Colburn's Sabine Connection

Daily thunderstorms cutting trips short!

Brad Deslatte and Keith Daley joined me Wednesday morning and we hit the lake before daylight looking for one big trout.  We didn't find her.  We did find a number of smaller fish and Keith took home 16 nice fillets, but we never stuck a big trout.  We caught fish on tails, swim baits and topwaters in water from 3 to 7 feet deep.  The fish we caught early were on shell.

The conditions were perfect and we had a decent enough incoming tide, but the fish still hit really funny.  We reeled a lot of fish a few feet before they came off and I don't know how many strikes we missed that were good solid hits.  We caught fish on some different stuff, but opening night and bug juice in a Diedapper and the TTF Trout Killer accounted for most of the fish in the box.

I haven't put any on a reel yet simply because of the color, but at this point it appears that Brad was right about the pink Wind Tamer Braid.  I don't know how abrasion resistant it is, but it conservatively outcast two other braids with the same lures and reels by 10 to 15 yards and that is a bunch with a tail on a 1/4 ounce head!

Needless to say I ran over to Daley's today and Keith was proudly standing in front of a wall full of Wind Tamer braid.  I was more impressed Wednesday by the fact that Brad caught as many if not more fish on a tail with that hot pink stuff than we did with real line.  I am doing all I can to maintain some dignity, but catching beats fishing every time.

It just kind of slipped up on us!

I have had great luck this week out maneuvering thunderstorms, but Thursday was the exception.  Steve Pullin fished with me and I could not have gotten him any wetter if I made him fish in the shower at the Boat Club.  We managed to out flank the lightning, but that's all.  We started off the morning with perfect conditions and caught trout and reds on topwaters before the clouds started rolling in.

We had just caught two nice trout and Steve had a really nice trout break a hook on a Swimming image when the worst of the weather snuck up on us.  We went from, "I think its going south of us" to being instantly surrounded by clouds darker than the inside of a cow and we paid the price.  We tried one more spot after a long run, but the rain found us again and we gave it up just after noon.

It looks like the Cops helping Kids Tournament set for tomorrow has attracted a big field.  I hate it for my clients, but it is for a good cause and it provides one more excuse if I cannot put them on fish.  If the weather is good and the field can fish anywhere they want, the lake may not be all that crowded.

 

Cops For Kids Tournament this Saturday!

We fished just long enough to catch a few trout and get really wet in the process this afternoon. The wind has more to do with the off-colored water than the rain right now as the water in the river and bayous on the east side of the lake does not look bad.

We caught our fish on a shad colored MirrOmullet XL and a bone-silver Spook Jr. fishing in 2 to 3 feet of water right off the ICW. The fish would hit larger topwaters, but they just wouldn't take them. Our largest fish was only four pounds or so, but they were all good solid trout. We also caught two flounder on the MirrOmullet that thought they were trout and we kept them for supper!

Don't forget about the Cops For Kids Tournament this Saturday out of Dick Dowling Park. It is a 3 man team event and all three places in each category pay well. The Captain's meeting is Friday night at 7 at Munro's Cleaners so you need to sign up at Daley's Fish n Hunt or call Tony Viator today. I got a few e-mails pointing out the fact that I screwed up Tony's phone number in the last report, but I hope that each of you just wrote it off to senility and called Daley's. For those of you that didn't, Tony's number is 409-284-7934. In the event that I have gotten it wrong again, you can also call Fletchere Pipkin at 409-284-3647.

 

 

 

I wouldn't have wanted to fish with me Thursday!

Wednesday and Thursday were a reminder that it is a short trip from the penthouse to the outhouse.  The conditions were basically identical both days, but the catching was significantly better on Wednesday.

The trout were still there Thursday morning, but they just weren't aggressive.  We had fish jump completely over a topwater, pull off at the boat and sometimes just miss the lure all together.  Brian Sandow called and said they experienced much the same thing and that the majority of the trout they caught were hooked in the side of the face or even the side.  The trout we managed to put in the boat were at least hooked in the mouth.

When we switched to plastics and moved to deeper water it was just more of the same.  I think they hit a little harder, but they would still come unbuttoned after a few cranks on the reel handle.  In short...it was frustrating.  I ultimately made the worst decision of the morning when I decided to leave those fish and run to an area where we had just killed schooling redfish several days in a row.  The bait was still there, but they never showed up and I won the "worst guide of the day" award.

I broke a cardinal rule by leaving fish to hunt fish rather than just work a little harder.  The day before Barham Lewis brought Bob and Cole Deatherage down and we had a heck of a day.  I think Bob put it on all of us, especially with the trout, but everyone got a lot of swings and we had a nice box of trout before leaving to check out the redfish.

Cole with a nice trout that ate a TTF Trout Killer.

They showed up like clockwork and we just hammered them for the better part of an hour and a half.  They were mostly 21 to 23 -inch fish and we were limited in the first ten minutes.  Every time they surfaced chasing shad it seemed like we were in casting distance and everyone in the boat had a fish on at the same time.  You could have caught them on anything, but we stuck with five inch Assassins and TTF Trout Killers.

It didn't take Barham, Cole and Bob long to catch limits of slot reds Wednesday!

Even though I managed to screw up Thursday's trip, the better trout are trying to do their thing again.  We have caught fish up to six pounds on She Dogs, 5-inch tails and the new Maniac Mullet.  I don't think the Mullet is out yet as Shawn and Dana sent a few prototypes to experiment with.  It is very seldom that the conditions are right to try any new lure, but we caught fish with them when we normally switch over to a Swim bait or Corky once the topwater bite slows.  The new lure fishes very much like a Corky Devil.

I was in Daley's today and they had just received a relatively big shipment of Wind Tamer braid.  Everyone is talking about it, but it is hard to find.  Brad is swearing by it and he has used them all.  He is using the pink or coral or whatever they call it and I am deathly afraid that it is going to be as good as he says it is.  I just can't spool pink line on my reel.  I have used Ande for years and I was never able to make myself use their pink stuff.

I also talked with officer Troy Viator while in Daley's this morning.  He was adding items to a very impressive door prize list for the upcoming Cops Helping Kids tournament to be held out of Dick Dowling Park on July 30th.  The Jefferson County Sheriff's Association really goes all out on this event.  The event will kick off with a Captain's meeting at Munro's Dry Cleaners the night before which will include a steak dinner and refreshments.  The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. There will also be a drawing for door prizes and an auction.

The entry fee is $180 per three man team.  The top three fish stringer for redfish, trout, and flounder will each pay $1000 with $750 for 2nd place and $500 for 3rd.  Each team is elibgible to win or place in all three categories.  Tony added that they will aslo provide food, drinks and door prizes fro the contestants at the weigh-in. 

You can sign up and get more information at Daley's Fish n Hunt or by calling Tony Viator at 284-7434.

 

Now that was a sure 'nuff rain!

I was sliding my boat off the trailer at 5:30 this morning when it began to sprinkle. I parked the truck and walked back to tie up the boat when the sprinkle turned into a full fledged rain and eventually a frog strangler that would not let up for the next hour and a half.

After rescheduling twice already, Mike Dore and I were determined to give it a try once the worst appeared to be over. Long story short...the worst was over, but it didn't quit raining until around noon. Aside from a few missed flounder opportunities, we had nothing to show for a wet windy morning. It all changed, however, when the wind switched around and we decided to try the lake one more time.

I rigged up an Assassin under a Kwik Cork (there are no more Kwik Corks) and we started our first drift. I immediately hooked up with and broke off a nice slot red. I tied another bait on and hooked up again. By the time we wrestled the fish into the boat they were blowing up on top a short distance away and we steadily caught them until Mike decided he had caught enough redfish a couple of hours later!

We caught the majority of them fishing slicks while waiting for them to surface. River 2 Sea Swim baits, TTF Trout Killers and Assassin Sea Shads were the only plastics we tried. I did manage to lose one Crazy Croaker to a red that was apparently a little too big to muscle. We never made it to the flat that I found the trout on over the weekend due to the conditions.

As you would expect, the lake finally gave up some clarity due to the runoff. It was especially dirty around the mouths of the bayous, but we still had a foot or so of visibility on the north end of the lake. We didn't see as many schools of shad either, but they can be hard to see in a driving train and whitecaps!

Hopefully, we will be able to chase the trout again for the next three days and finish each trip beating up the reds. The flaw in that program is that we might be hunting trout when the reds are doing their thing and you know how "the bird in the hand" thing works. The surface temperature was 3 to 5 degrees cooler today and we had a big incoming tide that started about 9:00.

The much needed rain hasn't hurt the fishing!

Between fishing every day for the past week and a half and driving to baseball games every night, I had very little time to post any reports.  While it was both hectic and tiring, I wouldn't change it for the world.  The following old news is still better than no news!

I had an opportunity to fish with some new faces for the first time in a long time and that is refreshing as I have not been able to squeeze in many new folks due to making up canceled trips .  I also enjoyed the fact that most of them were very good fishermen.

Logan came all the way from Canada to catch these reds with his grandfather!

We spent the early part of the week beating up on flounder and redfish exclusively.  We found a few small trout in the bayous as well, but the flounder and slot reds were still hustling shad on the tide changes.  The one constant every day but one was that we were able to find schooling redfish in the lake even in the white caps.

We dodged thunder storms all the way through the weekend, but we were still able to fish the revetment wall and much of the north end of the lake most days.  The lake flattened out and heated up yesterday and we did as well on trout as I have done in a while.  We caught fish on topwaters early and Assassins and TTF Flats Minnows later in the day.

Bob Meier and Earl Frost fished with me Wednesday and we were able to take advantage of two programs.  We found two good schools of reds along with a few trout stacked up on the revetment wall early and finshed the day catching trout and reds in the bayou.  The following day I fished with Marty and Linda Smith for the first time and it was more of the same.

Linda switched to spinning tackle to catch this nice slot red!

Linda decide to give spinning tackle a legitimate try and within the first five minutes she had it down pat.  The hang up for most folks is that they feel like they are reeling with the wrong hand, but that was not a problem for her.  The fact that she caught her largest redfish with that combination may have sealed the deal for her choice of tackle in the future.  Marty was lobbying for a new boat, but a new rod and reel is a little cheaper and may take precedence for the short term!

We finished up the week dancing around heavy thunder storms every day except Sunday.  Even after all of the rain both the river and the lake are in great shape clarity wise.  It was calm and hot enough yesterday to warrant some long slow runs across the lake and we never found any dirty water. The biggest surprise was that the larger schools of shad had moved to the east side of the lake.

I am not booked today so I will try to take care of a week's worth of honey do's in one day before hitting the lake again tomorrow.  I really need to get over to Daley's to pick up some stuff and get all of the details of Eric and Keith's tournament experience.  I guess they left  Megan to run the store as they teamed up to fish the Galveston  Redifsh Series Saturday.  The only thing I know for sure at this point is that they did pretty well finishing 23rd out of 72 teams. I can only assume that you get some valuable insight when your competition is buying all of their secret weapons from you! 

Big flounder and Hooter's girls?

I spent most of today over at Daley's Hunt n Fish just talking fishing as they have a lot of very good fishermen as well as vendors in and out of their store every day. Lots of folks were gearing up for the Hooter's tournament out of Ancelet's this Saturday.  And, "yes" they said there would be some Hooter's girls on hand at the weigh-in!

The Triangle Tail Chasers are fishing their tournament in conjunction with that event and all of their totals will also count toward their year end totals.  There is still time to sign up at Daley's or contact Michael or Damon at www.triangletailchasers.com.

We have not been spending much time lately chasing trout due to the redfish and an incredible flounder bite.  My best bite has been on an incoming tide and when we didn't get it yesterday morning I ran all the way to the Causeway just looking around. We found some small trout almost everywhere we went, but the water on the south end had very poor clarity.

The Fords caught these nice flounder in spite of their guide!

I had Lee, Kelly, and Mike Ford and they are always good about not ragging on their guide for making bad decisions.  Around noon we ran back into East Pass and the tide was coming in strong.  Fortunately, the flounder and redfish were still doing their thing and we finished with a very decent box of flounder up to three pounds and a couple of slot reds.

The doggone flounder bite has been so good that we actually caught 3 or 4 very nice ones right at daylight just fishing down the shoreline with no tide.  I never should have left, but you don't know if you don't go and I had gotten a very good trout report from the day before.  I have been doing well with Gulp shrimp and swimming mullets, but we caught more fish yesterday tipping Assassin Sea Shads with a small piece of Gulp.  Calcasieu brew and Texas Roach were our best two colors.

I also heard that the bite under the birds was much better in the afternoon, but I haven't been out there past 3:00 too many days.  Everyone is complaining about the scarcity of big trout, but I have a hunch that they just might be in the river and ICW.  I can never recall seeing this many lady fish wrecking the shad all the way from Middle Pass to the I-10 bridge and the big trout are never far behind the ladyfish.

Keith made two calls today while I was at Daley's and one turned out good and the other not so good.  Shawn Hebert with Tidal Surge Lures is going to pour the glow Crazy Croaker with the chartreuse tail again for them.  I didn't even know that they had quit making that color as I already had a bunch of them.  I think Keith said they were going to get 40 in about two weeks.

The not so good news is that the Shivers at Bass Assassin have eliminated some colors and some of their other products after recovering from the recent fire.  No more Bang scent, no more Kwik Corks and we will just have to wait on the new catalog to see which colors have been discontinued.  Everyone has their favorites and I already know that one of mine was on the hit list.

The catching is as hot as the weather!

I have no idea how I wound up without a party scheduled for today, but I am wasting perfect weather conditions and the bite has just been incredibly good all week long.  To heck with it, I am going anyway as soon as I finish this report. I basically turned my back on the trout, not that they aren't doing their thing as well, and we have just been hammering the flounder and redfish.

We haven't caught any flounder larger than four pounds, but the average fish is in the 2 to 3 pound class and we have caught very few undersized fish.  I honestly cannot say which area has been the best as we have done equally well fishing Black's, Madam Johnson's, the Louisiana shoreline and the river. I can say, however, that the best two baits have been a River2Sea Swim Bait and Gulp Mullets.

The bonus in fishing the La. shoreline has been the slot reds patrolling the same water.  Talk about pressure, Dustin Socha's parents gave him a guided trip for his high school graduation present and after canceling it three times due to weather we picked Tuesday to make it happen.  You can only earn that present once in a lifetime and I wanted it to be as special as his parents did.

Dustin didn't cut tthe reds any slack !

 

It turned out to be even better than either of us hoped for.  Fishing out of a boat was new to him, but he adapted quickly and he went to work on both the flounder and redfish right off the bat.  The flounder gave him a little trouble early, but they paid for it later in the morning.

As usual, you are only blessed with an incredibly easy bite on those days when you are already doing well.....never when you are struggling.  We decided to make one big loop in the lake after putting together a very good box of flounder and reds in the bayou only to run into acres of schooling redfish churning the surface.  Dustin said that is something you just don't see very often fishing from the bank!

Wednesday and Thursday were equally good.  We did leave the flounder alone long enough to catch some trout up to six pounds on topwaters late Wednesday evening.  Thursday morning we were right back on the reds and trout and it was just crazy as both the reds and flounder were chasing the same schools of bait.  Chuck called at one point to say that he and Art Wright were also catching trout up to four pounds on topwaters, but we were having too much fun to leave our bite.

If you can stand the heat I still have a few weekdays open this month and it looks like the wind is finally going to give us a break.  Even if it doesn't, we currently have one helluva Plan B!