Colburn's Sabine Connection

Not great, but better than Sabine for now!

With most of Sabine Lake still very dirty we took our chances on Big Lake Saturday and had a pretty good trip in spite of a stiff wind.  The water had silted up, but it was still prettier than Sabine Lake.

 
Darlene releases the first of several nice trout caught on Catch V's and 2000's.

I fished with Calvin and Pat Powitsky and Danny and Darlene Barnes and they took advantage of a crash course on fishing Catch V's and 2000's over shallow shell.  Darlene won her battle with a 26-inch trout that ate a Catch V and Danny fed the same lure to our largest red of the day. We also caught smaller trout drifting 5-inch Assassins over a little deeper shell.

Danny fooled this slot red with a chartreuse Catch V.  

It was all catch and release, but I think Calvin caught the most fish while his wife, Pat, just tried to get warm.  It was overcast early and the wind was blowing right in on us all morning long. Danny and Darlene were celebrating a recent anniversary so it was only right that they caught the largest fish!

The wind blew again all day today and is supposed to do the same again tomorrow so I will probably fish  Big Lake most of this week again.  I haven't been catching numbers, but we have done well on the big trout.  It only takes landing a couple of big trout with the anticipation of catching just one more to make my day anyway.  

One of those sure 'nuff good days!

Every once in a great while you catch it just right and that is exactly what happened Wednesday.  Ted Grabowski's partner for the day had to cancel at the last minute, but that did not change Teds plans.  We fished until noon under a dark skies and a chilly southeast wind and while we caught a few fish here and there, I felt like I was screwing up a great opportunity with the front  only hours away.

That all changed about 2 o'clock when I tied on a Catch 2000 after trying everything else in the box.  We had fished everything from tails to topwaters all morning in the same areas with only modest success and  believe it or not, never caught the first fish on a Corky!

The first trout that ambushed my 2000 was a solid four pound fish, the second was closer to five and Ted clipped off his Corky and tied on a Catch V.  He immediately caught a six pound fish and I dug out the camera for an unexpected opportunity to get a few pictures. When I turned on the camera it showed "low battery" and I could have cared less as Ted had already put the fish back and was battling another before I could put the camera away.

To say that we caught a lot of big trout over the next few hours is conservative at best.  Ted never lifts his trout completely out of the water before releasing them so it was a "best guess estimate" on those fish.  The last fish I actually weighed on the boga-grip before releasing her was just over 7 pounds.

If there was a negative to this report it was the fact that we were on Big Lake rather than Sabine in hopes of finding at least 6-inches of water clarity.  It was much better than that everywhere we fished with the exception of West Cove, but ironically enough, we found our largest trout in dirtier water.  Maybe we have just gotten used to fishing that kind of water on Sabine over the past month.

I was also surprised to see several flocks of gulls picking over school fish on our initial run down the lake.  We didn't stop to try them and they broke up later in the morning after the wind continued to get stronger.  As muddy as Sabine is right now, portions of the south end including the reef are clearing on incoming tides.  There have also been a few gulls working very late in the day.

It has pretty much been a redfish bite, but as the tides get stronger and higher over the next couple of weeks we should see plenty of specks following the shrimp back into the lake as well.

Trout still biting in the wind.

Wind was a problem at some point during the day both Wednesday and Thursday, but nothing to complain about when you think about this same time last year.  I fished both days with Chance and Charlie Moore and we chased a little bit of everything.  Chance was on spring break at UT and his brother,Charlie, a wide receiver at OSU was heading back to school Sunday.  Over the two day period we managed to catch a bunch of trout, a pair of nice reds, and one big flounder.

It was cold Wednesday morning with a slow outgoing tide.  It got even colder when we wrapped an unmarked crab trap around the prop and I had to take off enough clothes to get out of the boat and cut it off.  Don't get me started on crab traps blocking the mouth of the major bayous.  The bite was good in the afternoon and we found a few slot reds and some really good trout on the north end of the lake.  Charlie broke off a bragging size fish that ate a red flash Assassin right at the boat.

Charlie kept this one for the pit!
  
  

We were going to fish the barrel channel Thursday morning only to find 3 tugs pushing a drilling rig out into the lake right off the bat.  You haven't seen dirty until you see this huge glob of muddy water that just kind of oozes around according to wind direction.  We ran to to the southwest side of the lake and found the trout using red shad, Texas roach and chicken on a chain Assassins.  Charlie added one slot red and a flounder to the catch.

The weatherman really missed the wind Friday and we struggled in the whitecaps all day long.  We hid on a stretch of La. shoreline most of the morning and caught a pile of undersized reds on Sea Shads and Gulp.  We did keep 4 or 5 nice flounder.  We bit the bullet late and tried to drift in the whitecaps for trout, but it was just too rough.  We picked up a few 18 to 20 inch fish and missed a few more, but it was just to rough to stay with it.

I can only hope this front doesn't churn the lake up too badly as the trout fishing has gotten better everyday.  It has simply been a matter of getting to them.  I also think that you can limit pretty easily on flounder if you have the time to fish only for them exclusively right now.  Every time we have  run the bank in search of reds we have caught at least a few.

Add some wire cutters to your tackle box just in case you encounter an unseen crab trap!  

We are winning a few battles with the wind!

We got our hats handed to us Monday, but we had a very good four day run prior to that.  The 5 to 10 mph wind that weatherunderground.com predicted turned the lake upside down until just after noon.  We then got saddled with a dead calm lake with no tidal movement and we were done.  I am thinking that weatherunderground just might be measuring wind underground!

 Randy Myers managed to catch this nice red on a very tough day.

We managed a couple of solid redfish and missed a few more fish, but it was really tough.  We fought the wind all but one day from Thursday through the weekend, however, and did well.  The water clarity was and still is poor all over the lake, but it didn't hurt the bite.  The random flounder we caught were big, there were still lots of slot reds, and we caught much better numbers of trout up to 6 1/2-pounds.

  Rods' first 3 fish included a 4 lb. trout, a 3 lb. flounder, and a 7lb. redfish!

The best concentrations of bait have been tight to the shoreline and around the mouth of the cuts on the La. side.  Those areas were also producing all of our flounder and redfish.  We caught most of our trout, however, drifting or wading 2 to 4 foot flats and those fish were well off the shoreline.  We caught very few redfish that far out and no one was complaining.  The water has been in the high 60's by mid-afternoon.

 Kyle caught this solid 6-pound trout on a 5-inch Assassin Shad.

We picked up a few fish on She Dogs and the small Spook, but we have done the best with tails rigged on 1/8th ounce heads.  The darker colors ranging from plum to Texas Roach have worked the best.  The best news aside from the fact that the trout bite has improved is that we have been doing well in the same winds that sent us packing last year. 

I ran Black's one day last week and found nothing, but small redfish.  I didn't stay long because the water looked bad, but that bite should be picking up.  I did get two very good reports from folks that fished the Causeway Reef this weekend.  Both groups said they caught their fish very late in the day.

I've got another four day run starting tomorrow and it looks like we will fish in a little rain and some cooler weather.  If we can get a good tide change the cold shouldn't hurt us too badly.

Looks can be deceiving!

We had another good day today, but the pile of fish at the end of the day was somewhat misleading. We had some good fishermen and we worked our tails off. We could not have asked for better weather, but we could not get anything going all day long in the same places we hammered them the day before.  So much for time spent scouting.  I believe the biggest difference was a very weak tide most of the day.

There wasn't much of the La. shoreline that we didn't try until 2:30.  The bite in the grass was poor, but we managed to box 3 slot reds, a trout and 7 nice flounder.  We missed a few good fish in the process, but not enough to keep us in the area.  The water looked great, there was a little bait activity and the water was 65 degrees.  We caught a few fish on Gulp,  but most of the fish hit 5-inch Assassins.

At 2:30 we had just landed a pair of flounder and a slot red when Adam called and said that a friend had found some trout on a flat that we had not fished all day.  We had time to make two long drifts and finished with nine more solid trout thanks to that much appreciated tip.  Adam's group had them dialed in and finished with 21 trout so we wound up with a pretty good pile of fish at the end of the day. 

I think the wind  is supposed to turn around and blow out of the north tomorrow and that could make things tough.  A wade bite could be extra tough to get going as even the reds and flounder were not tight to the shoreline and the trout were even deeper.   

Pretty good bite in the fog!

Johnny and I made a round today on a very foggy lake in hopes of locating some fish for tomorrow's clients.  It looked like it was going to pour all day and the wind picked up in the afternoon, but we never got wet. The only other fisherman we saw all day long was Adam Jaynes who is also going to work with us tomorrow.

As often as Johnny helps me with larger parties, he and I rarely have an opportunity to fish together anymore so I really enjoyed the day.  We have been wading so much that it took a little while to get used to fishing out of the boat again.  Considering the fact that we just hit spots quickly and left, we went through a lot of fish!

We checked out a lot of water and caught several fish on almost every drift we made.  Johnny turned over one big trout on a topwater, but we put back several trout in the 3-pound class.  Most of the fish were in the 16 to 18-inch class.  We also turned loose several solid slot reds, but that bite has been a given on most days.

The water clarity was still very good from Coffee Ground to Garrisons.  Johnny checked the Causeway reef yesterday and said that water looked pretty good also.  I would guess that we caught most of our fish on Assassin Shads, but we also caught them on a Catch V, Swim Bait, She Dog, and Corkies.  Just before calling it a day I picked up 2 nice slot reds on a Red Daddy spinnerbait drifting in about 3 feet of water.

We never got a very good tide change, but at least it moved a little most of the day.  Surface temperatures ranged anywhere from 55.6 to 61 degrees.  I think the best news of all was that we caught fish both tight to the shoreline and as far as six to eight hundred yards out into the lake.  We also found some fish that weren't just holding around grass and that has not happened for me lately.

The wind is supposed to turn around and blow in the opposite direction for the next two days so it could be a whole new game tomorrow.  We didn't see a lot of bait activity, but it didn't seem to matter.  They are still turning water loose on Toledo Bend, but fresh water beats the heck out of muddy water.  Wind will be the only show stopper on most days with the weather finally warming up! 

No rain and warmer weather did the trick.

There was little doubt that the catching would improve with a few consecutive days of warmer weather.  The only complaint that I had was that the best bite seemed to take place later each day and I hate running back after dark with clients.  The surface temperature stayed in the high 50's and the water has cleared a little more each day.

We found some fish around noon Thursday, but I had to leave early for a funeral and CCA Banquet that night.  Gene ran back out and easily limited on redfish and kept a flounder or two.  The following day I could not get anything consistent going until 4:00.  We either pulled off or missed several fish early, but that is usually the case when you are pressing.

There was more traffic that afternoon, but most everyone that fished until dark found at least a few trout and redfish.  I was pleased to see the trout bite improve as fresh as the water was all the way to the Causeway.  We also caught a few nice flounder and reds working the shoreline with swim baits.

Saturday we waded again after drift fishing for two days.  We picked a stretch of bank only because there were no other boats in the area and we saw one mullet jump.  In the last hour of daylight we kept two limits of trout, 4 reds, and a big flounder.  We released 3 trout in the 25 to 26 inch class.  We had to stand in water nearly chest deep and cast as far as we could, which made unhooking each fish a wet affair.

We caught the first few fish on red shad Assassins before switching over to dayglow and pink fatboys. I caught the first 7 or 8 trout standing on the only small piece of hard bottom I could find.  Kevin Robison is six inches taller and he found the real mother lode wading even further out.  He not only limited, but released a number of 16 to 18-inch fish as well.

I fished Big Lake with an old friend today after Church and the water was beautiful.  We only caught 5 trout in the 16 to 20-inch class, but we caught redfish until I got tired of unhooking them.  Keith caught fish on a variety of tails, but I caught all of my fish on a glow-chartreuse Crazy Croaker and a pearl chartreuse Catch 2000.

I have already talked with two other groups that caught trout up to six pounds on Sabine today so there is not much need to make the trip east any time soon.  Maybe we won't get too much rain tomorrow as the lake has really cleared up and I don't think we have any fronts headed our way this week.  

Dirty water, but a surprisingly good bite!

Boy, if this deluge wasn't just what we needed.  I cleaned fish in a downpour at the Boat Club this morning and Cow bayou was running high and muddy.  Brad Deslatte and I fished Sabine yesterday after Church and found only a couple of stretches of water with 4 to 6 inches of visibility.

Our first two stops were only good for exercise.  Our last stop, prior to just giving up, turned out to be a good one.  We only caught one keeper trout, but we worked on the redfish and flounder for the better part of two hours.  The water didn't look much better and we were wading in some serious waves, but the mullet were everywhere.

We only got bit when we crawled Corkies and Swim Baits across the bottom which may have explained all of the flounder.  We apparently just didn't do a very good job of finding the trout as Johnny and Aaron had a good afternoon fishing Corkies and Assassins much farther south.  Johnny said they didn't get off the lake until 9:00, but did well on trout up to six pounds.

I guess the best news in looking ahead at the remainder of the week is that the lake can't get much fresher than it is now.  I am hoping the modest warming trend later in the week will help as we are looking at two more very cold nights and a stiff north wind before that happens.  I can assure you that water clarity does little more than erode your confidence after having consistently caught fish most of the winter in very ugly water.  If you find mullet jumping in a mud hole you better stick it out and keep casting.