Colburn's Sabine Connection

Sometimes I don't understand me?

Today was a little different than expected.  We picked up two specks that totaled eleven pounds in our first few casts, quickly boxed another three pound keeper and I suddenly lost confidence in what we were doing for no good reason.  I knew the bite in that area would be slow, but we had been leaving there each morning with six to ten solid keeper fish each day and we were on pace to do exactly that again.

Joe, Ricky and Zack cashed in on a brief redfish bite today.

Dreading the gap between the end of that bite and some very good schooling action in the middle of the day, I picked up the troll motor and we headed south in the open lake hoping to find an earlier bite under the birds.   The redfish mercifully went on a binge on two separate occasions and we were close enough to cash in, but the remainder of the day was a wash.

Not a bad school trout!

We had a great day in that same area Friday prior to the tournament and caught and released not only reds, but some very nice school trout as well.  Some of them came via the cork and Vudu shrimp, but most of them bit either an Assassin or Usual Suspect.  Those same fish failed to show for us today after having been money in the bank for over a week.

Some pretty good reds mixing with the larger school trout.

The only noticeable difference was that the water clarity was much worse than it has been further out into the lake.  Since we had been enjoying a very good bite in water that same color all of last week, however, that is a pretty lame excuse.  The wind never laid down either so we were also unable to locate any pods of shad to target.  A big incoming tide failed to change our luck so we gave it up around two o'clock.  Hopefully, the catching will be easier tomorrow!

Didn't get it done today after two very good days!

After two very good days of catching trout,redfish and flounder Monday and Tuesday, we suffered through a very difficult bite today.  There wasn't much difference in the weather conditions, but we just couldn't put anything together.  The water was a little more off colored further out into the lake, but it wasn't that bad and we had a very good outgoing tide to fish.  The gulls didn't show and had it not been for a couple of schools of suicidal redfish we would have burned a lot of gas and time for only a handful of trout!

Mike picked up this nice red while it still lokked like we were going to get wet!

The two previous days were a blast from the get-go in spite of the heat and it was HOT.  The ratio of keepers to throwbacks chasing shrimp under the gulls was much better than average and limiting was simply a matter of which fish you elected to keep.  The redfish were mixed in with the better trout so we had it all going on several times.  It was calm enough that you did not need any help from the birds as you could see the fish boiling the surface.

The farther south we fished the more shad we saw schooled up on the surface and both the gafftop and reds were right behind them.  I don't know that there was a best bait, but we did well with plastics in Cock of the walk and morning glory and four inch Usual Suspects. I even threw a She Dog until a small trout buried a a pair of treble hooks in my forearm.  It had been a while since that has happened and even longer that I haven't been able to pull them out with monofilament line.

It was hot Wednesday, but the catching was even hotter!

As it turned out, my clients weren't all that comfortable with that procedure and slowly tugging on the string accomplishes little more than testing your toleerance for pain .  I eventually just bit the bullet and pushed them on through with a pair of pliers.  We clipped the barbs off, pulled them back out and celebrated the primitive surgery with a few pieces of cold cantaloupe before finishing our their limits.  Life is good!

Don't forget the Cops Helping Kids Tournament this weekend.  The Captain's meeting kicks off the event Friday night at the Pt. Arthur Civic Center.  You can sign up as late as that night.  For more information call Tony Viator at 284-7934.

 

Caved in and trailered south.

After three consecutive days of burning lots of gas and grinding for small trout from Cow bayou to the Causeway (we did catch six nice flounder one trip) I caved in and we fished the ship channel south of the Causeway Thursday morning.  It rained off and on from 7:30 until we caught just enough of a break to hastily load up and avoid the worst of a never ending line of thunder storms around 1:00 pm.

The plant traffic was even worse than I remembered it being, I am sure it is a timing thing, and I still don't know how one person can safely launch on either side of the Causeway.  None of that came as a surprise, however, and in spite of a weak tide change we still had the best "catching " day that I have had in a while.  We had no desire to fish the jetties so we pretty much narrowed the playing field to fishing both sides of the ship channel from just north of the LNG terminal to Light House Cove.

The water clarity steadily improved all morning long, but the floating seaweed aborted a number of casts with a She Dog and Top Dog, Jr.  We pulled off and jumped off a lot of very solid trout with the topwaters (didn't even bring a net) before switching to a glow chartreuse Usual Suspect.  I was not disappointed that we were losing fish as it was nice just to see that many 17 to 23 inch trout!

Most of the few boats we saw were either headed to the jetties or fishing around the LNG terminal. We absolutely did nothing special to catch fish as we were basically clueless as to where to start and didn't want to run off too far in that weather.  Every fish we caught or lost came out of 2 to 5 feet of water over shell.  There apparently weren't any fish under the LNG platform as we hid from the lightning a couple of times and unsuccessfully vertically jigged to kill time.

The shark didn't manage to get the best part of this trout!

We also had a first for me when we salvaged a four pound trout that weighed about a half pound less by the time we could swing it in the boat following a shark attack.  It has been my experience that they almost always bite the body off right behind the gills, but this one hit the stomach area!

Unfortunately, it rained the rest of the day, all night and most of today and the muddy water is pouring down the bayous right now.  As much as I hate to even think such a thing, we may be fishing south or not fishing at all for the next few days.  With the Cops helping Kids tournament only a week away and the OCARC event scheduled for the following weekend we sure don't need anymore rain!

I talked with Fletcher Pipkin today and he said that you can sign up for the Cops helping Kids event right up until the night before, but signing up early would assure you of getting a gift pack as well.  The Captain's meeting and the tournament are well run, you are supporting kids that need the help, and it is a heck of a fun way to spend the weekend!

 

Lots of catching...not much keeping.

We fished long enough to get wet and frustrated by small trout.  I had pretty much given it a break the past couple of days and there were few, if any, new surprises today.  There were more gulls working than I have seen in a while, but most of them were over sand trout and small specks.  The water dumping out of the Neches was dirtier than the water in the Sabine, but there is still a lot of bait running the banks of both rivers.

There wasn't a "wrong bait" to throw under the birds as far as bites were concerned, but our better fish ate a four inch morning glory Usual Suspect Swim Bait and they wanted it retrieved just beneath the surface.  This has been a challenging summer for me thus far.  We have enjoyed a few good outings, but for the most part it has a case of burning gas bouncing back and forth between chasing birds and drifting the flats looking for the better fish.

The best tide changes have been at night the past few days and that has hurt our back up program in the river and the bayous.  We weren't catching a lot of keeper redfish, but we were staying pretty busy fishing crankbaits and a single spin spinnerbait.  Fishing at night doesn't work well when fishing with clients, but it might be best option right now!

 

High....high...high...water!

We made a quick run yesterday just to check out water clarity in the lake, Black's Bayou and the shell cut and I could not believe how high the water was even well off the lake.  We could have driven across the southeast tip of Paval Island.  We decided to pass the on the idea of even taking a look in the lake by the time we got to East Pass.  The wind was howling and aside from roseau cane stands, there was very little grass even showing on the island!

The water was lapping over the weir in Black's and there was no way to tell the small drains from the rest of the shoreline from Black's all the way to the shell cut.  Had the water had more current it you would have sworn another hurricane was nearing shore.  The water in the bayou wasn't that dirty, but at least a few fish will problably take a hit once the flooded grass starts to die.

I am always amazed at how fast flood water can recede, but any more rain and daily 15-20 mph south winds will slow down that process.  Both the Neches and the Sabine rivers are full as well and that water is headed in the same direction.  We launched at the public launch off Simmons Drive in Orange and the river was up to the top of the concrete loading piers.

When things do get a little better, watch out for the floaters as they start breaking away from the jams on the shorelines.  There were several huge logs headed south yesterday evening!