Colburn's Sabine Connection

S.A.L.T. Club Tuesday night

I pulled a very rare Sunday trip yesterday only because it was difficult for two brothers and their Dad to get together for a fishing trip.  A little less wind would have been nice, but it was sunny and clear and the fish cooperated enough to make it a very enjoyable day.

John said the redfish pull harder than the yellow perch up north!

We caught flounder, trout and redfish with the largest trout in the five pound class.  We spent most of our time drifting the open lake in small whitecaps so there was really no structure to target.  I say that because John caught every redfish fishing the same Diedapper everyone else was using.  Mike did miss the largest red right at the boat, however, and that only served to generate a world of ragging!

I caught 4 or 5 nice trout on a Dayglow Fatboy, but fished it very little after moving further out into the open lake.  The key for us was locating a few mullet jumping in an area and it only took two or three to find the fish.  We also found some terns working over small trout chasing very small shrimp to the surface.

I had no idea that many folks were fishing on the weekends, but it was warm and I'm sure most of them were just ready to get on the water.  The wind obviously had something to do with it, but there wasn't much parking space on the Louisiana shoreline!

I am going to speak at the S.A.L.T. Club on Pleasure Island tomorrow night at 6:00.  I enjoy the open question and answer sessions with these folks and they usually last much longer than the main topic.  We will cover what is working best from patterns to lures so come on out and catch up on what is happening on the lake right now!

Catching decent in spite of the wind

With the exception of Tuesday, the wind has dictated where we fished and that usually isn't a very good thing.  We were able to wade several different areas Tuesday, most of them on the east side of the lake and while we caught fish at nearly every stop, we never caught a trout over five pounds.  We released a respectable number of 4 to 5 pound fish, but just couldn't turn over anything larger.  The majority of our fish all week long came via the Fat Boy in 3 to 4 feet of water.

Patrick released another solid trout that ate a Corky Fat Boy.

Wednesday saw even stiffer winds pounding the open lake, but we caught better trout and more of them.  Our best trout was only a six pound fish, but I missed one of the largest trout that I have stuck in a month or so.  I don't know that I have ever had a speck run off that much line on the initial run.  We all thought it was a jack until it broke the surface.  It eventually pulled off right at the boat, but not before we got a good look at her.

Yesterday the wind blew stupid hard and I let myself get talked into fishing Calcasieu after wisely canceling a scheduled trip here on Sabine.  We kept a dozen 15 to 17-inch trout and three reds before deciding a hamburger at ten o'clock in the morning was a better option than any more fishing!

I did talk with a pair of guides before driving back that said that their big trout bite is improving daily.  I would liked to have fished West Cove, but that was not going to happen in that wind.  In looking at the guesstimation by the weather man for next week it appears that we will fish in the wind or not at all and not at all doesn' t buy much gas.

And, while on the "not fishing" subject.........I admittedly err a little too often on the cautious side, but seldom if ever do I catch fish on those days I knew I should have canceled.  Allowing clients to spend the money and take the time to drive over when I know the fishing is going to be incredibly tough is not my bag.  The "We will fish in any kind of weather" assurance over the phone is usually forgotten very quickly when the waves are breaking over your waders and catching gives way to practice casting!

So much for the mini-rant, but regardless of how much you want to fish, my best advice is to heed your prosepective guide's advice.  Losing a day's pay is bad enough for him, but losing the battle to the elements with clients is even worse.

Week of decent catching and a successful local tournament!

It's Monday morning and the mini-front that roared in yesterday morning has things really messy today.  The wind is still blowing, it is decidedly cooler and I am not sure how much more rain we are supposed to get before it blows on through.  Either way, it looks like we will be on the water again this evening.

A lot of redfish hiding out in the marsh right now!

Last week was about as user-friendly as it has been all winter.  The afternoons were short sleeve warm and the only minor inconvenience was a thick fog on a couple of mornings.  It took me all week to put together a wade bite that produced trout worth wading for, but the drift bite was pretty solid.  I was also starting to wonder where all of the redfish had gone until Chuck and I checked out a couple of ponds off the Game Reserve Friday morning.  We saw a lot of fish and caught them on both topwaters and tails under a cork in less than two feet of water.

Choice of lures hasn't been nearly as critical as simply locating mullet activity in water less than four feet deep.  We caught fish on topwaters, Corkies, Catch V's, tails and Swim Baits.  The afternoon bite has been much more consistent than the morning bite has due in part to a good incoming tide.  The water has been way out in the mornings and we haven't found nearly as much bait milling around the shorelines.

Most everyone has big trout on the brain right now, but should you find yourself catching smaller trout don't run off and leave them.  Saturday evening we caught two fish in the seven pound class mixed right in with the smaller trout that were blasting away at small shad.  The best news is that even the smaller trout have averaged 2 to 3 pounds!

Eric Roning quickly put together a team trout tournament that was fished out of the SALT Club on the Island yesterday and he got it right.  They drew 32 teams that consisted of some of the very best trout fishermen in the area, paid out all of the entry fee money and handled both the lie detector test and weigh-in very smoothly.  Aside from the untimely arrival of the front, it could not have gone better and every team was pushing for another tournament in the very near future.

Bruce Baugh and Brian Ko took home first place money.

Some very good game plans were blown away when the wind switched around to the north just before noon. but most everyone reported going through decent numbers and some very nice trout before that happened.  Calcasieu guide, Bruce Baugh, and Brian Ko drove over to Sabine and won the event with just under 16 pounds for three fish.  Bruce said they caught every fish (20 or more) on a broken back Corky and a number of the other teams did well with the same bait and topwaters.

The big trout of the day was a solid 7.13 pound fish caught by Tre Prye.  The average weight of the trout brought to the scales was a healthy 3.56 pounds. Ironically enough, in a world of 22 to 24 foot bay boats and 250 hp engines, the third place check was cashed by a team fishing out of of Kayaks.  They're not much  of a factor at blast off, but they finish well!

A word of caution if you haven't been on the water early or late recently.......don't forget the mosquito spray.

 

Not another boat!

Somewhere in between fish...go to the ball park...get ready to fish again...sleep...fish...go to the.... every day, I don't get around to filing a report every night.  We had perfect conditions Monday and while we caught solid trout everywhere we stopped...we didn't do as well as a few other folks did on big trout.  Eric, Lamar and I were committed to checking out a number of different spots for upcoming parties, however and we were able to do just that.

Lamar picked up this 4 to 5 pound trout on a DieDapper.

I think we caught trout on every thing we threw.  Most of the trout were in less than four feet of water (61 degrees) and we fished only the outgoing tide as we all had some other place we had to be in the evening.  Lamar caught a few under a cork on the VuDu shrimp, but the Die Dapper was probably the hottest bait for us.

After several minutes of "go or no go" yesterday morning, I told Steve and Jimmy Osborne that I was going in the Boat Club to take a leak and when I returned they needed to agree on something.  When I walked out, their truck was still there and they were loading tackle on the boat.  The fly in the ointment was a forecast that predicted a steady north wind of 18 to 25 with gusts of 30 and that wasn't happening at the moment.

By the time we made it to East Pass the wind had switched around and was indeed blowing at least 20 mph.  By the time we finshed a bumpy and wet ride to the west side of the lake hoping for at least a little protection it was really whistling.  I shut down the big engine threw out the drift sock and we still surfed across the flat.  Unbelievably, Jimmy imediately missed a trout and boated two more on a Diedapper.

Another nice trout fell for a hot chicken Diedapper in some serious waves!

Before I could change my own bait, Steve missed two and caught two on a Catch V, Jimmy caught two more and I caught a pair on a Fat Boy.  The following drift, that is a conservative description, we missed a few more and boxed two more solid fish.  By the time we made our third drift we were taking on spray after every wave and we gave it up.  Not surprisingly, we never saw another boat until we reached the Outfall canal on the way back.

I am done for the weekend with a wedding to attend in New Orleans, but it looks like the weather is going to be very favorable this weekend.  All of you folks that I have been backing up can expect a call this week.  I may never cancel another trip due to wind!

 

The Fishing Show is no a bad alternative!

My calendar has far more dates with X's crossing out fishing trips than days fished thanks to this lovely weather.  Thus far, this week has just been more of the same and it is drizzling and cold right now.  We have gotten enough rain this time to add to the runoff problem and they are calling for more rain by the weekend.

We did squeeze in back to back decent trips during the brief warm up late last week.  One day, believe it or not, we caught the heck out of the flounder in the ICW.  The following day they were gone, but we did well on trout and redfish in the exact same area......then came the rain and cold again.  I am going to the Houston Fishing Show today and maybe two or three more days as well depending on the weather.  It is the best show of the year and I enjoy visiting with guides and sponsors that I don't see very often tthroughout the year.

If you get over there today...look me up.  What else are you going to do in this kind of weather? When I am not off visiting I will be hanging around the Laguna Rod booth with Chris Williamson, Tommy Countz and the rest of the Laguna gang.