Trout show up unexpectedly!

At least right now, it looks as though we will narrowly miss most of the sleet and ice predicted last week, but it will still be cold enough to make attending the Boat Show a warmer option than dealing with wind and 30 degree mornings this week.  My biggest concern is that we may get a lot of rain instead and cold and muddy are a bad combination for catching.

Capt.Adam and I helped Capt.Johnny out with a big group of Madisonville fishermen Saturday morning and while we felt pretty good about catching redfish, we were more concerned about the prediction of a stiff north wind.  As a matter of fact, it was a last minute decision to fish Sabine rather than Calcasieu.  Jim Standley, his brother-in law, Trae Poe, and his 13-year old son, Kyle climbed in my boat and we headed south hoping to work a point before it got too rough.

We caught four slot fish and a pile of 18 to 19-inch fish, before the shoreline dirtied up too badly and we just grew tired of fighting the wind.  Trae beat them up pretty good fishing Gulp under a Kwik Cork while Jim caught his share on a roach TTF Trout Killer.  We were almost back on the north end when Johnny called and said that he had done about the same thing, but had talked with Adam and he had found a few trout drifting slicks in deeper water.

It was like fishing two different lakes by the time I shut down the big engine.  The wind was negligible, the water was much clearer and it was warm. It is very seldom that you can say "Today was the day that the trout showed back up," but that was the case Saturday.  I can assure you that we have fished the same flats the past two months and found a few trout only once or twice.

Perhaps even more significant was that these were good fish up to six pounds and the numbers were there as well.  By the time we picked out a drift east of the rapidly growing  Armada, Adam was well on his way to limiting while doing his best to fend off other boats.  Everyone was catching a few fish, but his group was still doing a little better bouncing Red Killers off the bottom.

We were doing well enough with a glow-chartreuse Red Killer and a plum-chartreuse Trout Killer II, but things really picked up for us when Kyle caught a nice trout quickly reeling a Stinky Pink Sea Shad back to the boat.  I immediately tied the same lure on under a Kwik Cork and it was on for us.  While it was no time to experiment, I think the switch to fishing the upper column of water was more important than the color of the lure!

Ironically enough, Adam had just called and said that their bite had slowed down, but part of that was due to the fact that they were already in the C and R mode.  I think the other factor was that they had done well bouncing the red killer on the bottom and the fish we were now catching were in the top column of water.  I caught two fish on consecutive casts while we were putting things away for the run back and both fish hit the tail less than a foot beneath the surface.

Apparently, the same thing was occurring all over the north end of the lake.  After getting blown off the south end, James Swann and his dad, Dale, put their boat back on the trailer, grabbed a bite to to eat and launched again at Pt. Neches Park.  He said they drifted the intake ditch in Old River Cove all the way out to the ICW until dark with pumpkin-chartreuse Assassin Shads and finished with two limits of reds and 16 trout up to four pounds.  His dad caught and released one trout over 27-inches.

The water was 47-degrees Saturday morning and eventually warmed up to 55, but we may not see water that warm for a while.  Just knowing the trout are still around will do for now!