Colburn's Sabine Connection

It is game on for numbers and size!

We had another good one yesterday and we fished basically all new water.  I would have given Coffee Ground Cove a shot, but I saw another guide that works with me trying to hold off an armada so we kept moving.  We didn't see another ten boats total anywhere else in the lake.

We didn't catch the big trout that we have been catching, but I didn't expect to.  We did find lots of solid trout mixed with redfish chasing shrimp to the surface.  The water is in great shape from one end of the lake to the other.  These fish ate the Usual Suspect and a Die Dapper or Flats Mino fished under a cork or rigged on a light jig head.  The revetment wall fishermen are doing well with a DOA shrimp fished under a cork.

I believe that we are going to see some more double digit trout caught over the next two months.  Two on the same day last week was a shock, but we have caught more seven pound plus trout lately than we have in years and most of them don't appear to even be carrying eggs yet!

If you are one of my regulars and I failed to send you a heads-up I apologize.  I still have a few days open in April and it is only going to get better. 

 

The catching has been good in spite of the wind!

We fought the wind all last week only to have it finally die down on Saturday which helped me none at all.  We started playing baseball games at 8:00 that morning and finished the fifth and final game at ten that night.  That's way too much baseball for one day, especially when you are looking at a center field flag hanging limp against the pole all day.  The wind was back again yesterday.

Joe Matthews fooled this big trout fishing tails under a cork.

The good news is two-fold in that we are doing as well on flounder and redfish as we are on trout right now and a non stop miserbale wind hasn't hurt the bite.  We released  two eights and a nine pound trout last week and caught several more in the 5 to 6 pound class.  Even in the whitecaps we have caught some solid trout under a cork, but the Usual Suspect, DieDapper and Big Minno XL have still been our "go to "baits.

Paul Kessler with a nice flounder that crashed the trout catching party.

Two days in a row we found both trout and redfish under the birds on the south end of the lake and that was a little surprising.  The water clarity is still good all over the lake and we are seeing more small shrimp on the surface every day.  I have no doubt that as soon as we catch a break with the wind the revetment walls are going to light off!

Eric released an oversized red that crashed the party as well!

We also had our first really good afternoon with the crankbait last week.  We went though a pile of redfish on the little River 2 Sea Cranky M and a sexy shad Biggie.  Both of them are square bill shallow divers.  Most of the redfish were hanging around pods of juvenile baitfish that were tight against the bank on an incoming tide.  The flouner were right there with them.

There is no doubt that the larger trout are transitioning from chasing mullet to chasing shrimp and they have been more scattered out of late.  We are drifting an entire flat rather than wading one small area and it has paid off.  A drift sock and Talon makes this approach a whole lot more effective. 

 

 

Trout weren't waiting on Bassmasters to leave town.

I apologize for posting nothing over the entire past week as the trout bite was as good as I have experienced this year.  I intended to work nothing but the Bassmasters tournament all week, but it worked out where I could make both the blast offs and weigh-ins and still sandwich in trips every day.  I was too worn out to even look at the computer at night!

Jimmy put this one back after a quick picture.

We not only caught great numbers, but big fish as well all week long.  Steve Osborne easily missed the biggest trout I have personally seen this year and we have been blessed to have caught three fish over nine already.  It was a beast and an incredibly powerful fish.  The fact that we were trying to handle her in some pretty tough waves didn't help things.

One of several nice trout that Lamar released on a scouting trip.

The craziest thing about it all was that we fished in a big wind almost every day and the bite never slowed down.  I don't care to even go back and look at who fished with me on which day, but I think I started it all off with a very good scouting trip with Albert or Lamar and it only got better the rest of the week.

Steve and Jimmy Osborne kept a few fish with me on Wednesday, but for the most part every trip was catch and release.  I truly have no idea how many big fish we caught each day, but limiting on four pound plus fish would not have been a problem.  We found the trout in three different areas Wednesday and Steve decided to quit before the trout did.  That's always a good thing for a guide.

Ted Grabowski came down alone and we just hammered the fish from the get-go.  We kept no fish, but we easily released 15 to 20 trout in the 4 to 6 pound class.  Ted is a heck of a fisherman so I expect to do well and learn something new every time he comes down.  He can and does fish any and all lures, but he is exceptionally good with a cork and that day was no exception.  I would guess that all but two of the largest fish were taken under the cork.

Albert put this one back after fooling her with a Big Mino XL.

Barry and Linda also squeezed in a quick trip while down for the Bassmaster Elite Tournament and Linda caught an 8.7 trout on a gold Maniac Mullet.  She thought she was hung up as we were drifting pretty fast in the wind and the line was steadily peeling off her reel.  Barry took the rod to get it unhung and discovered that there was a fish on the other end.  They are crappie fishermen so that was a bigger pull than she is accustomed to.

Jim Franklin and Dan Thornberg of Shimano met us on the water Friday morning and it was "game on" again.  Jim is originally from this area and a super fisherman so he needed very little help in locating fish.  As a matter of fact, after doing well on the trout with us early, he ran across the lake and found the redfish working under the pelicans.

Even with all of this wind the water clarity has held up pretty well.  There are a lot of shrimp already showing up in the open lake so the trout are no longer as concentrated on the shallow flats chasing mullet as they were even a week ago.

We have been drifting the flats and open lake in deeper water with Die Dappers, Big Mino XL's and any style of GULP when hunting the reds.  We only found the reds twice last week, who would have thought that we even cared to look for them, and they were either tight to the shoreline or running the rocks on the ICW.  Thanks to one of the Bassmaster pros for the tip on the ICW.

I had to save a couple of pictures of the largest trout for TSFM, but we had lots of opportuniites to take pictures all week and that doesn't happen all that often.

Even if you prefer saltwater only, I hope that you had an opportunity to drive over and watch any one of the four Bassmaster Elite weigh-ins.  The crowds were huge even by Bassmaster standards the first two days, but wildely exceeded the most liberal of expectations the final two days.  It was packed and the pros and ESPN were both surprised and obviously pleased.  Orange guraranteed itself a shot at more major tournaments in the very near future!

Its all about bass next week!

From the time I pulled my rig into Texas Marine with a totaled lower unit to the time I picked it up again, which included a new unit shipped out of California, totaled only four days.  Thanks to Jonathan, Mary, Phil and especially Dennis for the rush job!

I lost fewer trips to that amazingly short outage than I did to the wind and final preparations for the bass pros rolling into Orange for next week's Bassmaster Elite Sabine Challenge.  They will be speaking and signing autographs all over  the area this weekend.  It has been a much anticipated event, but folks around here are just now realizing how big this thing is!

Of the few days that we could even attempt to fish due to the wind, only one of them was productive prior to yesterday's trip.  We still had a little wind to deal with, but the water clarity was much improved and for the better part of two hours it was on.  That is not unusual this time of the year and we were just pleased to be at the right place at the right time.

We didn't have a trout over four pounds, but they were all in the 3 to 4 pound range and the numers were there for a change.  We caught all of our fish on tails and a Maniac Mullet.  Outside of that two hour window we looked at a lot of water, but caught only two more trout and a redfish.

Last night at the Sabine-Neches CCA banquet (Darin Johnson and his group packed the Civic Center with a sell out crowd) I talked with two fishermen that caught fewer, but even better trout than we did in the afternoon.  They had two fish over six pounds and three others over four that they caught fishing with Corkies on the south end of the lake.

I am headed over to the Houston Fishing Show in just a minute and will spend most of my time around the Laguna Rod booth with Charis Williamson and Yommy Countz.  Look us up if you are over that way. I hope to get in a trip or two prior to Thusday (1st day of the Elite Tournament), but we will shut it down until the folowing Monday.

The Triangle Tail Chasers are hosting a tournament out of Pt. Neches Park Saturday with the captain's meeting set for tonight at Daley's on Jade Ave. in Pt. Acres.  If the wind doesn't hurt them too badly I look for some very solid catches!