Colburn's Sabine Connection

Weather could be better, but trout bite still strong!

I took today off and possibly missed the best weather day of the week.  We fished in some horendous winds most of the week, but caught a little break with the weather Friday.  Jason, Will, and Blake took their chances with me Friday and while we never established a can't miss pattern we caught trout basically everywhere we fished and finished with a good box of trout up to four pounds.

I would guess that we caught most of the fish on a VuDu shrimp under a cork, but we caught some solid keepers on a Usual Suspect Swim bait as well.  Jason fished a color I haven't fished much, opening night-chartreuse tail, and the fish liked it!  Blake caught our largest trout on a roach Flats Minnow.  Jason also caught a red that was just a shade over 28 inches on a Swim bait that looked like it was on leave from hell.

Jason's oversized red had worse days than Friday!

You can't tell much from the picture, but both gill covers were scarred with a chunk missing and they were covered with what felt like small barnacles.  We truned it loose, but life had not been kind to that fish.  We found our trout on the revetment wall until the east wind got too bad and then ran the La. shoreline the remainder of the day.  We caught the majority of our fish in 4.5  to 5.5 feet of water which was about as far off the shoreline as you could fish without getting blown away.

I don't know if we will get as much rain as predicted for the upcoming week, but if the wind will give us a break I think we will still be okay.  The water is a little silted up in some parts of the lake, but not enough to hurt the bite.  I still think wading is the best choice for catching a big trout right now.  Tie on a big topwater or a Corky and just keep grinding away.  The big trout are still holding in shallow water!   

Flounder and reds in the grass.

We put it back on the trailer today and rescheduled due to the wind more so than the rain, but we'll get back after it tomorrow.  We gave the VuDu shrimp a rest yesterday and for the first time in a long time we targeted flounder in the bayous.  We definitely went through a mixed bag, but it was different and fun.

We caught and released 6 or 7 solid bass and kept 13 flounder and five redfish.  Believe it or not we never fished any GULP.  We went "old school" and spent the entire morning fishing a four inch smoke-blue flake tube on a 1/8th ounce head that we kept soaked down with Bang garlic scent. All of our fish came out of that first foot or two of flooded grass. When the tide slowed to a trickle the bite ended as quickly as it had started.

I talked with several friends over the course of the morning that were fishing the lake and most of them were doing well prior to the wind picking up.  There was apparently a decent topwater bite on the north end and two other groups did very well drifting the Causeway reef on trout up to six pounds.  The folks with the larger fish were working MirrOdines and Catch 2000's over the shell in 5 to 8 feet of water.

I received three emails last night concerning the light wire hook in the VuDu shrimp and they were all from folks that I know spend a lot of time on the water.  One of them said he pulled off three good trout in a row before he discovered that the hook was almost wide open.  He added that he never had that problem again once he switched to the second lure in the pack.

The other two reports were more of a concern in that they actually had hooks break  while fighting a fish.  I did have one snap while bending it back in shape, but at the same time we have caught a pile of good trout on the same lure and never had a problem.  It could simply be a quality control problem, but I will continue to take my chances as it is a fish catching son of a gun!

 

Hook not an issue with VuDu Shrimp!

Donald Long drove in from Tyler last night and was waiting at the launch when I arrived.  I was 30 minutes early so I was afraid to even ask him what time he got there.  It was his first trip in saltwater and things could not have worked out better. It was evident early on that it may have been his first time to chase trout and reds, but he has been fishing somewhere.

The weather was perfect and we drove up right in the middle of a bunch of big specks right off the bat. His second cast yielded a 5 pound plus speck, our next two trout were in the six pound class and we eventually left them biting to see if we could find him a red or a nice flounder.  We didn't find any, but we did find more solid trout up four pounds.

We caught most of our trout fishing a VuDu shrimp and a DOA shrimp under a cork.  The VuDu shrimp accounted for the majority of the fish.  After the past two trips I am not nearly as concerned about the light wire hook as we have caught several trout in the 6 tp 7 pound range and a 13 pound red and have had no problem with the hook.  Its not like we are babying them either.  All of my spinning rods are rigged with 20 pound Power Pro and a 20 pound Ande mono leader.

We never looked at anything south of Green's and the water was very decent in spite of all the wind.  The bayous are a little dirty, but we had no reason to fish them anyway. We not only caught a lot of fish, but saw a lot of fish caught as well.  All of our fish after lunch came out of four feet of water or less.  I will throw them more tomorrow than I did today, but a word to anyone headed this way,  "Don't leave home without a few Corkies in the boat!"

We were in a catch and release mode from about mid-morning on so I abandoned the sure thing to try a Corky and the trout ate it like it was the middle of February.  I was throwing a Dayglow Fatboy.  It will probably snow tomorrow, but if it doesn't and the wind stays under the 15 mph mark we should be O,K. again.  

VuDu Shrimp is the real deal, but hard to find!

Before getting into what has been a surprisingly good week considering the gale force winds everyday, this is my blanket answer to the countless emails as far as locating any of the new VuDu Shrimp in this area.  I checked Academy and it didn't appear that they were even handling them at this point.  I ran by Simon Outfitters in Orange yesterday and they still had 4 or 5 packs left.

Eric Ronning at Daley's Hunt N Fish said they are also out again, but his vendor was bringing them another order of at least 60 or so packs this evening.  Several of those packs have already been put aside for folks that have already called. Ronning added that this is the third time they have sold out in the past couple of weeks.

The folks fishing the revetments walls have bought up a large percentage of the new shrimp.  It is apparently working as well or better than the DOA Shrimp for them to even give it a try.  I would call before I drove over to Daley's as they will put what you want in a bag and have it ready for you when you arrive.  If they don't have it they will tell you and you will at least save some gas money.

A nice trout taken under a cork on another windy day!

I could not talk any of my clients into canceling one more time this week and except for the wind burn and looking at the same stretch of water for a week it turned out better than expected.  The one thing missing for me was big trout, but we made up for it somewhat with several XL flounder.  I also think that we could have done better on big trout had they wanted to wade, but that was not an option.

We caught trout, flounder and reds on Cock of the Walk Usual Suspects, VuDu Shrimp and Gulp Mullet.  It has been difficult fishing any water more than 400 yards off the La. shoreline.  Our most consistent bite was drifting the flats with the VuDu shrimp (I hope color made no difference as I only had two colors) or the Gulp under a cork.  The bonus with the new shrimp was that we broke one off in three days of fishing, but never changed one of the remaining three out the entire time.  They are realistic looking and tough!

I feel certain that I will settle on a favorite color when that bite really gets strong, but thus far I have only tried two colors and both of them worked. It seems a little early, but we also had to deal with the gafftop when drifting with the cork.  They ate a lot of Gulp, but didn't bother us nearly as badly with the shrimp. 

One of several big flounder that ate the shrimp fished under a cork drifted along one shallow point.

On the slowest day we had eight trout up to five pounds, some solid flounder and one red.  On the best day we had five reds, eighteen trout and two reds and the other trip resulted in nine trout, two reds and a couple of huge flounder. I saved a picture of the largest of the flatfish for my column in TSFM next month.  All but one flounder was caught on a cork rig.  Today's north wind may dirty things up temporarily, but the water clarity was good all week in spite of the daily southeast gales.

If the wind will let up just a little bit this next week the catching is going to be much easier.  I am tired of looking at roseau cane on the La. shoreline all day!

 

 

We almost missed a good one!

Gary Rider and I both agreed to reschedule today's trip while talking on the phone Thursday morning.  After three days of screaming south winds it was pouring down raining at the time and the wind was suddenly blowing just as hard out of the opposite direction. One second before hanging up he said, "No, what the heck...it looks like the wind is finally going to lay down so let's just take our chances." We were a heartbeat away from missing a very enjoyable day on the lake!

The weather was indeed perfect. a little cold early when Gary and his wife, Kim, arrived, but great the rest of the day.  We found a few small trout early, but the bite was slow and it was like starting all over again for me.  The fish decided to eat around 10:30 for us and while we had to move around a good bit, we enjoyed a very consistent bite on both trout and redfish.  We didn't catch any big trout, but we didn't have any problem locating 16 to 20 inch fish chasing ribbon fish and shrimp to the surface.

Kim weighed this one and put it back. It was a little too long, but there were plenty of slot fish doing their thing. 

Every time we found the reds thay were mixed in with the trout with the exception of the one time we all had one on at the same time and they were all running off in a different direction.  We stayed with Usual Suspect Swim Baits, Assassin DieDappers and TTF Flats Minnows all day.  I think we could have gotten away with a quarter ounce head, but we stayed with the slower sinking 1/ 8th ounce head.  Roach and Texas shrimp were the best colors for us.

The water dumping out of the bayous was really dirty, but most of the lake was in very good shape.  We had a weak incoming tide early and the water was still stacked up in the grass.  The surface temperature was 52 when we made our first cast and 70 when we called it a day.  This could be a very good weekend if the wind will give us a break.

 

No crowd on a Saturday?

I was dreading the crowd Saturday, but I can only assume that everyone else feared the same thing and spent the day close to the house.  There were very few boats on the water and the conditions couldn't have been better until the wind picked up around noon.  I had another one of those rare opportunities to fish with three generations of a family and this time it was the Jefferys (Bill, John and Will) from the Houston area.

We never found the first big trout, but we caught a pile of solid keepers, 2 reds and a healthy flounder.  We caught our largest trout on Usual Suspects at first light.  We had a light incoming tide and the trout were chasing small shad and finger mullet to the surface.  The flocks of gulls that were working the open lake two days prior were no where to be found, but the trout and the redfish were still hlding in the same area.

We just caught the heck out of them on Swim Baits and Killer Flats Minnows.  There were never more than a handful of gulls that showed up to take advantage of the shrimp being chased to the surface.  The water was in great shape all over the lake.  The big trout are not as stacked up as they were even a week ago, but that was just too easy to last very long.

That doesn't mean that we aren't going to see some of the biggest trout of the year over the next two months as they ease into a spawning mode.  In the mean time the bite couldn't be better...just give me a call to get in on some of it.