Colburn's Sabine Connection

The bite just keeps on keeping on!

I was dressed for the occasion after shivering all day Friday, but that first boat ride was still on the nippy side Saturday morning.  Kenny and Linda Taylor invited Marty and Rose to join them and even though it was a little crowded we still had a very good day.  We fished the birds all day long both in the lake and in East Pass with a stiff northeast wind and a hard out going tide.

The birds worked over shrimp in between the whitecaps early, but they would not hold for any length of time.  We would catch four or five trout each stop before blowing through the school or just losing them all together.  We caught a pile of trout in East Pass where it was a little more protected, but there were a lot of boats in there and most of the fish were small.

We still finshed with a respectable twenty keeper trout and a redfish and Marty missed a huge flounder and broke off the best red of the day on our last stop so we ended the day with a rush.  Pumpkin seed, red-white tail and bug juice were the best colors for us.  I was surprised to find the lake silted up from about Three Bayous on south, but we probably caught most of our better trout in that dirtier water.

There wasn't a breath of wind when I walked out of Church today so I have no doubt the bite in the lake was back on again.  When you can continue to catch limits of fish right on through a front you know the bite is strong.  As of tonight, I unexpectedly have Wednesday open this week due to a baby arriving a little earlier than anticipated.  It looks as though the weather is going to be perfect and I can't imagine the bite getting much better than it is right now.

 

Cold front had us fishing Plan B today!

I don't know how much this report will help you as we were just wearing the fish out in the open lake until the front blew in last night.  I didn't wear enough clothes and froze my butt off today, but we still limited on trout up to five pounds and kept four solid flounder and a pair of reds.  We had several more shots at the reds, but just could not get them in the net.  David and Debbie Drake were undoubtedly as cold as I was and just too polite to file a protest!

The wind howled all day and with an outgoing tide from the get go, it was tough to get the boat back on the trailer.  If it blows all night I'll be hunting another ramp tomorrow morning.  We caught most of the flounder on a Swim bait, but the trout and reds ate bug juice Flats Minnows and stinky pink Sea Shads all day long.

A quick blurry photo and Jim turned this trout loose Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, Malcolm and Jim drove over from Houston and we easily limited on trout up to 5 1/2 pounds, but just couldn't get anything going with the reds.  It wasn't because they weren't there as several other groups fishing the same area did very well on reds.  The lake was a little choppy for the first time this week, but it wasn't bad enough to slow down the bite under the gulls.

Craig was already putting them back by the time he caught this red Thursday!

Thursday I fished with Craig Lobel and John Short and we drew perfect conditions.  We fished the north end of the lake again and we limited on reds well before we limited on trout.  We were fishing the exact same area we fished the day before, but the reds found us this time. There was also no doubt that the reds wanted a five inch tail more than a four inch tail as we had ample opportunity to experiment.  Glow Chartreuse and pumpkin chartreuse were our two most productive colors.

Other than low water and a colder boat ride I don't know what to expect for tomorrow.  If the wind isn't too bad I will definitely try to get back out in the lake.  If it is blowing as forecasted, I guess we will have to chip away in the ICW and the bayous.

It can't get much better than this!

It looks as though we will get more wind than needed toward the end of the week with a little front headed our way, but if it doesn't just blow all of the water out we should still be ok.  I don't think the catching can possibly get very much better than it is right now.

We have been able to get on the fish by locating a few gulls and then never having to leave an area once they move on.  We have had only one day in the past few trips when we weren't limited on both trout and reds by 9 o'clock.  Part of the reason we have been able to do this is that the lake has been dead calm and you can see the shrimp and small needle gar skipping across the surface.

True love is letting your husband hold up one of your redfish!

I fished with Dennis and Tammy Easley (married two days and on their honey moon) on Monday and we were limited after our second stop.  We really had a good time as neither of them had ever done much saltwater fishing at all. Tammy is just now getting into the fishing thing, but she still caught all but two of their reds and turned back several more including her largest.  Dennis said that he was focusing on trout!

The lake was dead calm until early afternoon and you did not need the birds to locate the fish.  The bonus of late, provided you are fishing straight braid or a heavier leader, are the Spanish Mackerel that have invaded the lake.  Most of the ones we have caught have been in the 18 to 21-inch class, but Chuck told me tonight that he has already caught several upwards of the 25-inch mark.

Lamar Belcher with a 5-pound 4-ounce flounder he caught Monday.

The other bonus has been the number of 5-pound plus flounder that have been caught over the past week.  I haven't seen flounder on the north end of the lake like that for years and all of a sudden I see three up to 6-pounds-5 ounces in the same week.  I have only one day off this week so I decided to go fishing today.  Aren't you supposed to fish when you are off?

I had a client call me from Lake Charles that already had his boat in the water on Big lake and needed someone to help him catch a few flounder.  We joined a smaller crowd than I expected on the lower ship channel and caught two limits of fish up to four pounds in less than an hour.  J.D. tipped a jig with shrimp and I fished a new penny Target-X paddle tail on a quarter ounce head and the fish liked both baits.

I won't be off again until Sunday so it was relaxing taking the day off.  I'll be back on Sabine through Saturday.  I can assure you that you sleep a lot better at night in this business when the fish are as cooperative as they have been of late.  If you get a chance to get on the water I would not pass up the opportunity!

 

Only the wind slows this bite down!

The wind was more of a problem yesterday than it had been most of the week, but the trout were still doing their thing both in the ICW and the lake. I haven't fished the ICW and river since Thursday, but it was really easy during the mid-day even in a gale force northeast wind. We swam 3-inch paddle tails in 4 to 8 feet of water and just caught the heck out of trout up to four pounds.

Most of my week was spent in the open lake, waves or no waves.catching trout and redfish under small groups of gulls. The best case scenario has been to find the shrimp getting pounded on the sufrace with no birds around. That is easiest done when the lake flattens out and that was the case much of this past week. When the birds aren't around...neither are the fishermen!

If it's just a quick limit you are after, I don't think you can beat the Sea Shad or the Flats Minnow fished under a cork or just retrieved on a jig head. If it is larger trout you are after, however, either switch to a top water or a five inch tail. You will get fewer bites, but there is no doubt that they are duping the larger trout.

The TTF Trout Killer, Tidal Surge Split Tail Mullet and Assassin's Die dapper or Texas Shad all produced better fish for us this past week. They also fooled more redfish than the smaller tails. Because they are so soft I usually save my Die Dappers for bigger trout in the winter, but Seth Jackson put one on in the middle of some non-stop action and instantly upgraded our catch.

He went through a pack of baits on only nine fish, but he boated a six pound trout, two four's and his limit of slot reds before his brother noticed that he was fishing a different tail. The top water bite is not only more exciting, but is fooling better fish as well. One day it makes no difference as to the size of the topwater and the next day it seems like they will only take a smaller bait like a Spook,Jr. or MirroMullet XL for me. "Yes, Alton.....they eat that bone colored Hunchback every day!

We didn't catch many flounder this week, but it wasn't because they aren't starting to do their thing again. I talked with a number of folks that just wore them out Thursday and Friday fishing with Gulp shrimp in the bayous. We don't fish late afternoon until winter sets in, but the folks that do say that the bird action is at just incredible an hour or so before dark.

Another really good day!

It looks like we might just get blown away tomorrow by a fast moving front, but the weather today was to kill for and very few local fishermen took advantage of it.  Gene Crisman gave his son-in-law, Jojo Kirksey, a guided trip for his birthday present and the three of us were on the water at daylight.

I can't think of a better birthday present than this!

We could have easily limited on trout in the first couple of hours, but we started catching and releasing everything once we reached 15 just in case we ran into even larger fish.  When we decided that wasn't going to happen, we quickly filled their limits and went back to catch and release for the remainder of the morning.

"We missed you...Jack, but Dad and Grandpa did pretty good on their own!"

We caught trout on Skitterwalks, Maniac Mullets, Trout Killer II's, Split tail mulets and Sea Shads fished under a Kwik Cork.  The lake was dead calm all morning and we caught far more trout just hanging with the surfacing shrimp than we did chasing birds.  As a matter of fact, both limits of reds were caught with no birds in sight.  We found them under small needle gar and caught every fish on a tail or a Hoginar.

While the majority of the trout we caught were Texas legal fish, the average size was not what it has been lately.  We never fished any further south than Willow simply because we didn't have to.  It is not going to happen for you when the lake is white capping, but the best pattern by far has been looking for a few surfacing shrimp rather than chasing the birds.

The water is still in great shape and we are still fishing an out goingtide most of the day. We'll just have to see how long and hard the north wind blows, but it is going to get even crazier as more shrimp are pushed out of the marshes.  Get ready for another redfish explosion!

Good and getting better!

I haven't had an opportunity to talk with anyone that fished today, but judging by the conditions I have to believe that they did well. With the exception of a little more wind than I like to fish in on Thursday, we could not have asked for a better week.  The one day the wind did blow, we went out in the lake after Johnny called and said that he was catching fish in the whitecaps and he was alone.

It has to get really bad to keep Johnny out of the lake, so it is not unusual for me to be fishing more protected water and get one of those calls.  You never know how bad is "not bad" when you ask him about the waves and you never know how far south he has run, but I do know that the gulls cannot hide from Cormier!

We had already done well on the trout, but once again had not found any redfish in the river.  Waves or no waves, the redfish are doing their thing in the lake and I have not fished the river since.  We wound up easily catching limits three out of four days and never caught the first red in the ICW or the river.  There are some birds working that will help you out a little, but we simply drifted and fished tails both under a cork and bounced off the bottom and easily limited on trout and reds.

I have been the most pleased, however, at the size of the trout.  We haven't caught anything over five pounds, but the majority of the limits we have kept have been 17 to 22-inch fish.  We do not cull limits in an attempt to upgrade our catch so that is a pretty good indicator of how healthy the average fish has been.

John and Bill Collins limited in a hurry on trout and reds!

The reds have been on the lower end of the slot for the most part and that suits me as I prefer to eat the smaller fish anyway.  Friday I fished with John and Bill Collins, Port Arthur natives that now both live in the San Antonio area.  We found the fish a little farther south than I had been fishing and we were limited very early.  We caught and released fish the remainder of the morning and probably caught more fish after the birds quit than when they were working a little.

John caught all, but one of our redfish throwing the same tail, but apparently doing something just a little bit different.  I never dropped a Hoginar on them because we already had our fish, but he caught his fish bouncing a Tidal Surge split tail mullet off the bottom.  Every time Bill slowed his bait down he caught a big sand trout... so go figure!

The farther south we fished, the better the water clarity, but the fish bit just as well in the more off-colored water.  We fished a big out going tide every day and the strongest bite really cranked up about 8:00 each morning. We were off the water by 2:00 every day, but I talked with a lot of folks that said the bite was even better in the late evening.

The best is yet to come as we still haven't put together enough northers to run all of the shrimp out of the marsh.  In the mean time, however, no one is complaining about this bite! 

 

 

Great day and a new bait to boot!

We could not have drawn a better weather day than yesterday and the bite was good in both the ICW and the lake.  Phillip Saperstein and his son, Reed, called the night before and it proved to be a last minute deal that worked out well.

The water was still in great shape following the rain and four days of blistering winds and we fished a big outgoing tide all day long.  The Swim bait was not as good to us as it had been, but a Texas Roach Flats Minnow or Sea Shad fished a little deeper and slower proved to be the ticket.  We went through a lot of trout and had 10 or 12 keeper trout, a Spanish mackerel, and a big flounder in the box when Johnny called around noon.

Only because we were still catching fish and it was late in the day did we have second thoughts about running to the lake to join him.  He had found a ton of marginal trout chasing shrimp under the birds, but the game changer was a redfish bite to boot.  We made the run, caught fish for a solid hour and a half, and finished up with several more keeper trout and five reds.  The lake was flat, the water was exceptionally clear, and we absolutely caught trout every cast.

One cast...one big flounder.  That is the Triggger X bait that we tried for the first time.  It is a scented lure, but I am not yet sure that the shape and color combination alone were not difference makers!

I've got to fish it a lot more before I am confident that it is the real deal, but Keith Daley asked me to try a bait made by Trigger-X and it passed with flying colors yesterday.  Phillip caught trout up to four- pounds with it and my very first cast with one produced a 22-inch flounder!  Phillip stayed with it until we left to go the lake and caught fish even when we weren't catching as well with other tails.

It is another scent based tail, but I immediately liked the fact that the baits I fished with were shaped like a Sea Shad or Flats Minnow.  I initially doubted the scent advantage, because the liquid in the package was clearer than Gulp's and the odor wasn't nearly as strong.  Aside from catching a flounder on the very first cast, I gained more confidence when it eventually dried up on the hook like Gulp does!

I put mine down and didn't fish with another one until we got out in the lake.  It definitely passed the tough test as I fished that one tail under a cork for over an hour and it survived at least a strike on virtually every cast.  We also had a package of new penney, but only fished the chartreuse pepper glow which is laminated rather than glow with a chartreuse tail. 

I don't know how much they cost compared to Gulp, but there were 18 baits in the package.  Until I fish it a little more I can't even say that the scent is as attracting as Gulp's and that is only because the one we were using looks so doggone good that fish hit it scent or no scent.  If it does pass the scent test, and I think it will due to the fact that it fooled sand trout and croaker that weren't hitting the other plastics, there is a new dog in the yard.  Hopefully it costs a little less than Gulp as well.

I don't know if Daley's is already stocking the lure or waiting on me to report back, but if you have already fished with it I would appreciate some feedback on your experience as well.  I am going to fish it a whole lot more the next two days with a norther blowing in as we will probably be targeting flounder and redfish in the bayous and scent counts with that program!

 

 

The wind shut down a helluva bite!

It is raining right now as promised, as a matter of fact it is pouring, and we are supposed to get some more tomorrow.  We were enjoying a very respectable bite under the gulls the first part of last week, but the wind started howling Wednesday afternoon like it thought it was spring again and I never got back into the lake.  We squeezed one more decent half day out of the ICW after that and I spent the remainder of the week meeting deadlines and speaking at a seminar.

The water is lapping at the tops of the docks in the river with this non-stop gale force wind and big incoming tides.  Ted Grabowski fished with me last week and some how managed to drive off and leave his rods in my boat.  He came back and fished today and I met him at the launch after church with his rods.  All things considered, he had done pretty well.  He said he found the fish by power poling down up against the protected banks and fishing the middle of the bayous with tails.

Before the southeast wind kicked into high gear, we were working pretty solid flocks of gulls on the north end of the lake.  The trout under them were very decent fish and most of the reds were slot fish.  We caught the reds on Hoginars and chicken on a chain 5-inch Assassins.  The majority of the trout ate the shorter Sea Shad and Flats Minnow.

Winston's wife sent orders to keep those slot reds!

Dick Jackson and Winston Jones drove in from Tyler and fished with me a couple of days and we caught the heck out of trout and reds on crank baits, pearl-chartreuse Maniac Mullets and Swim Baits.  I have yet to fish the Maniac MUllet in really cold weather, but the strikes on that bait feel a lot like they do on a Corky.

If the wind will lay back down or swing back to the north, I think the bite under the gulls will be on again.  Once all of this water starts blowing out of the marshes the redfish will immediately go on a tear as well.  There is nothing like being there the first day they start exiting the marshes!

I have Wednesday open next week and if the weatherman is right, it could be a good one.  If not, it won't be the first one that I canceled at the last minute.   

Working a little harder, but it is still good!

I cannot recall finding both rivers and the bayous as crowded as they were Saturday morning.  A company tournament based out of the Boat Club had the parking lot full well before daylight, but there were lots of other folks out as well.

Don Miller caught this nice flounder on a Texas Roach Flats Minnow.

I was really concerned that the bayous would be blown out, but the wind laid down Friday night.  I fished with Barham Lewis, Don Miller and Morris Boozer and we had to work a little harder than usual, but still wound up with a very good box of trout and flounder.  We were forced to fish some shorelines I have never fished before, but it proved to be a good thing as we caught solid trout everywhere we fished.

We fished our way through a big bag of Texas Roach Flats Minnows and several packages of chicken on a chain Sea Shads over the course of the morning.  Today I fished with Mike Guidry and his brother-in-law, Bret, and it was cold at daylight.  We caught a lot of small trout early, but struggled to catch any solid trout until around noon.

When the tide started going out the bite was on for us and we finished with their two limits of trout up to four pounds and a pair of flounder.  The fish were much deeper than they have been, but we were still able to catch them on a variety of Swim Baits.  I say, variety, because we used up almost everything I had which included Usual Suspects, Storm Wild eyes, Spoiler Shads, River 2 Sea shads and the last of the Tsunami Shad.  A fourteen inch trout will bite the tail off every time!