Colburn's Sabine Connection

Weather and fishing both hot!

For the first time in a week, a stiff south wind was a problem yesterday.  Monday through Wednesday we enjoyed a light north wind early each day, but the lake was flat by mid-morning and you could easily find fish all over the lake.  We did well just drifitng the flats and passes early and fished over lady fish out in the lake later in the day.

We still caught fish, including some very nice flounder Thursday, but there was nothing easy about the bite for us.  When the bite is as user-friendly as it has been you get a little spoiled.  The better bite yesterday took place in both the Neches and the Sabine River.  Top waters, especially the Geaux Daley in the She Dog,a DOA Shrimp, and live shad produced a lot of 17 to 22-inch trout.

Another solid trout that was running with the ladyfish.

Monday through Wednesday  required little more than just being there with a rod and any bait.  Limits of good trout were not hard to come by and we caught some really nice trout at daylight,  There was never a time during the day that you could not catch trout on a topwater, but that bite was not as fast as fishing tails.  We caught our largest fish each morning fishing Geaux Trout and pearl-chartreuse She Dogs in less than a foot of water.

Martin cashed in on the daylight trout bite with a Geaux Daley.

Our largest trout was a 7.60-pound fish, but Buddy Barbay had one significantly larger than that come unpinned Wednesday morning.  It has been a long time since I have seen a big trout go that ballistic in a ten foot drag pulling run.  She was out of the water 90 percent of the time and it was at least exciting to witness!

We were still chasing trout when Buddy's nice flounder crashed the party.

As hot as it has been, weather wise, we are still catching a few good flounder on tails each trip as well.  I guess any time you spend so much time in shallow water early that is subject to happen and there has been a lot of bait up on the flats.

As good as the fishing has been for us prior to noon, most folks are reporting even better fishing in the afternoons.  The birds are apparently working much better late, but I haven't been there to see that happen.  By one or two o'clock we are as hot as I care to get and are headed back to the dock.  The last three hours of the day are drawing the biggest crowds.

Remember.....You cannot pack too much water or sunscreen if you are headed out this weekend! 

Big trout on the move again

It is baseballing and bush hogging all weekend for me, but I wish you the best of luck based on the number of boats I saw on the water yesterday.  I promised a friend that I wouldn't post another report before he could get in one more swing on some trout we shared yesterday.  He and his wife have already done their thing by now or the fish just didn't show up again.

Wednesday the wind howled out of the southeast, but it was the only day that I had a chance to get my grandson back on the water.  We ran to the La. shoreline to take advantage of the semi-protected water and spent the morning casting dead into the wind.  The good news was that we just smoked the redfish and trout on topwaters and slammin' chicken Sea Shads.

Right before we had to leave, some "REALLY" nice trout started eating the small lady fish that were hustling shad, but we absolutely had to go.  They were still there yesterday morning early and I did more watching and netting than catching while Allen and Toby caught and caught and caught.  I fished a She Dog when I did fish, but they wore the fish out on the same color tail as well as a glow-chartreuse Flats Minnow.

The water was already high and a slow incoming tide stacked the fish on the flats adjacent to the mouth of any bayou or point on the ICW.  Once again, even with all the numbers, we caught very few trout under 19-inches and they were all heavy fish.  For some reason, the seriously big trout that we caught, especially earlier in the week wouldn't eat a topwater, but just crushed a 5-inch needlefish Assassin rigged on a 1/16th ounce head.  Oh, well...whatever it takes as long as I have some.

I am anxious to hear back from my friend and his wife this morning as he really wants her to catch a big trout.  These are not S.T.A.R. winning type trout, but the largest we weighed and released this week was a 7.80 and we had several 6-pound fish as well.  I did see a few gulls working just before noon yesterday and we stopped long enough to catch and release several solid trout under them before calling it a day.

The bite has changed a little.

Jerry Matthews flew down from indiana for two days of fishing on Sabine and as it turned out, we were fortunate to get in one.  After waiting out the rain and lightning in the pre-dawn darkness this morning, we begrudingly canceled without ever launching the boat.  Over the next three hours, I vacillated between "I wish we were out there" and "Man,I am glad we cancelled" as each new storm rollled in off the Gulf.

We have already gotten a lot more rain than we got yesterday, but we did fish in at least a light drizzle from start to finish on Monday.  I don't know if it is the rain and overcast skies or the big incoming tides that are pushing the water up into the marsh, but the bite has changed for us since last week.  Johnny pulled a trip for me Saturday and while they still did pretty well, he said it was tough.

Easily the biggest change was fewer birds.  I was cheering on grandkids at a swim meet and tuning up for Little league All Stars all weekend so I was very surprised by the absence of gulls when I got back on the water yesterday.  We had to wait out a big storm early yesterday morning and since it was blowing pretty good as well, I started out drifting a protected flat.

After catching four or five very solid trout we unexpectedly found ourselves right in the middle of the redfish and we caught and released a bunch.  We caught every single one of them, as well as those initial trout on a 4-inch River 2 Sea Swim Bait.  That was the first time in a long time that I have been in the middle of any solid numbers of redfish.

Here is the crazy part.  Over the course of the morning, I left the ICW and the bayous three different times to make a round in the lake looking for those gulls that have made the catching so easy.  We saw only a crabber and a few pelicans at best.  Just before quitting, I decided to make one more round in the lake and I'll be doggone if we didn't find two groups of birds working over some very nice trout about a mile south of Stewt's!

I don't know if they were just getting cranked up for the afternoon, but I will find out tomorrow.  We didn't see as much bait on the surface as we have been seeing and that may be part of the problem if there is any problem at all.  The biggest problem is that I fall into the same trap every year. That easy bite under the birds spoils me and makes it hard to go back and fish like I have good sense.

Trout continue to do their thing!

The bite under the gulls continues to be the story on Sabine.  The wind has been the only negative factor as it has blown hard every morning except Wednesday.  David and Dustin fished with me Wednesday and we caught trout until we literally got tired of catching them.  We didn't have a four pound trout in the bunch, but we caught and released a pile of 2 to 3 pound trout after they limited.  Glow chartreuse and geaux gleaux or Slammin Chicken 4-inch plastics were all we needed to throw.

Barham fooled a perfect sized slot red swimming a geaux gleaux flats minnow.

The following day, Barham and Don drove in and we ducked and dodged some serious lightning all day long. At one point we were forced to just pull up in the marsh grass and wait it out.  In between storms, the trout continued to do their thing under more scattered birds.  Both Don and Barham added a couple of solid slot reds to a box of trout that still did not include a trout over four pounds.  When you are catching keeper trout that easy no one complains, but we are just not seeing any big trout.

Shanna added this nice red to a limit of speckled trout.

Shanna Sheppard thought she was going to sleep in Friday morning until her husband, Windel, woke her up and told her they were going fishing at the last minute.  We got away a little late, but the fish were waiting for us when we got there.  Once again, limits were easy and Shanna boated a really nice slot red on a glow chartreuse Trout Killer.

The redfish are starting to show up on a more regular basis, but most of them are still on the lower end of the slot and that is fine with me.  Until we start spending a little more time looking for larger trout on the shallow flats, it is a little unrealistic to expect to catch the kind of trout we were catching before the bird madness started.  Catching a fish every catch is too addicting!

Wind was too much today!

We finally got a bad draw with the wind today, but it had to happen sooner or later.  We have sweated it out every morning for over a week as the wind has howled early only to give us a 2 to 3 hour window of perfect conditions in the middle of the day.  Joe Slavik and his son, Joe,Jr. and I took advantage of what has been a rediculously easy bite Friday, but the wind put an end to that today.

Jerry Hamilton with a nice flounder caught fishing the river today.

As long as it is reasonably flat and you can find a bird or two or ease around looking for fish on the surface you are in business.  Even in some serious whitecaps today the water wasn't silting up too badly so we should be back in business with lighter winds.  We are finally starting to find more redfish in the open lake and it could be because the lady fish have shown up as well.

We still have to do some work with the morning program, but we will figure something out.  The wind has eliminated so many areas early that it has been hard to even check out very many patterns.  The wind should be better tomorrow!

It's scary good right now!

I've got an open day tomorrow and I need it as I have been passing myself coming and going since last Friday.  I spent all day Friday and Saturday at the Daley's Hunt N Fish 2nd annual fishing show, did Church and wrote two columns Sunday, fished the River 2 Sea folks Monday, L.L. playoff baseball game that night, fished John Storm and family Tuesday, spoke at S.A.L.T. Club that night and fished Scott Kennedy's crew today!

A nice birthday present for Simon Chan!

The best part of it all is that the fish have just gone nuts in Sabine Lake.  Monday I fished Keith Daley, and Simon Chan and Angelo Alorra with River 2 Sea Lures.  Since they were in from California we didn't keep a single fish, but we easily caught 60 to 70 trout and one nice red.  The fish were suicidal so it wasn't a very credible test as to how effective their lures are, but I guarantee you Keith fished everyone of them and caught fish on most.  No one switches lures more than Keith Daley does every trip so he is the ultimate field tester.

Angelo caught most of our larger trout on River 2 Sea's new Rover.

Their paint jobs are not only eye-catching, but durable as well.  I have already caught a lot of 5- pound plus trout on their Cranky M and it doesn't have a single scratch on it.  I also like their mid-sized Rover. It is a surface bait that you can walk the dog with and the bucktail on the back hook produced a lot of strikes when the bait was at rest.  I am sure several of their other lures are going to work well, but I have to catch a lot of fish before bragging on one.

Griffin could not quite get all of his big trout in the picture, but that's a good problem to have!

Tuesday morning, it should have come as no surprise that we could not find a single bird or any surface activity in the same area.  John Storm, an old friend and and one of the Storm Lure family, drove in from Oklahoma and brought the boys fishing.  Both sons, Griffin and Jackson, mastered the spinning gear quickly, but I was counting on taking advantage of the easier bite.

Jackson caught this nice trout on a Slammin' Chicken Assassin. 

 

We were forced to fish a tougher program initially, but they handled it well and each of them caught at least one big trout. As a matter of fact, our first nine trout were all BIG!  Before it was over we did find the trout under the birds and we just hammered 2 to 3 pound trout until quitting time.

The boys even let Dad get in on the catching part.

This morning the big fish bite was on right off the bat and we worked on them pretty good with Swim Baits and DieDappers.  When the lake slicked off and it got very warm we made a loop to cool off and found several schools of good trout under the gulls. We caught all they wanted to catch and headed to the dock before noon.

Martin caught this nice trout on a hot chicken DieDapper.

I saw more bait on the surface today than I thoght was even in the lake right now.  The next thing will be more schooling redfish.  It is just crazy good right now!