Colburn's Sabine Connection

Little better bite today!

After another slow scouting trip Saturday morning I did my best to talk Mark Lambert into rescheduling today's trip for the second time to no avail.  As it turned out, it was now or never as his son was about to start football and they had run out of summer.

Not surprisingly, the wind was blowing early, but I made a short loop through the lake at daylight  anyway with low expectations and found exactly what I have been finding of late....nothing.   We came back in the river and caught some pretty nice trout before things got too crowded.  For some reason that I cannot explain I decided to give the lake another shot only to find the ladyfish at least chasing shad and an occasional shrimp.

Much to our delight we eventually found ourselves in the company of not only some very solid trout, but slot reds as well.  I have no doubt that the wind will blow this bite out tomorrow, but it was fun while it lasted and it was nice to know that there are still some trout in the lake.  I have great confidence in the VuDu Shrimp, but these fish were in no mood to eat anything that resembled a shrimp and believe me...we gave it a fair shake.

We caught everything on Usual Suspects and Hoginars.  The ladyfish would not leave any color tail alone long enough for a trout or redfish to chase it down.  The gafftop and ladyfish would not leave the Vudu alone either!

Had we had a better tide change early I think the river bite would have been out of sight.  The fish were shallower than they had been and they were chasing schools of shad and mullet down the bank until the tide just all but quit moving.  Most of those fish were in the 18 to 20 inch class.

If the wind is blowing tomorrow morning we'll just go back to the river and cuss our bad luck! 

I've had enough southwest wind!

The past couple of days have just been super tough on me mostly due to a stiff south-southwest wind that is already howling at daylight.  We caught only a few, but some very nice trout in the ICW yesterday after spending most of our time scratching a few solid flounder out of the bayous.  The water has gotten a little fresher, but the clarity is still better than average.

We caught our largest trout, as a matter of fact our only trout, vertically jigging a DieDapper and a Maniac Mullet in 18 feet of water on an incoming tide.  Even with all of the available bait the trout were long and skinny.  Two of the fish were over 27-inches, but barely made the 6-pound mark.  That is very unusual on Sabine or Calcasieu.  The fish in the 18 to 20 inch range were very healthy so it may just be a case of catching a few post spawn trout.

We caught our flounder on pumpkin-chartreuse Sea Shads sprayed with Bang garlic scent and Gulp curly tail mullets rigged on quarter ounce heads.  The size of the flounder was really good, but there was a lot of casting between strikes.  We never caught the first redfish, but I did talk with two other groups that limited on slot reds fishing Willow and Bridge Bayou up in the Game Reserve.

The wind is predicted to blow out of the same direction for the next couple of days so I don't expect the bite to get any easier.  I can't recall canceling very many trips over the years in July due to the wind, but most of my clients prefer catching over fishing and vertical jigging is not an easy program.

I tend to lean toward the "show me" side on anything new, but after casting into and against the wind for a week I agree that Power Pro Slick casts and handles better (as in backlashes are easier to get out) than the original Power Pro.  I don't know that it is any stronger or thinner, but it definitely casts lighter baits further and that alone is good enough for me.

Lightning a problem past few afternoons, but bite is still improving.

Saturday was pretty much more of the same for us.  We didn't really take advantage of the early morning topwater bite, but we fished enough shcools of surfacing shad to put together a decent box of 16 to 20 inch trout.  We did catch three very nice trout as well with Cindy Malone beating the men folk with a 27-inch fish that ate her Vudu shrimp under a cork.

With the exception of Cindy's fish, the better trout came off the shallow shell.  Cindy caught her's right out in the middle of no where.  We still aren't seeing any schools of redfish in the lake in the mornings, but Brian Sandow said he ran into two schools late Friday evening.  So far, the runoff from the daily rains hasn't changed the bite much.

The Triangle Tail Chasers posted some good numbers Saturday and their catches include trout, reds, and flounder.  Don't forget the Cops Helping Kids Tournament coming up this weekend.  The Captain's Banquet will kick off at 7:00 pm Friday night at the Bowers Civic Center located on Hwy. 73 in Pt. Arthur. The unreal steaks aside, that is a fun evening with auctions, raffles, etc. and you can buy a ticket to only that portion of the weekend event even if you can't fish the following day.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Association and all of the volunteers and sponsors cut no corners in making this a very special tournament that has grown every year.  The monies raised all go to children's charities in the area.  For more information or to sign up you can call Tony Viator at 409-284-7934.

Little less wind and better bite

The weather has been much more user-friendly the past two days, the water clarity is great and we have enjoyed good tide changes.  The bite hasn't been out of sight by any means, but it has improved each day.  We haven't caught any reds, but much better numbers of smaller trout.  Outside of two very good trout that we caught in the ICW, most of the keeper fish have been in the 17 to 22-inch class.

Aaron and Doug fished with me Wednesday and we caught trout on a little bit of everything.  Aaron got hot with a Cork and Vudu shrimp and not only caught most of the fish, but the largest of the day as well.  Yesterday Keith and George fished with me and we caught fish early on topwaters and the rest of the day on a Vudu under a cork and a Usual Suspect Swim Bait.  I had been doing better with a clown colored Spook, but George and Keith went through twice as many fish with the smaller She Dog.

We found the topwater fish drifting over scattered shell in 5 to 6 feet of water.  There is a ton of shad in the open lake and we finally saw a few shrimp skipping  across the surface Thursday.  If you are a live bait fisherman I would not stray far from the ICW or the Sabine river.  The water is incredibly clear and the largest fish we have caught on Swim Baits and Maniac Mullets have come out of that deeper water.

They have a couple of tournaments scheduled for Saturday so the crowd could be a little larger, but the next two weekends will get really crowded with the Cops For Kids event on the 27th and the OCARC event on Aug. 2nd and 3rd.

S-L-O-W for me!

For those of you that I haven't called back.... it is not because I have forgotten about you.  I just can't get the trout or redfish to commit to the same pattern two days in a row right now. 

We only got in three days last week and for the most part we really worked for our fish each day.  I just can't make myself bale out on the north end and run to the jetties where the bite has been much more consistent.  Just about the time I think I have finally figured them out on the north end they either move or just will not bite. 

I spent the past week fishing the mornings and driving to Houston every evening for All Star games, but that all mercifully ended Friday night and it is all about fishing and football closer to home now.  If you are headed this way the wiser move is to fish the jetties and ship channel right now, but that isn't my bag.  I have canceled a lot of trips recently, but I just don't care much for fishing the jetties.

There are massive schools of shad all over the lake and the gafftop and lady fish are chasing them, but the trout and reds are hunting their next meal elsewhere.  The marsh ponds and bayous are full of shrimp right now and I think that is our biggest problem.  As soon as I have two good days in a row I'll let you know!

Live bait for most consistent bite

The bite has improved over the past few days, especially for the live bait fishermen fishing the ICW..  The bait of choice has been finger mullet and shad and even the smaller shad are working just fine.  We haven't seen a lot of bird activity in the lake, but the shad are out there as well and the gafftop are right behind them along with the trout.

We have just started catching small ladyfish so look for the reds to start doing their thing in the open lake as well.  We caught some solid trout and a a few flounder fishing Swim Baits and plastics under a cork Wednesday and Thursday.  Most of those fish were either in the ICW or up on the flats within a hundred yards of the deeper water.

We are catching very decent trout up to maybe five pounds, but the numbers have been good on fish in the 17 to 20 inch class.  There have been, however, some very good trout caught this week.  I know of one 27-inch fish caught on a Super Spook and released and two other that were over seven pounds that were caught on finger mullet and wound up getting fried Friday night.

The water in the lake looks pretty darned good, but he water in the ICW and ship channel looks even better.  Be careful when netting a trout right now as we have already had two close calls with sharks that followed the fish all the way to the net.  They are all great whites as far as I am concerned, but they were 3 to 4 feet in length and had teeth.