortunate enough to have just climbed out of the boat when a potential killer roared through the cypress trees and zeroed in on us.  The lightning was so intense and frequent that it had the whole Boat Club glowing at one time!

Cameron drew first blood with this nice flounder, but.....

Yesterday, we got started late, quickly caught some live bait forJeep's grand kids, Zack and Cameron Dischler, and proceeded to park right on top of the fish.  I immediately  got Cameron the first of several nice flounder on the line and he took over from there.  By the time we got the fish to the surface he was yelling in some unknown language, had his poncho and free arm wound up in the reel handle, and was ordering Gan-Gan to get the Boga-grip.  A mechanic at heart, he decided that tool was one that he just had to have by the end of the day!

He had his older brother down for a while, but persistence paid off and Zack came on late with a couple of nice flounder and a keeper trout to boot.  Zack was equally enthusiastic the entire time, but unlike his little brother, his rpms will occasionally cease to red line. I have no idea how many fish we caught, but the kids were looking for people to show their fish to as soon as we hit the landing and all but had them cooked by the time they left. 

Zack closed the deal with a pair of solid flounder and a keeper trout to boot!

It was "Xtreme Fishing" and it was a blast.  Their Gan-Gan is going to have to get on some serious vitamins if he is going to continue hanging with those two on a regular basis!

Chris Pepper drove down from north Texas with Danny, Mickey, and John and we decide early on not to venture too far from the safety of the launch today.  The rain held off for a while, but when it hit it was cold and soaking.  We fished the river from just below I-10 to Cow bayou and found upper end slot reds everywhere we fished.

Chris got us started early with this wide-bodied red.

We kept only two reds that were under 25-inches and threw back a pile of fish just under the 20-inch mark.  I am not sure that we didn't hook a big striper as well as we were fishing pretty deep and John had a fish drag us all over the place on braided line before finally pulling off.  He got all of his line back a time or two, but anytime the fish wanted to leave it would effortlessly burn off 20-30 yards of line just beneath the surface before stopping.  It finally just came unbuttoned.

We narrowly beat the lightning-laced storm with this fine trout!

The majority of our larger fish, with the exception of one very nice trout and a couple of slot reds, were taken out of 15 to 22 feet of water. We finished the day fishing 5 to 12 feet of water and caught far more fish, but most of them were undersized.  We did, however, catch more keeper trout at that shallower depth. We started the morning with a good incoming and finished with a stiff outgoing tide around 1:30.

We made a run through the north end of the lake right before calling it a day and the water still looked very good in spite of all of the wind and rain.  Hopefully the parched earth still isn't totally saturated and runoff won't be a problem.  The wind has made it tough to get in the lake the last two days.       

They will bite in the rain!

I've just got a minute to get this in as we are headed to another baseball game if it doesn't get rained out.  We got some pretty good showers off and on all day, but it did not slow the fish down.  If it continues to rain, the river bite may slow a little, but it is about as good as it can get in the lake.

The fish moved even further south today, but they were still competing with the ladyfish for shad on the surface.  The reds never did their thing as far as schooling, but they were still there looking for a Super Spook or She Dog.  The ratio of keeper trout to throwbacks has improved as well.

Keep an eye on the weather, but I wouldn't pass on this bite if you have an opportunity to get out.  It can't get just a whole lot better! 

If you can do short notices, I just had a cancellation for tomorrow while typing this and Thursday is still open.  Gotta go...call me on my cell or leave a message on my home phone at 409-883-0723 and I will get back with you around 9 pm. 

Better fish doing their thing again!

Sometimes you zig when you should have zagged and wind up at the wrong place at the wrong time all day long.  That is one of my greatest fears when I have more than one pattern working and want to try and fish them both.  I managed to get it right Saturday morning.

James Bendele, Jason McDonald, and David Drake were already in the parking lot when I arrived at the motel fifteen minutes early.  Because the better fish had been schooling later in the day for me, we hit the river first.  Jason and David both caught nice slot reds before the sun cleared the horizon and we had a limit of reds and three nice specks before we ever ran to the lake.

David and Jason with two nice river reds.

We spent an hour or so in the mid-lake area catching a mixture of small keeper trout and throwbacks on topwaters and Assassins under a cork and then ran further south.  The lake was flat and we fished our way through several groups of surface feeding lady fish well off the Louisiana shoreline before finding the good trout and some humongous redfish!

James Bendele with another nice red that crushed a She Dog!

I had just a touch of chrome remaining on a bone-chrome She Dog when we decided to declare it a very good day and go cool off.  The fish were still doing their thing, but we'd had enough. Every strike was an explosion and the reds were incredibly strong.  I talked with Richard Hogden back at the landing and he said that he ran into two schools of surface feeding redfish in the middle of the lake.  He added that he lost one lure to them and just sat and enjoyed watching them do their thing for a long time! 

If anything, the afternoon showers have only made it better so far.  We are finally seeing more shad than shrimp in the open lake and the larger trout are definitely feeding on shad.  

Good company all week and new water today!

Sam George...you did good again!  Sam lives in the Tyler area and he and Dr. Wade French have fished with me the past several years.  He pointed Scott Moore and his eldest son, Chance, in my direction Tuesday and Wednesday and I very much enjoyed their company.  Scott's youngest son, Charlie, just signed on to play football for the next four years with the OSU Cowboys so Scott will now pull for the Longhorns every weekend, but one.  Chance is a Junior at UT and both Mom and Dad are UT alumni!

Both Tuesday and Wednesday, the bite didn't really get good until around noon.  One day the birds started late and the next day they cranked it up early, but in both instances, the better fish showed up from noon on.  We caught all of our fish on light colored soft plastics. I guess I have used up my good topwater bite at daylight because those fish have been "no-shows" for the past three days for me.

The last couple of days the water on the north end of the lake has been more off-colored and we have been dodging thunderstorms, but the pattern for us has been the same.  When the wind lays down, keep moving until you locate the better fish.  The slot reds and good numbers of 16 to 19 inch trout have been running together in the heat of the day.

After an exceptionally long run of consecutive days on the water, I was going to take a break and possibly even mow until my grandson asked to spend the night and go fishing.  He only had to ask once.  We were on the river early only to be greeted by overcast skies and a bad storm moving toward the lake.

I netted a few mullet and shad and decided we would bang around the river until  the weather settled down.  We caught well in excess of 20 keeper size trout in the first hour and I never put the anchor down.  Andrew caught a 25-inch redfish and 6 keeper trout at the Outfall while I was mending broken lines on the cast net and sacking up torn up tails. 

The only time we left the river was to run back to the Boat Club to avoid some serious lightning and a short round of driving rain around 1 p.m.  I caught several good fish on a swim bait, but he wore the fish out on live bait.  We never kept a fish until after that storm.  He decided at that point that I needed to fry fish for the family tonight so we ran out for another hour and kept four reds and five solid trout.  They were goooood!

We checked out maybe 12 to 15 spots from Cow Bayou all the way to the high line canal out of Bluebirds and found fish at all but two places.  We even found gulls working over small trout in the middle of the river in front of the boat launch on Simmon's drive. Once the shad are all over the river the trout and redfish will be there, but this is very early for me to find them there in any numbers.  It could have something to do with the heat and exceptionally high salinity levels.

Windier today, but still good

Micah, Vaughan, and Joe fished with me Sunday and we had a very good day.  We caught a few nice fish early on topwaters and killed the remainder of the morning drifting through schools of small trout, ladyfish and gafftops.  We would catch a good trout every now and then and there were enough slot reds to keep you on your toes, but most of the fish were just another fish.

Micah Hatten with one of the nice reds we took off the shoreline.

We were just starting to get a little wind kicking up around noon when we found a herd of solid trout and big slot reds running a shoreline in about three feet of water.  They were crushing She Dogs and chicken-on-a-chain Assassins fished under a Kwik Cork.  It was nice to catch only keeper trout every cast and not have to weed your way through all of the smaller fish.  When we called it a day they were still doing their thing.

Today was entirely different.  The Grabowskis met me at 5:30 and the wind was already blowing.  The flats I had been doing well on early were blown out and silted up and the whitecaps made it difficult to find any fish feeding on the surface.  We caught a few small trout and slot reds, but it was a grind.

Just before noon, I had decided to run back in the river and show Ted some spots when the lake just went flat.  We caught fish almost every cast for the next two hours before yielding to the heat.  We caught more good fish under a Kwik Cork than on a topwater, but we didn't fish a topwater that much.

Most of the larger fish we found, including the reds, were closer to the middle of the lake than they were the day before.  I don't know that it made that big of a difference other than confidence, but the water was clearer in that area.  The fish were chasing both small shrimp and shad.  

Bring lots of water!

It was HOT today!  I washed the boat and took a cold shower as soon as we got off the water and I am already sweating like I am still outside.  I am writing this early in hopes that it may give you a place to start tomorrow and it wouldn't happen tonight if I waited too long.  I cannot remember fishing a group on a Sunday, so the bite may shut down tomorrow anyway.

 I had the first chance I have had in a while to look at some new water with Warren Brister Friday and it paid off today. We started out on some fish he and I found and they were there at first light. The better fish did not start biting for Warren and I until noon or a little later, but that changed today.

I didn't know what to anticipate as far as a crowd, but there were less people on the water today than there were yesterday.  I fished with John Hale, Paul Morris and 14-year old Austin and we were on our first spot early. After a very brief training session, Austin was good to go with one of my spinning rigs and the first cast I made with a bone-chrome She Dog resulted in the most eye-popping strike I have experienced this year.  I initially thought it was a big red, but as soon as I realized it was a trout I gave my rod to Austin and the tug of war was on.

He did a great job, but I eventually helped him lose her right at the boat.  I passed on a chance to net her in hopes that we wouldn't even have to take her out of the water after a long fight in 93 degree water.  She was easily as big as anything I caught this past winter so the STAR tournament is a long way from being over.

Austin tamed this nice red right off the bat!

We went through several more good fish before the sun cleared the roseau and that bite ended as quickly as it started.  Austin capped off that early bite with an 8-pound red that led him around the boat a few times.

We caughta world of small trout and suicidal ladyfish as usual, but we finished with a very nice box of 18 to 20-inch trout that ate both topwaters and glow-chartreuse Assassins rigged on a 1/8th head or fished under a Kwik Cork.  All of our slot reds hit the same lures as we never just targeted redfish.  The schools of larger trout moved a little farther out into the lake and a little farther east today. 

Good in the morning.....even better in the evening!

The past couple of days have really been good in spite of a persistent wind that picks up in the early afternoon.  I very seldom fish the late afternoon, but I have gotten some incredible reports from local anglers that have been fishing the last couple of hours after the thunderstorms pass through.

I went to pick up my party at the motel yesterday morning and only one of them was strong enough to meet me at the desk to say that they couldn't make it.  They rotated through the bathroom all night after getting sick due to an evening meal.  I don't know where they ate, but it must have been on the road as they called me around 10 p.m. and they still had not left Houston.

As usual, I went fishing anyway and the bite was good.  I only kept five fish for supper, but I could have easily limited in the first hour.  Perhaps the best news of all is that I could have limited in several different spots.  I was going to leave early, but Johnny showed up in his aluminum undercover boat and we spent the morning calling each other to come see how good it was where we were!

We caught a lot of nice trout on topwaters and the 21 to 24-inch reds would not leave us alone.  I don't know where they are when I am struggling and just need a bite, but they are all over the lake right now.  I have been told most every day that it is even better on the south end and at the jetties, but I haven't had to fish south of a line from Johnson's to the Condos on Pleasure Island.

What has been a little strange is that the better schools of trout seem to be moving around in mass.  One day they are piled up on a single flat behind the islands, the next day they are a few hundred yards off the revetment wall and the next day they are right in the middle of the lake.  There are huge schools of little trout, ladyfish and gafftops everywhere, but the better fish are tight and they are on the move.

It looks as though this weather will hold through the weekend, so I feel certain there will be more boats on the water than gulls.  Be patient and keep moving if the first few fish you catch are small.  If you are catching good fish, don't leave just because they quit biting or a bird flies away.  They are still there and they will bite again in a few minutes!  

Little more wind, but fishing still good

The wind has started kicking up again mostly in the afternoons since last Thursday, but the fishing has not slowed down much thus far.  the biggest surprise for me has been how long the larger trout are staying shallow each morning in spite of the heat.

We have been catching trout up to 5 1/2 pounds on Top Dogs and Skitterwalks in two feet of water at high noon even on very porr tide changes.  I would rather have to deal with the problems associated with fishing a flat lake rather than too much wind, but a little wind really helps the topwater bite in shallow water.  Bone-chrome patterns have been very good to us.

Lynesey and Lauren with two nice trout. Younger sister, Jordan, and Mom were hunting shade at this point!

I fished with the Sandow family Thursday and it was miserably hot, but we still caught some very nice trout on both topwaters and live bait.  We had everything from small ladyfish to piggy perch in the livewell and the trout we caught were not real particular.  With no wind and no tide movement most of the day, fishing live bait in one spot was a little restricting.

We went back to drifting the flats with the wind and making long casts into schools of surfacing shad or working small groups of terns bird dogging schooling redfish and trout well out into the lake.  We have been catching trout on a Sea Shad rigged under a Kwik Cork when nothing else will produce a fish for us.  We catch a few too many gafftops, but there are enough keeper trout biting to weather the inconvenience.

We are starting to see larger shad and the bite in both the Neches and the Sabine rivers has improved as well.  In general it is hot and getting hotter, but the catching has been consistent!