Colburn's Sabine Connection

Wade fishing not the best remedy for curing a cold!

Much to my wife's dismay, we gave it a brief shot yesterday and still did not find any solid trout.  I have been fighting some kind of cough and crud since before Christmas and not taking any time off has not been the cure.  The wind blew a little water in over the top of our waders and that apparently was not a good thing.  Warren Brister fore-warned me that the wind was blowing harder than it looked at the house.

Not surprisingly, the reds ate everything we threw, but the trout were either too slow or just were not there.  We waded an area that I haven't waded this year and it was covered up with bait.  Rick felt reasonably sure that he stuck one big trout, but the three we caught were 2 to 3 pound fish.  We fished top watersthe entire time simply because we didn't  have much time and they were producing a few strikes.

It was fun watching the reds crash a top water, but I have seen enough reds.  The water was 59 degrees and clear as a bell.  I am beginning to think Big Lake is the short term answer to decent trout fishing!

 

Perfect weather day was a Christmas gift from Mother Nature

We will not get a better weather day this winter than Wednesday.  After battling a 20 mph south wind all day on Tuesday, the only inconvenience Wednesday morning were the hordes of mosquitoes.  Christmas came early for my Oklahoma anglers as the lake was dead calm under overcast skies all day long and the redfish were suicidal!

            Robert caught and released  this over sized red on a Sea Shad.

It was day 2 for Robert and Todd and they needed a more comfortable day on the water with a trip back to Oklahoma facing them as soon as we got the fish cleaned and on ice.  I was still killing mosquitoes and lowering the troll motor when Todd's She Dog was assaulted by a fat slot red.  Before he could land it, Robert hooked up with a roach TTF Trout Killer.

By the time I could make my first cast, the two of them had 5 slot reds lying on the floor of the boat and the bite slowed down only once after that.  On our last stop of the day we caught a red almost every cast and the average size fish was upper-end slot or over sized.  At one point early on, Todd caught and released three reds that totaled 42 pounds on the Boga Grip.

Todd caught and released this 17-pound brute with a chartreuse She Dog!

The fish were in 2 feet of water or less and several times you could see the fish just before it took the lure.  In the midst of the melee I tied an Assassin Sea Shad on a short leader under a Kwik Cork and our strikes came even faster.  It was just one of those days.

You really sleep good the night before when you know you have a great bite wired the following day and that was the case Wednesday night.  I went to bed early, got up early and never even looked at the weather forecast.  WhenI stopped to gas up the boat I suddenly realized that this was not going to be another short pants and Croc kind of day.

By the time I got the boat launched the wind was pumping out of the north and I was freezing my butt off. I got even colder when Stefan and Taylor climbed out of the truck with jackets and gloves on.  Stefan didn't help any when he said, " Your feet have to be cold and it isn't going to get any warmer today."

I just had to suck it up with the Crocs, but I did have a long sleeve T-shirt in the truck and my Frogg Toggs broke the wind.  The white caps were rolling across the lake and our first two stops were nothing more than casting practice in miserable conditions.   I decided that if we were going to be cold and wet anyway, we might as well make a long run and do it up right.

The waves were breaking up against the shoreline, but the fish were still there.  I held our position, kind of, while they cast into the shin deep water.  About an hour of that and they had five slot reds in the box.  We then moved even farther south on a little more protected stretch of shoreline and didn't move again until we had caught all the reds we wanted to catch!

Most of these fish were in less than a foot of water and they were hungry.  Taylor did a great job with the Trout Killer while Stefan and I also stayed hooked up fishing a chicken on a chain or Stinky Pink Sea Shad.  The water was not as clear as the day before and it was about three degrees cooler, but it didn't seem to bother the fish.

We kept six fish so that Stefan could cook them up for family and friends, but they caught and released a pile of slot reds in the process.  For some reason, the big oversized fish of the day before never showed up.

I am going to take the weekend off, be a kid along with the grandkids tonight and Saturday and hit it again next week.  I hope that you do the same and that you can share the day with family and friends. I wish for you and yours the best of health and a Merry Christmas!

Lot of wind...lot of fish!

The wind has just howled most of the past two days, but we have still caught a lot of fish.  I only fished 4 or 5 hours Monday scouting for the rest of the week and caught both trout and redfish nearly everywhere I fished.  The trout bite really surprised me, but it was even better today!

I had a pair of Oklahoma fishermen that are going to fish with me again tomorrow.  Its a 17 hour round trip and they are going to make the second leg as soon as they climb back out of the boat tomorrow.  Whew!

 They really wanted to catch redfish and fortunately we did that in spades, but we caught a lot of nice trout as well.  The reds are just everywhere.  We caught them in the river, in the bayous, and on the flats on the north end of the lake.

I don't think there is a wrong lure once you find them, but we haven't been experimenting.  I have been throwing a stinky pink Assassin Sea Shad and a Texas Roach Red Killer.  We are catching better numbers of reds and almost all of our trout on the Assassin, but the larger reds cannot resist the Red Killer.

By the end of the day we were surfing down the shoreline dragging our plastics much too fast and the fish still managed to run down our baits about every 3rd or 4th cast.  I know this may be hard to believe, but the wind was easier to deal with in the lake than it was in the river or ICW.  The majority of our trout were in the 18 to 21 inch class and fat!

Hopefully that bite has finally come around as there were more trout on the flats than I have found in the past three weeks.  The outgoing tide was bucking a south wind the past two days, but it was still moving a lot of water.  Most of the water we fished was 58 to 60 degrees and just a little bit more off-colored than it has been which helps.  

Trout bite a little easier on Calcasieu right now!

It is drizzling and cooler today, but still not bad for December.  I baled out on the redfish here on Sabine only to find more redfish on Calcasieu Wednesday and Thursday,  We spent the morning pinned down on a short stretch of shoreline Wednesday, but were able to fish more water yesterday.

I can assure you that even the most seasoned guides get far too much credit for their intuitive skills and fish catching ability.  We usually stay a little closer to the last good bite simply because we fished the day before rather than the weekend before, but I fish with a lot of very skilled clients each year.  Wednesday's trip was a perfect example of being over rated.

The two friends that I fished with from Lake Charles believe wading is reserved only for duck hunting so they dropped me off while they drifted a semi-protected shoreline for redfish.  Over the course of the next hour I never got the first strike while they beat up on reds only a few hundred yards away.  I couldn't even catch a redfish casting toward the shoreline and wasn't looking forward to, "That's why we don't wade." 

I turned my head to block the wind and call them on my cell phone, when a 35 mph gust blew my hat off into water deeper than the top of my waders.  I clipped a tail off and tied on a topwater hoping to snag the hat with one of the treble hooks.  The bait was almost to the hat when it just got clobbered.  The line slipped off the cap, but I won the tug of war with a nice four pound trout.

I either caught or missed a trout for the next 15 minutes casting the bone Spook to the same spot while the hat drifted towards the open lake.  When John and Mark picked me up they were duly impressed with the trout on the stringer and the fact that anyone could catch a trout while standing in the water.  We found the soggy hat, but I didn't bother to share my astute fish finding technique with them.   So much for experience and intuition!

Yesterday, Gene, Adam and I ran back over to Big Lake hoping for a swing at a big trout ahead of the front.  We drited and wade fished and never caught a trout over 3 pounds, but we caught fish all day long.  We caught fish on jerk baits, Trout Killer II's rigged on 1/16th ounce heads and Assassin Shads.  The two most productive colors in the tails were Texas Roach and plum-chartreuse.

We didn't keep any fish, but we were all surprised at the number of solid flounder that we caught in between countless reds and a very decent number of trout.  Oddly enough, the trout bite got tougher later in the day while the reds never took a break.  The water is just beautiful and it was fun watching those fish not only hit the bait, but fight just beneath the surface.  We caught everything in less than 3 feet of water.

I'll be back on Sabine most of next week, but the trout bite is much easier on Big Lake right now.  We didn't catch as many big redfish as we have been catching on Sabine, but the numbers are there while you wait on the next trout!

 

Some days you get it just right!

Some days you zig when you should have zagged, but we accidentally got it just right Friday morning.  Gene Kellum and Major Salcher fished with me and we took advantage of lighter than expected winds early on.  By 10:00 it was howling again, but we had already done our thing.

I shut down the big engine as soon as we hit the ICW to tie on jigs and give Major a chance to call in for his La. license.  Gene caught a keeper trout on his first cast and by the time we had drifted less than fifty yards waiting on Major, he had 4 more keepers in the box.  Had Major already had his license we would never have even stopped!

I then headed for the north shoreline in East Pass in hopes of limiting on reds in a hurry.  As soon as I turned out of the ICW, however, the same gulls that I have run through virtually every morning without stopping were once again doing their thing.  I had tried them a week or so ago and the trout under them were small.  Not this time.

We either missed strikes or caught solid trout for the next thirty minutes while I sweated out missing the bite on a school of redfish that had been money in the bank every morning.  When the trout bite slowed just a little I ran to the deep shell pile and once again Gene caught a fish on his first cast.

I had caught very few undersized reds before this trip, but our first 10 or 12 fish yielded only one keeper.  After a short move produced one more keeper red and several more small fish we returned to the original spot and the better fish were back.  We were limited in ten minutes and continued to catch and release for maybe another hour.

Major stuck a 32-inch fish that pulled us well away from the honey hole before we could net her and put her back and rather than idle back and wrestle with any more redfish we decide to see if we could find a few big trout in deeper water.   

             Major won the tug of war and put this 32-inch red back.

By then the lake was completely blown out and we could do little more than pick around another hour or so in the ICW before yielding to the wind.  It was all but impossible to even feel a strike while fighting the wind and tide and one long drift yielded only one more oversized red and a keeper trout.

We can catch redfish on Hoginars virtually anywhere and everywhere, but we have done much better with slot fish by being a little more picky with our plastics and Friday was no exception.  We are still  catching most of our fish with roach, chicken on a chain or pumpkin-chartreuse, but the size of the plastic has made a difference.

We are doing better on the trout with the smaller Sea Shad and Killer Flats MInnow.  We are also catching a lot of rat reds on the shorter paddle tails, but the ratio of larger reds greatly increases when we switch to the wider bodied Red Killer or the 5-inch Assassin Shad in the same colors.

Calem Adkins and his Dad logged a determined wade on the La. shoreline Friday evening and Caleb said they struck out.  He said the water was still in great shape, but they saw very little bait until just before dark.  Ronnie Delmar waded pretty much the same water today with three other friends and they caught only one 4-pound trout and a lot of small reds fishing from noon until dark.

There is little doubt that the more productive wade fishing is taking place on Calcasieu right now.  We usually spend most of January and February over there anyway, but I would like for it to be by choice rather than baling due to a poor bite on Sabine!   

 

Reds continue to crash the party!

It never fails.  I had a few things that had to get done today and you couldn't ask for better weather conditions.  I fished the same group Monday and Tuesday and while we did well, you really had to want to fish...especially Monday.  It was 31 degrees when we left the landing with a 15 mph wind and I was still cold at supper time!

We caught a few rat reds and small trout, but I only cleaned 13 trout and 2 slot reds at the  end of the day on Monday.  We did miss a few really nice trout, but everything from a wind-blown bow in the line to the inability to feel your fingers contributed to most of the misses.  It was more about survival than fishing.

Tuesday morning it was just as cold, but no wind and the redfish were back on a tear.  We were limited in the first hour and caught and released reds for another three hours before the group announced that they did not want to see another damned redfish. We fished anywhere and everywhere we wanted to the remainder of the day, but still never completely escaped the redfish!

We tried a lot of different patterns, but never found any decent numbers of trout at any one stop.  The most consistent bite was bumping the bottom with a roach TTF red killer rigged on a 14 ounce head.  The outgoing tide was so strong that we had to switch to a 3/8ths ounce head when drifting the breaks along the ICW.

We also did much better swimming the smaller Sea Shad and Flats Minnow when fishing the shallower flats.  The best colors both days were roach, chicken on a chain, and hot chicken.  The water clarity is great and the surface temperature was back up to 56 degrees by the end of the day.

We'll hit it again tomorrow and I hope to check out the stripers early and wade the rest of the day.  Even if both programs fail we can probably go back to catching those damned old redfish!

A great week ended well!

What had been just an unreal bite all week long took a little bit of a hit this weekend, but we still did pretty well on both trout and redfish Saturday.  Doing well on redfish has been a no-brainer, but the trout bite has been a little tougher in the open lake with the gull activity slowing down.

                         Joe's first red of the day was a tad too large!

I fished with Joe vasquez and Chris Nunez Friday and we just wore the reds out in the morning and the trout out after lunch.  We couldn't get away from the oversized reds to begin with, but that is a good problem to have.  We caught all of our fish on Sea Shads and Killer Flats Minnows in glow chartreuse, chicken on a chain and cantaloupe.

One of several nice trout James caught on a roach colored TTF Flats Minnow.

James and Jetta Wilder drove in from Palestine the following morning and we did very well until the wind pushed us off the open lake.  I almost forgot it was the weekend until we got on a great school of redfish on a shoreline and instantly drew a crowd that scattered the fish.  We were catching those fish under a Kwik Cork with the same tails.

We ran the bayous and a little bit of the ICW after lunch and caught some very solid trout up to 4 1/2 pounds on Swim baits and Roach colored tails.  We caught a lot more rat reds in the ICW than we have been catching in the bayous and Passes and I don't know why.

The water got blown out today and it is going to be cold the next couple of days so it will be interesting to see how it affects the bite.  I hope it doesn't turn out to be one of those "You should have been here yesterdays!" 

 

Covered up with reds!

If you like to catch redfish...now is the time.  Due to the cancer thing last year I did not fish December for the first time in 45 years, but I kept up with what was going on and the redfish hadn't totally lost their minds.  Tonight I looked in my logs as far back as '77 and I cannot find a year that matches what is going on right now.

Tuesday I did my best to talk Jimmy Gilliam, Wade Smith and their Oregon guest, Wally, out of going at all.  The wind was just screaming and the tide was pouring out like someone pulled the plug.  At 11 o'clock they drove up to the landing, we put on all the clothes we had and went anyway.  You couldn't cast a quarter ounce lead head and Sea Shad or Flats Minnow 30 feet into the wind.

                     Wade saved the best for last with his big red!

We caught redfish from the first cast until we quit around 4:30.  We also caught some very solid trout and a flounder, but it was redfish non-stop.  Wade capped the trip with the last fish of the day, a 13 pounder that we finally landed on the opposite side of the ICW!

Today Bubby Menard took a day off from his Bear Car Wash business on hwy. 87 and he and an in-law from Idaho, Phil Wilder, met me at 7:30.  That was later than usual, but still a little early as we had plenty of ice on the boat.  There was no wind at all early and we found birds working before we ever got to the lake.

 Bubby released everything anyway, but this is a 28 1/4-in red that weighed 12 lbs!

The marshes were down to the mud and every redfish in the lake was chasing tiny brown shrimp and finger mullet.  It was literally cast after cast for four hours.  We eventually left them to try something else, but everywhere we went it was more of the same thing.  There were a lot of 16 to 19 inch rat reds mixed in, but I would conservatively guess that no less than 40 of the fish we caught and released were midddle slot fish.

Dale didn't have time to celebrate his first redfish ever, before he caught his second and a bunch more. His best fish was in the 30-inch class and he fought it all over the Pass.  redfish are old hat to Bubby, but even he was amazed at the number of reds that you could see on the surface in any direction you looked.  His largest red was a quarter inch too long, but it weighed just over 12 pounds on the Boga.

 Not too shabby for your first speck. He put her back to fight again!

The redfish were in water so shallow that our jig wouild stick in the mud when it landed.  As soon as you pulled it loose there were wakes coming from every direction to eat it.  We eventually left to go look for a big trout and Dale did manage to catch and release a fish just over 6-pounds, but that was the largest we caught.  We had several more in the four pound range and released a decent number of smaller keeper size fish, but the reds were still crashing the party.

As incredible as this may sound, the very best areas were Madam Johnsons,  Willow, Coffee Ground, Sidney, Stewts, Middle and East Pass, and the river. They are everywhere! There was no need to fish more than a 100 yard stretch of any shoreline and the best bite is on the shoreline adjacent to the mouth of any of the cuts rather than right in the middle of them.

I want to get back in the water and wade tomorrow, but it won't ever happen once my clients see red everywhere they look and they can't help but see this.  It could all end tonight and the bite will get tougher tomorrow, but I wouldn't bet on it!