Colburn's Sabine Connection

Too much wind to get it done!

I don't have anything good to report, but I am still here and fishing.  The wind has just been brutal and I have not donea good job of coming up with a Plan B.  After canceling a pile of trips, I made a decent run Wednesday.  Everything I could effectively fish was in the bayous or the river, but I caught a few fish at almost every stop.  I did hear that someone found a good bite on the La. shoreline late that afternoon.

The bayous and a lot of marsh got purged the last two days with that big north wind.  I have not seen the water this low in a while and I am not complaining.  All we need to do well in the lake right now is smaller whitecaps.  Prior to all of this wind, it was very good and getting better each day.

We might get a little bit of a break tomorrow, but I'll have to see it to believe it.  The next decent day from a wind standpoint looks to be Monday.

Absolutely "Stupid Good"!

I don't know that Chris Pepper and his foursome could have possibly picked better back to back days to fish Sabine.  The bite had been steadily improving all week long, but Wednesday and Thursday were two days to kill for.  The lake was dead calm and upper-end slot redfish were suicidal.

               Most of the reds are upper slot or too big right now!

We worked birds from East Pass all the way to the Causeway and the further south we fished, the more redfish we encountered.  Not that we wanted to, but at one point Thursday morning we could not get away from the reds.  It was a little unusual when the bonus fish were very solid sandies that occasionally beat the reds to our jigs.

Wednesday we kept ten, but could just have easily kept 4 limits of reds after fishing for trout much of the morning. They brokeoff 3 or 4 more fish and the gulls slowed down a little earlier in the day.  Thursday was redfish nirvana as someone in the boat had a red on the line most of the morning and at one point all four of them were hooked up with fish going in different directions!

We finished off both days catching some very solid trout up to four-pounds.  We drifted the flats with 5-inch Assassin Shads and TTF Trout killers rigged on 1/8th ounce heads.  Morning Glory and Texas Roach were easily the best colors for the trout.  The wind slowed the incredible bite Friday as it made it tougher on both the birds and the fishermen, but it should settle back down this weekend.

            Its easy to be a good guide on a flat lake with wall-to-wall reds.

Chris and his gang had a heck of a trip, but were still sweating out the Texas Rangers each evening.  By the time they got settled in good back home Friday night, however, the Rangers had sealed the deal and were headed to the World Series!  

No wind and not much tide change!

The lake was dead calm for much of the day and we wasted the better part of it.  Any birds we found were working over mostly small specks and sand trout which was frustrating.  I was determined not to have to run south after fighting that crowd last week so we made many circles around the north end of the lake.  You could sure see a long way without seeing the first gull.

Some where around noon we got a little chop on the water and the bite was on.  By that time we had caught a jillion small fish, but only had five keepers in the box.  We called it quits two hours later with a slot red and 26 solid trout iced down.  Most of the fish hit roach colored Assassin Shads either fished under a cork or rigged on a 1/8th ounce head and retrieved a foot or so beneath the surface.

We have had no problem catching reds, but they didn't show for us today.  A lot of other folks did do pretty well on them on the south end of the lake, but they had trouble finding any solid trout.  The tides are still doing us no favors.  If the weather cooperates I think we will have a better morning tomorrow and I would gladly take the same bite we had today after that!

Slow but steady all day long!

The wind didn't blow nearly as hard as predicted and outside of the fact that we had another poor tide day, the conditions could not have been better.  There was a little more bird activity early than we had been seeing, but most of them were working over small trout.

 

 

           Mom put the pressure on her boys with this nice slot red!

Johnny called while on a school of reds that he found very early with a Hoginar, but we got there a little too late. We found our reds scattered through out the day, but never found them schooling.  We also had some nice trout up to 24-inches, but we had to work our tails off for a pretty decent catch of fish.  We caught our reds on a itttle bit of everything, but most of our keeper trout hit Sea Shads fished under a Kwik Cork.

 

                Aaron caught our best trout of the day on a hot chicken Sea Shad! 

We really didn't start catching any numbers of quality fish until the lake glassed off around noon.  We would run to a single bird, watch for a shrimp to jump and catch a fish or two.  That's a slow way to get it done, but it was the only game in town for us.  The water is still in very good condition, it never got out of the 70's all day, and there is bait everywhere.  Every trip is not a slam dunk yet, but we are headed in that direction! 

Weaker tide slowed trout, but not the reds!

The Saturday fishing was apparently not as user friendly as it was for us through Friday, but at least the redfish bite continued to improve.  Even the folks that failed to find many keeper trout picked up solid redfish on a variety of baits all over the lake.

We were fortunate to do well on trout as well, but the surprising thing thus far regarding the redfish has been the size.  Typically, as the reds start pouring out of the marshes following a big north wind and outgoing tide, we are initially covered up with rat reds.  We hit the bayous and mouths of the drains two days in a row after catching some good trout in the open lake and our only problem was just the opposite.....they were mostly oversized fish.

                  Bill Bommer tagged his personal best and took it to the grill!

The last two trips we caught 23 redfish on tails.  We tagged one oversized fish each day and were able to keep only six others that were not over the slot.  Even those fish were all in the 26 to 27-inch range. We have been catching all of our reds on hot chicken Sea Shads and geaux gleaux Hackberry Hustlers.  I feel certain the reds will hit anything, but those tails have been good to us when chasing trout and we are not bothering to switch lures.

Johnny found a good school of reds in the mid-lake area Thursday and worked on them with a Hoginar.  Frank Beauchamp called and said they didn't catch many reds in a half day of fishing today, but theirs were big also and they caught them on everything from tails to topwaters.  The birds must not have helped much today, but at least one group kept 16 trout up to five pounds wading.  They were throwing Corkies and were done by 7:30!

Hopefully, this report will get wherever "there" is!

If this report does not get posted it may very well be my last attempt ever.  Computers truly piss me off anyway and only my wife can successfully get me signed on the right page.  I have been trying to post the best reports of the fall for a week, but she had far more important things to do than fool with this and my reports kept going somewhere out there other than my web site.

I fish!  I do not do computers, I do not tweeter..... whatever that is, I don't do facebook and I don't text.  I was complaining last week that "messages missed" kept piling up on my cell phone and my daughter found it very humorous, but was patient enough to point out that they would continue to pile up if I never read them.  She explained that was not the same thing as "Calls missed".  She was also quick to add that judging by my inbox that I had a lot of people possibly wondering why I never responded.

Okay....here goes and I hope this isn't just for practice.  The fishing has been unreal on Sabine for the past week.  The birds have started working, but even when you can't find them the bite is great on the shallow flats all the way from East Pass to Green's.  We are not doing well on redfish, but we are catching limits of trout on Top Waters, Corkies, Swim Baits, Sea Shads, and Hackberry Hustlers.

I hate to jinx us and officially declare it as "Game On" with stormy weather due in tomorrow, but everywhere you fish, the shrimp are all over the top of the water and the fish are after them.  If you are catching small fish, don't be afraid to look elsewhere.  Hanging in there thinking the next fish is going to be a keeper is a bad move.

Today was a prime example of just how good it has been.  We were covered up with gulls catching trout every cast when another boat pulled up.  We waved him in, but he just waved back and sat there.  Finally he eased within shouting distance and says,  "I have to go to work, but y'all need to go work the birds between Rabbit and Sidney.  I limited in the first thirty minutes and they are still working."

Five hours late we got around to running over there and those birds were still working over solid trout.  I got three calls in the first hour of fishing from friends on the lake telling me they were on fish and none of them were within a mile of one another.  It is fun when everyone on the lake thinks they are the only boat on birds hoping that no one else comes around!

We did catch a world of fish under the gulls today, but once again our largest fish came off the shallow flats far from any gull activity.  The fish were holding in 3 to 5 feet of water and eating both top waters and plastics fished under a Kwik Cork.  I cussed the redfish all year long, but they are the only thing missing for us right now.

Lord, please let this report make it to the web site....Here goes!

Great day due to good fortune

I squeezed in one more scouting trip before having to take care of some more important stuff over the next few days and it was better than expected.  I had postponed my last three trips, not because of the weather, but because the bite had just been so iffy.  Even as well as I did, I was glad that I was not fishing clients as I could not have taken them into the Game Reserve!

The northeast wind was howling so I took advantage of the high water and looked around the Reserve before it closes next week..  Now I know why we are struggling to locate the huge schools of redfish we normally see in the lake this time of the year.  The marsh was full of shad and shrimp and the redfish were everywhere you looked.  I fished a frog and a 5-inch Assassin shad rigged weedless and easily caught and released 20 reds slot size and larger in a couple of hours.

The wind eased up a little and I joined two other boats drifting around in the crab traps in front of Willow Bayou.  They were catching a few small trout and rat reds, but I never saw them boat the first keeper.  I drifted almost to the mouth of Johnson's when I saw a shrimp or two break the surface.  I stayed with them and released a pile of trout in the 17 to 21-inch class.  They were all fat and most of them had shrimp whiskers sticking out of their mouths.

I initially caught them fishing a hot chicken Sea Shad under a Kwik Cork and did well as long as the shrimp were being chased to the surface. The bite got even better when they went down and I switched to a TTF Red Killer rigged on a 1/8th ounce head.  I haven't fished with them enough to know the name of the color, but it was very similar to the hot chicken.

I would simply cast it out, let it sink slowly with no retrieve and they would hit it on the fall.  I got very few strikes on the retrieve so I would reel it in after it made it to the bottom and throw it out again.  There was no doubt that they wanted it falling.

We are getting very close to running out in the lake and finding birds everywhere, but that hasn't happened for me yet.  I have heard some unreal reports, but I have a pretty good network of guides and local fishermen and they have been working their tails off to find fish as well thus far.  If it is calm enough to see the shrimp jump you can find fish without the birds so they are obviously there, but that can be a very iffy proposition!

This following reminder is for the folks that have fished the Fall with me for years.  You know we can cancel at the last minute at no expense, but you need to get your date on the books.  I went from 3 bookings to 16 for this month last night and at least half of those were new folks.  It is slow right now, but it isn't going to stay that way.