Colburn's Sabine Connection

Tomorrow will tell the tale on effects of Tuesday's downpour!

We danced our way around some serious rain Tuesday and just had a great day on redfish.  We did get  blown around a little, but we still caught some ridiculous number of redfish until we got tired of catching them. We also had some solid trout up to four pounds, but not a bunch of them.

The fishing was just pretty good until about 11:00.  A major storm covered up the lake about that time and we ran for cover.  When we returned, the wind settled and it was on.  We caught most of our fish on glow-chartreuse and hot chicken plastics, but at least one of my fishermen for the day caught one on every color in his box!

Hopefully, the rain that fell on the lake and the local runoff will not hurt the bite too badly.

Easy bite still hasn't gotten washed out!

It has been a while since I posted and I apologize for that, but it hasn't been because we haven't been on the water. So much for an earlier proimise that I would not guide 5 to 6 days a week anymore."  We have had to fish around and through thunder storms, but the catching has been pretty darn good.

Even as good as it has been I am afraid that we getting duped into thinking we have it all figured out again.  We have been running to the flats at daylight and catching a few slot reds and a few nice trout  on top waters and Swim Baits.  By mid-morning we are getting antsy if we haven't found the birds working over schools of shad in the open lake.

The folks fishing south are content with their bird activity and the folks on the north end aren't doing badly either.  The wind has messed up a few trips, but other than that it is simply a matter of getting the right color lure to the right school of fish.

Last week we did well on both trout and reds with Swim baits and Assassin Sea Shads.  That is not to say that you could not also catch fish on everything from topwaters to gold spoons as well.  I fished Steve Pullen today and it was a little different in that we caught fish until we just wore ourselves out, but it all took place after lunch.

The fish also got a little selective on us.  Lighter colored tails were preferred, at least by the reds, and once we figured that out, it was redfish nirvana for three solid hours.  The trout may have wanted a darker color, but we were having too much fun with the reds to worry about the trout.  At times, we fished in some serious waves and wiggled in between some nasty storms, but we never had to duck and run.

I've got folks everyday this week and most of next week if the weather holds and the fish continue to cooperate so I may get something posted each night or just wait and do one report for the week.  Should my bite change, however, I will post that night to help you put together another game plan.  At least for right now, bring your sunscreen and raincoat because we are seeing it all in a day's time! 

Lighter winds and a bigger bite!

We struggled through the early part of the week with winds that kept us pinned down in the river, but that all changed Thursday when the wind started lying down.  Both Thursday and Friday were miserably hot with no breeze at all, but the ladyfish were hustling shad and the trout and reds were hustling the ladyfish.

The weekend has been more of the same, with the exception of having to fish around thunderstorms.  It doesn't surprise me that I have several several emails from folks that did extremely well on the south end both Saturday and today.  We found some fish on the north end Thursday and I was reluctant to push my luck by leaving a sure thing.

The biggest surprise has been that we were catching our largest trout right at daylight the week before, but the bite on the big fish was more mid-day the remainder of the week.  We found trout up to 7-pounds blasting away at ladyfish in a foot of water today and we would not even have been there that late had we not dodged a storm.

Ty Badon and John Zackary brought their sons, Nicholas and Cal, Friday and Ty was very specific about what they wanted to do.  "This is a trip for the boys and I just want them to catch fish with live bait or whatever it takes."  As it turned out, Ty was sandbagging.  I caught some shad at daylight, rigged up two light spinning rods, and we caught rat reds until I could no longer stand it.  Assuming neither youngster had any experience with this type tackle, for the first couple hours I would cast their rods and they would catch the fish, but while the bite was steady, the fish were not getting any larger.

 Nicholas and Cal with a pair of solid specks!
 

We then ran all over the lake until the wind went slack.  The second set of birds we checked out were all over schools of trout up six pounds.  I was trying to figure out how I was going to cast and hand off the rods to the two youngsters after swapping out Carolina rigs for Bass Assassins.  Before I could rig up Cal's rod, Nicholas had already launched a lengthy cast and was wrestling with a 3-pound fish.  You guessed it...as soon as Cal was rigged up he also deftly launched his own cast in the direction of the schooling fish.  They had apparently been watching very closely all morning.

It is far more common for clients to embelish their own skills or be hesitant to state that they do not know how to use casting or spinning tackle.  I still don't know for sure if both young men were just fast learners or too polite to point out that they could do it on their own.  Either way, they caught trout until the wind kicked back up again and even let their dads catch a few.

We caught a few of the largest fish on glow-chartreuse tails, but most of our big trout are taking a Creme Spoiler Shad over tails or even topwaters.  The redfish are apparently schooling much better on the south end than they are up north.  The birds are helping, but driving slowly and looking for surface activity is the key to finding big schools of fish.

I think there is still a very good possibility of the winning STAR trout coming off Sabine judging by the number of 3 to 4-pound fish that we have cleaned that are still full of eggs.  Everything has been late this year and that must have included the spawn.The water clarity is noticeably worse in some parts of the lake, but that hasn't slowed the bite at all.  

At least we could fish the lake today!

After getting blown out for three consecutive days, we were able to fish the lake today.  Tuesday and Wednesday we stayed in the river and caught a ton of rat reds and small trout on live bait.  Today we caught some slot reds, a couple of nice flounder, and some solid trout up to 3 pounds.

It certainly wasn't great, but it was an improvement.  I think we may have been able to do well on the flounder, but we didn't stay with them long.  We caught our trout on Spoiler Shads and Texas Roach Assassins.  The lake was flat most of the day, but we didn't see as much bait on the surface as we have been seeing.

The water was clearer in the mid-lake area than anywhere else.  It was dirtier than it had been behind the islands, but there were a few fish still in there.  I f we get a flat lake again tomorrow we should start seeing more surface activity as the water continues to clear.  We haven't seen that big incoming tide the past two mornings and that backed the bite up a little for us.

Hopefully I will have better news tomorrow night, but there just isn't a lot to pass along right now!

Too rough to tell!

I made a round this evening with my grand nephews and grandson and I think they caught every rat red in Blacks's and the river at least twice.  i had hoped to get them out in the lake, but it was just too rough all evening.  We stopped a time or two to look down between the whitecaps and the clarity was still very good even up behind the islands.

It is just incredible how much bait is in the river and the lake as well.  The kids were throwing Swim baits and Gulp mullet and every time their lure hit the water the shad exploded in every direction.  The gulls were all over Black's picking at very small shad, but the fish were not underneath them.  The fish we caught were in the mouths of the drains.  We had a big incoming tide and the water was all up in the grass.

We will start getting serious again tomorrow if the wind will give us any kind of a break.  It needs to go more easterly or lay down for a few days.

Lot of rain, but the bite is still holding up!

We waited out a gully washer at daylight, ran back out long enough to get pounded by the wind and finally postponed it in the next round of rain.  We gave it a good try. With a little unexpected time on my hands I decided to run to Beaumont in hopes of quickly dealing with another kidney stone, but as usual, I am just going to have to suck it up a while longer before making any major decisions.  Too much fishing to stop right now.

I didn't fish nor report across the holiday weekend partially due to the weather and partially due to waiting on the stone to move into a more bearable spot.  There were some decent fish caught during all of the rain and more especially, the day after it stopped raining.  We had a good trip yesterday, but it took forever for me to figure out what was going on.

We never found the first group of birds working and the bite in the grass was not that great either.  We finally found some solid trout and a herd of reds drifting the flats on the north end with Kwik Corks and 4-inch Assassins.  The biggest surprise was not catching any gafftop.  That freshwater runoff may have moved them a little.

The water in the lake didn't look bad, but it wasn't as pretty as it has been.  The water in the river, however, is in great shape.  We caught a few 15 to 17-inch trout and a bunch of rat reds in the river  on the way in and we weren't getting much help out of the tide at the time.  The river is just covered up with small shad right now.

At least for the moment, tomorrow's trip is still on so we'll see what effect the wind and rain had on the bite.  While on the river, I talked with some fellows that had forgotten that their La. licenses had expired.  They were ok where they were fishing, but I know they spend a lot of time in Burton's and Black's.  The license is expensive  enough without adding a fine to the cost!