Colburn's Sabine Connection

Daley's offers discount for OCARC and Cops Helping Kids Tournament fishermen!

I will definitely get in all my fishing this week prior to Saturday.  I don't fish many weekends anyway, but Sabine Lake will be a busy place Saturday.  The OCARC will host its 25th annual tournament and the Cops Helping Kids event is scheduled for the same day.  Both are benefit events with totally different formats so they shouldn't hurt one another at all.

The OCARC is a family oriented event with a modest $25 entry fee that pays out 31 places in 11 different categories.  The event is based out of Orange with the 6:00 pm weigh-in to be held at 905 W.Park.  For more information call the Center at 409-886-1363.

The Cops Helping Kids tournament is a team event with a $200 per boat entry fee.  The winning weights are based on two fish totals for reds, flounder and trout and each will each pay $1000.  Second place in each category pays $750 and third will earn you a $500 check.  A live release of the winning two flounder stringer will earn you an additional $500!

The captain's meeting will be held at the K T Cattle Co. Friday night.  Contestants will be treated to a steak dinner, drinks and a live auction.  The weigh-in is set for Dick Dowling Park Saturday afternoon. For more information contact Tony Viator at 409-284-7934.

Keith Daley called tonight to say that he would also give anyone fishing either tournament a 15% discount on anything in Daley's Fish N Hunt not already marked down through Friday afternoon.  All you have to do is bring in proff of entry before 5:00 pm Friday evening to take advantage of the discount!

Swim Bait saved a windy trip!

We started a little later today in an attempt to avoid the thunderstorms, but it wasn't the smartest of moves as we had to deal with the wind as well in the afternoon.  We had no problem catching redfish in the marsh, but catching keeper trout was a bit more challenging.

We eventually lucked out and finished with 14 trout in the 2 to 4 pound class.  We caught every fish in a small area that a single gull abandoned as soon as we arrived.  We caught our largest two trout on tails in the first few minutes only to fish another 20 minutes without a single bite.  I had tried everything from a Maniac Mullet to a crankbait and was in the process of picking up the troll motor when Dalton pulled off a very nice trout on a River 2 Sea Swim Bait.

Not surprisingly, I had 5 pounds of different makes and colors of 3-inch Swim Baits crammed in my traveling tackle bag, but none of them were the right color.  Dalton and Seth were willing to share, but it was about them catching fish...not me, and they only had one pack between them.  I had some colors that were close, but not close enough.  When the last one tore up they couldn't make anything else work either!

I will tell you what color it is after I call Daley's Hunt N Fish and find out how many packs they have left.  Cormier has worn me out more than once by burning a Swim bait just under the surface, but these trout wanted it crawled very slowly across the bottom.  I don't usually fish it that way either, but I got to watch it work time and again for the better part of an hour.

They are fishing Big Lake tomorrow and I'll bet they made a few tackle shops in Lake Charles after loading up the boat.  I don't know if that color will work as well over there, but if I find them tomorrow I'll have five more pounds of Swim baits the next time I crank the big engine!

A whole lot better today!

I still think all of the runoff has slowed the bite down, but I feel a lot better about the bite after today's trip than I did a day or two ago.  I fished with three generations of Bessells today and the first hour of the trip looked to be a repeat of the past few days.  It was raining when we left the dock and it looked like it would never quit.

After making a long run for no reason other than getting wetter, we returned to the north end and found a lot of gulls working over nothing.  There were no lady fish or skipping shrimp...just big flocks of gulls picking and milling around.  When the rain started letting up, the lady fish suddenly started hustling small shad and shrimp and I was pleased just to catch small trout and a few rat reds under them.

Colin caught this solid slot red out of what turned out to be a big school of fish!

Keith and Colin had to head back to Dallas by noon so we decided to check a shallow flat on the way back to the dock.  We found a handful of birds working and Keith immediately picked up a nice trout on a Sea Shad.  Two casts later, Colin hooked up with a 25-inch red and we were instantly surrounded by at least an acre of lady fish and needle gar chasing shad and shrimp across the surface.  It looked like it was about to happen, but we couldn't catch another big trout or redfish out of all of that madness.

Keith fooled this nice trout with a Geaux Gleaux Flats Minnow.

We couldn't wait any longer to see if that was just the beginning of a very good bite so I ran them back to the landing.  By the time we got them packed up the sun was drying things out and I decided to make a quick run to see if the bait had left that flat or if something larger had found it.  I saw the redfish blowing up on the surface well before I idled into casting range.

The second red tore up my Kwik Cork so I grabbed a rod with a Swim Bait tied on and caught five or six more before they shredded it.  The only other rod I had rigged up had a TTF Flush tied on so I threw it in amongst all of the surface activity and caught a four-pound trout on the first cast.  I didnt stay more than an hour, caught and released one or two more reds and kept nine trout in the 3 to 4 pound class that all ate the topwater lure.  I told Gerald Chaisson what I had just left when he stopped me in the river and he later called to say that they were still there and would call back tonight.

We had enough tide to clear the water up some, but it was still a little dirty and there was still a lot of hyacinth floating around.  I made a big loop on the way back and only saw two small flocks of gulls south of Stewt's.  I was very encouraged to see the shrimp and surprised to find solid trout chasing them.  Things are looking up! 

 

Fresh water has finally slowed the bite down.

Because the wind was so bad Friday, I was still a little reluctant to blame the poor bite on all of the fresh water.  We tried it again a little while the following day with less wind, however, and it was equally bad so I am now some what more convinced that the runoff is posing a problem. Even the ICW was full of hyacinth and floating deadwood following two decent incoming tides.

The bite was pretty decent for us for the first hour or so, but once we lost those fish it was a struggle.  The only thing good about Friday was the company, Eric Lyons and Jay Miller, and the fact that Jay caught a personal best trout right off the bat.  We caught a few more small trout and a solid flounder, but it was as tough a day as I care to experience.  We ran all over the lake and two marshes over the course of the day in spite of the wind.

  Jay put the pressure on us early with this nice trout!

We fished from Adams Bayou, to the Causeway, back to the Neches Flats, Bessie Heights, back to Garrison's Ridge, back to the north revetment wall and finished up in Black's!  Our reward was a lot of wasted gas and time.  We didn't fish long yesterday and aside from five suicidal slot reds that found us and less running around, we did just as poorly as the day before.

I have no idea if anything is going on in the late afternoon right now, but if you are going to fish the birds in the morning, you better get there early.  There are some very good trout and redfish under them, but they are not holding tight enough to catch any numbers under.  We never got anything going on a topwater (that was a surprise in itself) and had to stay with 4-inch Flats Minnows and Sea Shads to catch our fish.

I was really hoping that all of the rain wasn't going to hurt us that badly, but it has been a struggle for me.  I talked with Capt. Adam yesterday and he said the wind just killed them over on Big Lake as well, but the fresh water didn't seem to be as much of a problem.

We are going to try again tomorrow and I will postpone the next few days if it is still this tough.  Hopefully I will figure something out pretty quickly as there is a very short list of folks that want to pay a guide to hunt fish! 

Runoff no problem thus far!

I really can't tell at this point if the worst is yet to come or if all of the rain and runoff is not going to hurt us too badly.  The water on the north end is very dirty as expected, but the birds are still working.  The water on the south end is also off-colored and there has been a lot of floating hyacinth to deal with, but the birds are working a little in that area as well.  the water on the north end was dirtier yesterday than it was Tuesday, but the birds worked better so go figure?

The prettiest water in the lake is right in the middle and the shad have been all over the surface the past two days, but the bite has been slower than any where else.  Wednesday, Jim Gilliam and his sons, Zach and Dalton, fished with me and the bite was better in the middle of the day than it was early.  We caught a lot of fish early, but we caught our largest trout and redfish in the middle of the day.  It was HOT by that time and the lake was dead calm, but the kids were relentless!

Zach with a nice trout that ate a tail fished under a cork.

I caught some nice trout on a Maniac Mullet when I wasn't netting a fish or replacing a torn up tail, but the majority of our fish ate a red shad Sea Shad or a Geaux Gleaux Flats Minnow fished under a cork.  Jim recently bought both of his boys 6'6" spinning rods with Shimano Sahara 2500 reels on a trip to Daley's and there was no fish they couldn't reach.  The 20 pound braid and 20 pound mono leader was also more than a match for any fish we were going to encounter.  I don't think there is a better set up for kids and I use the same set up when fishing with the cork as well!

This slot red was no match for Dalton and his new spinning combo!

In spite of the fact that it was dead calm we never found any reds schooling on the surface and we did a lot of running and looking while cooling off.  They have been schooling up on a more frequent basis of late and we are now finding more of them running with the school trout as well.  Most of the ones we have caught have been on the bottom end of the slot.

 

Daily rains making it a little tougher on the fishermen

The weather has been a bit of a problem for us the past few days, but the fish are still doing their thing when you can out maneuver the storms.  The larger trout aren't as suicidal as they were last week, but the numbers are still there.  The redfish are not yet schooling enough to hang your hat on that pattern, but we have caught at least a few every trip.

Andrew took advantage of the redfish bite on a very hot day!

My Grandson, Andrew, caught a break between All Star games and he opted to fish rather than sleep in on his day off.  It was hot and still and the redfish were doing their thing.  We had to knock off early to get to practice, but we still caught 40 to 50 fish in half a day.  This summer has just flown by thus far and he has been too busy with swim meets and baseball to fish with me as he usually does.

We caught the majority of our fish on Flats Minnows and Sea Shads under a cork that trip, but the smaller topwaters worked even better the following two trips.  At least for me, as the redfish bite has improved, the average trout caught under the birds and out of the ladyfish has gotten smaller.  We all knew the 3 to 4-pound trout that we were catching a week ago were not the norm, but even the percentage of solid keeper fish has fallen off a little.

It didn't take Mac Ramsour long to boat his personal best redfish!

I am not complaining as it is still very good if you are willing to work just a little harder.  I fished with John Ramsour and his son, Mac, on Sunday (don't do many Sundays) and we lost the better part of the day dodging thunderstorms.  We were no sooner able to get into the lake than Mac caught both his first and largest fish ever...a 25-inch redfish that buried his Kwik Cork and tested the drag on his Shimano spinning reel.  We went through a lot of fish the last two hours, but got our hat handed to us for over an hour as we stayed with a group of birds that never left and boxed only two keeper trout.

We pulled off a couple of nice fish, but you would have thought that we could have limited in fifteen minutes.  I thought that we had tried everything in the box until the following day.  After experiencing the exact same thing in the same area, Jason Isler pulled out a Corky Devil and it was "Game On".  In less than an hour we went from an occasional small trout bite to boxing three limits of reds and trout.  I didn't even have a Corky in the boat, but we quickly fond out that they would eat a Maniac Mullet just as well.

Hopefully it will quit raining long enough to get in the sectional baseball games over the next 4 days as I hate driving all the way to Spring for a rainout and driving right back.  It is raining here right now, but there isn't any lightning and the wind isn't bad.  We can fish in this weather, but it's hard to run down a fly ball wearing a slickeer suit!

 

It can't get much better than this!

I don't know that I have ever seen the fishing on Sabine any better than it has been over the past week.  If you want to wade... the bite is there, if you want to fish the birds..... the bite is there.....it really doesn't matter.  Jimmy and Rick didn't want to keep any fish Monday and I have no idea how many 2 to 4 pound trout they caught and released with the largest trout just under 6 pounds.

Jimmy Gilliam with another nice trout caught and released!

Tuesday morning Kenny Pitts drove in on short notice and he had 10 keeper trout before his truck engine cooled off.  The weather was freaky good as there was no wind at all and it was overcast and cool the entire morning.  That hasn't been the case as the weather has been as hot as the fishing.

One of many nice trout Kenny Pitts caught and released Tuesday morning!

Depending strictly on what you want to do, the best part of it all is that you can avoid the crowd or fish in amongst a courteous crowd and still catch fish.  Following the gulls is obviously the easiest route, but after fishing the flats early we are just cruising the open lake keying on schools of shad and lady fish.

If you are in a position to book a trip on short notice like Mr. Pitts did, just email me and I will call you on any last minute cancellations or any time the fishing is exceptionally good and I have an open date.  Those short notice trips are some of the best as It has to be really good for me to make that call!

Our largest trout are consistently eating topwaters as are the redfish.  The big schools of redfish are finally starting to show up and the majority of them are in the slot.  Most of the local folks I talk with say that bite is even better in the late afternoon.

I prefer to throw shorter tails this time of the year, but you can minimize the ladyfish attacks by going with the 5-inch tails and they generally attract the larger trout as well.  I feel certain that everyone has their favorite color right now as it is hard to find a wrong color, but we have done well early with a Geaux Daley She Dog and any bone pattern later in the morning. I have no idea how much longer the perfect conditions will last which helps spread the boat traffic out, but this is one check of a bite!