Colburn's Sabine Connection

The weather and the bite were hot this week!

It is foggy outside, but I had already planned on spending the day watching football and bringing in the New Year out in the country tonight.  My grandson, Andrew, fished with me again yesterday and he had redfish on the brain.  We were able to fish together only one other time during his holiday break and we caught some nice trout, but not many reds that day.

Catching trout in the rain and cold was okay with Andrew, but..........

It was short sleeve warm by noon and we just wore the slot reds out drifting 3 to 4 feet of water.  I was catching them on a Maniac Mullet and he was catching them on a stinky pink Assassin under a cork. I had a couple of very nice trout pull off right at the boat, but we weren't keeping them anyway.

..........catching reds on a warm sunny day was even more to his liking!

We talked with Brad Deslatte and Adam Jaynes on the water and they were catching at least one or two  trout everywhere they stopped.  Brad boated a thick trout in the 7-pound class on a pink Maniac Mullet, but I don't know how they finished up as we quit pretty early.

Joe Norman drove in from Nacogdoches Wednesday and it was a little cooler, but we still had a very good day in both the river and the lake.  Joe caught our largest trout in the river on a tail, but he also caught two more real good trout on a Maniac Mullet in the lake.  As good as the trout bite was, it couldn't touch the redfish bite.

We found them stacked on a little patch of shell on the La. shoreline and we caught slot fish on nearly every cast until we got tired of catching and releasing.  That bite was unexpected, but it was good to find them on the flats again.  I love the deep bite in the river, but that thump on a Corky or Maniac Mullet in shallow water is to kill for.  If they will move in just a little closer I'll be back in my waders!

Barring any extended freezes, this is shaping up to be a terrific January and February for big trout on Sabine.  The bonus or problem, depending on how you view it, is that the redfish are already  all over the flats as well. As usual, I am trying to squeeze bookings in between Boat Shows so if I haven't already sent you a heads-up, e-mail or call today!

 

 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  It is raining right now and we have been fishing under overcast skies all week long.  The incredibly easy bite slowed way down yesterday and today for us, but the earlier part of the week was as good as it can get.  The redfish appear poised to take over the shallows again, but we still caught a few trout in the 27-inch class when they would leave us alone.

I have been catching some very nice trout Carolina rigging a Maniac Mullet on the deep breaks along the river over the past month or so, but we have just been tying it on and fishing it the way it was intended to be fished this week.  The better trout started showing back up in the shallows and they have eaten the Maniac Mullet better than anything else I have offered them.  You have to fish it a little quicker becasue it sinks faster than a Corky Devil or other suspended lures and they are crushing it when they catch up with it.

I am not throwing my Corkies or Catch V's away any time soon, but I fished wtih two friends that are better fishermen than I am half a day last week and all but two of the fish we kept were caught on the Mullet.  We threw tails, topwaters, Fatboys....you name it!

This hawk would have drowned had she not turned loose of her catch!

Gene and I scouted one day this week and drove up on a sight neither of us had ever seen.  Two large hawks (I don't know what kind) were drifting side by side in the middle of the bayou.  One was all but going down for the count, while the other one was trying to get whatever the other one was dragging beneath the surface.

One immediately got up and flew off, but the other one was reluctant to drop its prey unti we got right on top of it and herded it to the shoreline.  It climbed up on a log and dried off before finally flying away.

The redfish like the Maniac Mullet as well!

Everyone we talked with just killed the fish that day as it was dead calm and the conditions were perfect. We caught all the trout on tails that Gene wanted to keep before switching to the M.M. and drifting the shallow flats.  It was surprisingly good as we not only caught and released some very good trout, but several big reds as well.

Gene released this nice trout after a little oral surgery.

The last two days have been tougher for me.  We caught at least one big trout both days on the Mullets, but we didn't get a lot of bites.  I have really enjoyed the incredibly easy bite in the river, but it has been great finding the larger trout back on the flats.  That unexpected thump on a Corky or M.M. is as good as it gets any time of the year.

I ran over to Daley's Friday to pick up a few more Mullets before they closed through Monday for the holidays and they only had a couple of the colors I needed.  Much to my surprise, Keith called Dana Bailey and he said that they would send him a 100 more early next week.  I had talked with Dana earlier in the day and he said they were swamped and making them as fast as they could.

My wife is telling me to hurry up so we can get to Christmas Eve service on time.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

What a day!

Today was one of those rare days when your clients believe that you may possibly have a clue as to what the fish are doing.  When I stopped the boat in the ICW just south of the new Cow Bayou cut you couldn't even see across Cow Bayou for the fog.  That was about 7:30 this morning.  Less than two hours later we were limited on trout and redfish.

For the remainder of the day we just checked out different areas and caught lots of fish every where we went.  Darin Freshour put together the trip with two of his friends and it was actually a trip that we had to back up a couple of days.  In other words, it was just plain old good luck that we were there today.

We limited on trout in the 16 to 18-inch class before we ever caught the first redfish.  They were stacked up along a shell bank in 8 to 12 feet of water that most folks just ride by every day and they would not let a pumpkin-chartreuse Tidal Surge Split Tail Mullet reach the bottom.  I threw some four inch stuff just to see if it made a difference and there was no doubt that the better trout wanted the longer plastic.

Darin said his wife was expecting him to bring home a few reds just like this one!

We didn't move a hundred yards before finding the slot reds.  Regardless of how quickly you set the hook you still had to dig the lure out of the back of their throat as they were on a feeding binge.  Darin threw some Gulp, but the rest of us stayed with the Split Tail and a Swim Bait and they ate both lures.  It was the first incoming tide that I had fished all week and the water temperature was back up to 59 degrees.

We found more boats than fish in Black's, but both shorelines from Hardin's camp to the mouth of East Pass were holding trout and redfish.  After two drifts we shot a couple of pictures and decided to fish some water that I hadn't looked at in a while.  You very seldom get that opportunity when fishing with clients.

Catching redfish wasn't a problem again today, but the trout stole the show!

Since we were on a roll, I ran to the La. shoreline and we drifted two different 3 to 5 foot flats with Corkies, Maniac Mullets, and Catch V's.  We were strictly in a catch and release mode by that time, but most of the trout we caught and released were much better fish than the trout that we had already boxed.  Darin even got one shot at a bragging size fish that came to the surface and just turned loose of his black-chartreuse Corky ten feet from the boat.

We finished up the day back in the ICW and turned loose at least 15 trout in the 2 to 3 pound class on one short drift.  We added a couple of nice flounder to the catch and called it a day. All we were missing was a swing at a few more seven pound class trout, but that doesn't happen every day anyway.

The east wind blew pretty good all day long, but the water on the La. shoreline was some of the warmest we found and the water clarity was very good as well.  The most surprising thing about finding the trout on those flats was that we saw no bait at all.  The fish were just there and they were hungry.  I think that we're supposed to get some rain tomorrow, but aside from being a little uncomfortable,I can't see the bite changing much. 

 

Reds and more reds!

This report could get a little long winded as I have been fishing my way through both kidney stones and a kidney infection (what's new?) at the same time and the bed has been a more welcomed option than posting a report each night. If you like catching redfish, it cannot get any better than it has been for the past week or so, but I haven't done as well with the trout.  I haven't been trying to keep this bite a secret...I was just a little tired.

You tend to forget the aches and pains with another good one on the line!

I have no idea what to expect for the remainder of the month as nothing we usually do in December is working the way it should.  I am still catching far more big trout in the ICW than in the lake in spite of the fact that the water could not be much prettier from Coffee Ground all the way to Garrisons.  For that matter, I am not even catching great numbers of reds on those flats yet, but they are all over the river and the ICW.

Even the bad days have been pretty good lately.

It is probably easier to start with today's trip and work backwards.  We easily had our worst day of the past week and still caught some solid trout, 2 flounder and 27 redfish.  Up until today, we have been catching that many redfish per hour!

It was cold and overcast  with a stiff east wind and a super thick fog all morning.  The tide wasn't as strong as it has been and we saw very few gulls in the ICW early.  The fish were still holding around the drains, but we never caught the first red on the shallow flats and we had been absolutely slaying them in 2 to 3 feet of water.

Every time I turned around Keith was fishing a different lure, but the redfish obviously liked this one the best!

I stayed with the Flats Minnow and a Swim bait, but Keith caught a limit of upper slot fish on a crankbait made by Strike Pro.  I have no idea what it is called, but it runs about 3 to 5 feet and every red he caught inhaled it.  I try not to watch him fish because he changes lures every 10 to 15 casts just for the sake of changing.  I guess he looks at all of those lures in his store (Daley's Fish N Hunt) all day long and decides to fish every one of them if he ever makes it to the water.  He also brought along an arsenal of Laguna rods and Shimano reels and managed to fish with every one of them as well.  His wife, Megan, says that he is his own best customer!

The water temperature was back up in the mid-fifties after cooling off some the prior two days.  The outgoing tide initially sucks all of that cooler water out of the marshes and it takes a day or two to mix with the warmer water in the bayous.

We caught and released huge numbers of reds in a lot of different areas all weekend long and the bite just continued to get better until today.  I had a two boat party yesterday and God only knows how many redfish Jimmy and Wally caught and released between 11and 1 o'clock.  We were already limited when I put the Stake out stick down on a shallow flat and from that point on at least one of us had a redfish on virtually every cast.

Jimmy and Wally caught and released reds like this one for two solid hours!

We could have easily limited on trout in the ICW as well, but they had redfish on the brain and we left a very good bite after catching 7 keeper trout in a matter of minutes. Wally wore us out early with a chicken on a chain Flats Minnow and Sea Shad, it didn't seem to make a difference, but I picked up one big trout on a Tidal Surge Split tail mullet and when the reds began eating it as well we all tied one on.  We didn't experiment any more after I later caught five reds on consecutive casts with a Stinky Pink Sea Shad and that was the only color we fished during that 2 hours of madness.

I have no idea what to expect tomorrow as the bite today threw me a curve.  I think we are going to get more cold and overcast, but I sure hope that they return to the flats as that is an incredible bite.  Its hard to bitch about catching 27 reds, but we felt like we were having to work for them today after a week of just mindless casting and catching almost everywhere we fished.

 

The rocks won 10 to 6!

I won't be reporting catching big trout on Maniac Mullets again until I can get back over to Daley's as my last six are still wedged in the rocks in 19 to 22 feet of water.  Rick also lost four or five in less than two hours of fishing so it was a fairly expensive bite for a brief scouting trip.

We would have fished longer, but we both had 7th grade basketball games to attend and it was a last minute deal anyway.  He really just wanted to look at some stuff on his new side scan and lo and behold the fish were there.  It took ten baits to catch six fish, but four of the trout we released were 22 to 25-inch fish and the other two nudged the 27-inch mark.  Rick lost a huge fish that we never got to the surface that may have been a red even though we never caught another one.

I have been changing out the stock hook for one size larger in a Triple grip and while I miss fewer fish......when I hang up it is forever!

We didn't even fish long enough to get very cold, but we sure got wet in a light drizzle.  I didn't get out today, but it was more of the same kind of weather.  If you want a shot at a big trout right now and don't mind losing a few lures, try dragging a Maniac Mullet or a Corky Devil along the bottom in deep water.  Depending on the strength of tide, the strike feels just about like bumping a rock or whatever, but you still have to take a swing.  If it starts swimming off when you yank back... it isn't a rock.

Cold weather hasn't slowed 'em down!

That first boat ride the past two mornings were COLD!  It warmed up around noon each day, but the wind was more of a problem yesterday.  We fished an outgoing tide Tuesday that made loading the boat back up a challenge, but the water came back in very slowly all day yesterday.

Cousin Paul with a solid slot red on a cold morning!

The bite pattern changed each day, but the catching was just as good on both programs.  Tuesday, Paul and John drove in from Katy the night before and we caught trout and reds from daylight until the time we quit just after lunch at the Muddy Water Marina.  Had we been able to feel our hands early on, we may have done even better.  We caught and missed our largest trout of the day on the first stop swimming Flats Minnows in 6 to 8 feet of water.

The wind made it even colder yesterday morning, but Major Salcher and Gene Kellum each brought a bag of extra clothes and had them all on when we left the dock.  When they started shedding them just before noon we ran out of storage space on the boat!

We struggled until 11:00.  The shallow bite only produced one red and 3 keeper trout along with a bunch of undersized fish so we made a long slow loop through East Pass and out into the lake.  We never even stopped to fish and returned to the ICW to try something different.  Plan B worked and we finished with a limit of slot reds and 19 very nice trout up to five pounds.

I held the boat in the channel and we literally soaked Flats Minnows, Sea Shads and Swim Baits on the bottom on the 18 to 22 foot breaks.  The larger the trout, the slower they wanted you to move the bait.  I have never caught fish on a Swim Bait without swimming it, but they would enhale it as soon as you lifted it up off the bottom.

I was catching them on a bug juice Flats Minnow until Gene started wearing us out on much larger trout with a fire tiger Swim Bait.  When we left we were in short sleeve shirts and there wasn't even a breeze.  As good as we had done, had I had my waders on board I would have gone back out and made an afternoon wade!

Alex Daubenheyer came down from Arkansas with his Grandpa, Steve Pullin, and fished with me in a cold driving rain most of the morning the day before his Hogs lost to the Tigers.  I forgot that I promised to put a picture of this big trout in my report and posted his redfish without even giving it a second thought.  Old people are bad about that!

Okay, Alex......Better late than never and that's still a great trout!

We are catching and releasing at least one or two big specks most every trip and I haven't had a single group that wanted to wade to date.  With so many of these fish coming off small flats bordering the ICW, I have to believe that they are moving up on the shallow flats in the lake as well.  I have a couple of days open as of right now over the next two weeks and I plan on finding out.

You don't know if you don't go!