Colburn's Sabine Connection

"I'll take care of that first thing tomorrow......Honey!?"

At the last minute I put all of those important things that I absolutely had to get done off to another day after Dr. Jim Norman called the night before to see if I might have an opening.  We certainly didn't blow the fish away, especially the trout, but we caught fish all day long.  I talked with some darn good fishermen several times throughout the day and they couldn't figure the trout out either.

Jim's largest trout had no intention of sharing this Corky with another trout!

We left the redfish biting in at least three different areas to continue hunting for more cooperative trout.  We also caught two big ol' flounder that didn't know they weren't supposed to eat a Corky.  I caught a few fish on the Die Dapper, but a dayglow Fatboy was the ticket.  Jim caught most of our trout as well as the largest and he never used another color.  I stayed with the Texas Chicken just to make sure we didn't miss the boat with the tougher bite.  I have been doing okay with that color as well all week.

Jim boated one dink and two nice trout in a hurry right before we quit so the fish may have waited until late to turn on.  The fish were much more active in the morning with the outgoing tide, but once it quit it was a challenge. I haven't tried to squeeze in Coffee Ground Cove too often this week only because those fish have really gotten pressured lately.

The water on the entire La. shoreline looks very decent and it is finally clearing up around Pleasure Island.The Sabine and the bayous are still ugly and we have a pretty stiff current with T-Bend discharging water.  I haven't caught a trout in the river in over a week. The wind has been a problem at times, but the surface temperature is back in the high 50's and I will take that every day.

Visit with Bassmaster Pro, Ish Monroe, at Daley's Hunt N Fish tomorrow!

Lamar Belcher worked off nights and met me at the landing this morning once again without his wife, Lenzi, who also loves to fish but had to work.  It was a little colder today than expected, but the surface temperature eventually climbed up into the upper 50's and we enjoyed a heck of a fishing day!

We made a quick first stop in East Pass to thaw out and I caught a nice slot red on a Usual Suspect Swim Bait on the second or third cast.  We stopped to visit with Doug Patterson a few minutes later before running to the east shoreline.  The east wind had a lot of north in it and it was cold.  The surface temperature on the first stop was 45 degrees, but we still caught a nice trout and pulled off another before running further south.

We never made a stop that wasn't productive.  Lamar developed some confidence in the Corky, a near 6 pound trout will do that for you, and we caught some very nice trout all day long fishing 3 to 5 feet of water on a weak incoming tide.  We gave the trout a break for about an hour and quickly limited on slot reds.  We caught every red swimming a DieDapper on a Shiney Hiney head and we caught a bunch!

On the return trip we stopped just outside the gas rigs north of Coffee Ground and quickly caught two  more 3 to 4 pound trout before calling it quits.  It was just one of those perfect weather days when everything you do works.  That doesn't happen often enough so I don't take those kind of days for granted!

I would love to fish again tomorrow, but I promised Keith I would spend the day over at Daley's Hunt N Fish.  Bassmaster Pro, Ish Monroe, is going to be in the store most of the day so I am thinking it is going to be a bass fishing kind of day for the most part.  For those of you that are more interested in catching winter trout than bass, however, please look me up and we'll get over on the side and talk about everything from tackle to why trout do what they do this time of the year.  I'll be there from noon until closing time.

If bass fishing was my thing, I would bust my tail to get over there and visit with Monroe tomorrow as you may never have an opportunity like this again.  The pros are all over our area right now scouting, but this is an opportunity to sit down and talk with one of the best.  On the other hand, if trout fishing was my thing, I'd go fishing tomorrow.  If you can't...come on over and we'll talk about it!  

 

Fish 1....Dickie and Johnny 0!

I am not going to be surprised if I get a phone call or email from someone that caught fish today, but after the past two days I just didn't feel good about our chances.  I knew the conditions were going to be even better today, but we canceled anyway.

We finally had almost perfect weather Friday so Captain Johnny and I made a round to see if we could put something together.  We could have caught the same number of fish had we left our rods at home.  Someone else may have caught fish, but we never got the first strike and never saw the first mullet jump.  As a matter of fact we stopped in front of the outfall canal on the way back in hopes of just seeing a single mullet.......none!

The surface temperature finally made it up to 48 degrees in the afternoon, but most of the water we fished was 43 to 45 degrees.  The water was in decent enough shape considering all of the wind and runoff over the past week, but it was pretty fresh as well.

I am going to eat some crawfish toniight, do church and football playoffs tomorrow and hit it again Monday.  I plan on spending most of the day Wednesday over at Daley's.  Bassmaster Elite Pro, Ish Monroe, will be there all afternoon so I am sure there will be a full house of folks wanting to visit with him.   

Will a great bite survive even more rain?

For want of a more descriptive word, this latest front is pissing me off.  We fished two days in a row in the rain and wind and caught trout in spite of the muddy runoff only to have a perfect weather day Friday and just kill the fish all day long.  The weather went to pot Saturday afternoon while I was watching football and it is colder and pouring this morning with more to come this next week!

A very average trout Friday is better than anything the Doctor ordered for Gene!

I have not had a better day in a long time than we enjoyed Friday.  My group canceled earlier in the week for fear that all of the runoff would slow the bite, but it didn't.  Gene had been sick, but he met me at the launch anyway and our trip proved to be better medicine than any the doctor had prescribed..

I have no idea how many trout we caught after we finally got away from the reds, but they were all great fish and we caught them right up until dark.  We fished a pretty good outgoing tide, the water was 59 degrees and most of the north end of the lake was getting muddier with the runoff.  Once we found the bait in 4 to 6 feet of water we never left as the big trout were right there with it.

We found them with a Fat Boy and a four inch Usual Suspect Swim Bait, but caught them on several other baits before the day was over as well. Over the past few days the trout have convinced me that I probably don't need to carry 5-inch Swim Baits any more.  I have been swimming the 5-inch Diedapper and the Flats Minnow XL on a Shiney Hiney head and catching as many if not more fish than clients fishing the 5-inch Swim right beside me.  I also have a much broader choice of colors.

I have also about decided that unlike the rest of the year, I may be forced to be a little less forthcoming in sharing as much information over the next two months.  I log a ton of cold fishless hours hunting patterns or a particular bait that hopefully gives me at least a little edge and that can be the only difference maker when fishing the same water with other fishermen. I also get some much appreciated help from a small list of other die hard winter fishermen and I will always respect their persistence and tight lipped approach. 

There is only a very small portion of the lake that lends itself to successfully wading or drifting with any real hope of duping a big trout so as the pressure increases you can expect to share that limited amount of real estate with more knowledgeable folks any given day.  I will say that it has been my experience that staying put and waiting on the fish on Sabine is more effective unless you are making long quiet drifts and occasionally burying the Talon or Power Pole.  The absolute killer is cranking up the big engine and idling back through the middle of your bite to make another drift.

Hopefully, the wind won't be as stiff as predicted over the next few days, but you know the water temperature is going to take a hit.  Most of the area launches are iffy when the north wind blows the water out of the bayous, but I can handle the inconvenience for one swing at the right trout over the next two months!

 

 

The water clarity and salinity is taking a hit!

Jim has already called twice this morning and I still haven't decided to fish with him again today or exhibit some shred of sanity and yield to the weather.  After canceling trips the last three days he called and I met him at the launch Tuesday.  It wasn't raining as hard as they had predicted and it was even warmer than I expected.  We waded the flats bordering the ICW for 3 or 4 hours and caught several very nice trout while running from the redfish.

Deciding that they had totally missed the weather forecast again, I agreed to meet him Wednesday morning as he had caught his personal best the day before and was pumped.  When we climbed out of the boat the water was easily a foot higher than the day before and it was raining a little harder, but the wind wasn't a factor.

You could hardly see the length of your cast in the fog, but we caught seven nice trout right off the bat.  Then the wind picked up and the bottom dropped out.  I couldn't tell if I had developed a leak in the left leg of my waders or if that was the path the rain blowing in under my hood was taking, but I was done.

We loaded up his boat and I dried off and changed shirts under Ancelet's deck cover.  Since I was already half way there, I drove on over to Daley's and talked fishing most of the afternoon while it continued to pour outside.  I don't know what the water temperature was, I am guessing mid-fifties, but we caught our fish both days on topwaters.  The water on the flats wasn't as dirty as the water in the river or the ICW, but there was a distinct mud line.

Hunter Gothia told me yesterday that the water behind his house on Cow Bayou was getting really muddy and John Downey called this morning and said that the hyacinth and fresh water was pouring out of Taylors and the marsh drains on the north side of the ICW.  While we didn't need this rain, it just might improve the deep bite on the ICW.

It's drizzling and overcast right now, but I don't know if this is the end or if there is more to come.  I am not into driving over to the Houston Boat Show in the rain so I might just spend the remainder of the day replacing hooks and re-coating everything with Line & Lure or........I might grab a pair of dry waders and meet Jim again.  There is no fool like an old fool!

Right place....wrong time!

 I was apparently the only one not catching some quality trout earlier this week, but  right or wrong, I prefer to commit and stay put this time of the year.  We fished some water I haven't fished for years over the New Year's weekend and I now remember why.  That is a little unfair as the weather was miserable and the wind kept us pinned down on a muddy shoreline. My host caught six trout over seven pounds the day before the wind switched so it wasn't like we were just hard headed.

I eventually came back home and settled for catching redfish and lots of them.  We talked with some other fishermen at Ancelet's that couldn't find the redfish and I didn't even ask what they were doing.  The water was very low and muddier than it has been, but we caught redfish from Old River Cove all the way to Double Gulley on Swim baits and crankbaits.

We talked with 2 or 3 other groups on the water that were doing just as well.  One group was fishing Gulp Shrimp and the other was fishing TTF Trout Killers.  The reds would just crush the crankbait, but the fish that hit the Swim Bait just got heavy and started swimming away.

At the same time we were struggling to find any trout on the shallow flats, John Downey was catching fish up to 28 inches and Brad Deslatte was catching 2 to 4 pound trout hand over fist.  Neither of them were fishing the lake and they were fishing completely different patterns.  Brad was taking advantage of a strong tide and working on suspended fish with a Flats Minnow while John was fishing a little deeper with bigger baits.  He is looking for something over nine pounds and he has already been through a lot of good trout recently not to find one!

Brad was fishing in the river and John wasn't, but they were both taking advantage of a deeper bite.  If we can get even a modest warm-up this week those fish should move up on the flats to feed a little while.  Catching a big trout this time of year is all about grinding away in weather not suited for even being outdoors. Just keep telling yourself...one more cast!