Colburn's Sabine Connection

Redfish continue to save the day!

I called in the dogs today rather than fight the wind and a cooler boat ride and at least through the front door of Daley's Hunt N Fish, it looked like it was a good decision.  We have had three very good days in a row provided you are content with catching redfish, but the trout bite has been"TOUGH" for us.

The best part of today has been the fact that Rusty and Tim unpacked another big order of Usual Suspects.  It has been almost impossible to find salt and pepper and silver shiner in the four inch version, but they've got some right now.  When folks buy 12 packs at a time, however, they go fast, but not as fast that crazy run on Swimming Images last year!

Rusty also said that they are getting a big order of Corkies in the next couple of days and more importantly, as far as I am concerned, some floating Fat Boys.  They usually don't last long as Daley's holds orders for folks that simply call the store without ever driving over.  I haven't found any floaters anywhere in the area.

We have been hunting big trout with Corkies all week, but as soon as the reds invade we are switching to tails and Usual Suspects to save our limited stash.  We had a brief window last week when the water warmed up and  even cleared up a little along the Louisiana shoreline, but it is ugly now with lots of water still rolling down the Sabine River.  The woods above Cow Creek are still flooded and we have more local rain headed our way Sunday!

Over and over and over again....!

 

We haven't even stopped to fish the bayous and all of our fish are coming out of two to four feet of water in the lake.  Coffee Ground got really ugly almost overnight, but the redfish are still doing their thing in the northeast corner.  Morning Glory Usual Suspects, red shad and morning glory Tidal Surge Split Tail Mullets and chicken on a chain Diedappers have been the best baits for us.  Even in the super dirty water we are starting to see more bait in the late afternoon hours.

...and they are all solid fish.

We caught some very nice trout last week, but only a total of nine over the past three trips.  They haven't gone anywhere, but they are difficult to locate and trick in water this dirty.  Much of the reason is lack of confidence on our part as well as impatience.

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Finally!!!!!!!

It's 11:00 a.m. and I am ticked that I am not on the water right now. Every weather forecast I looked at last night predicted 100 percent rain and flash flooding.  We certainly need neither as the catching the past two days has been lights out.  As a matter of fact, it felt especially good going to bed at night looking forward to fishing the next day for a change.

With a party scheduled for Wednesday, I called Doug Patterson to see if he would like to join me on one more scouting run on Sabine before telling my folks we would fish Big Lake instead.  In the past few trips I had all but forgotten what a trout looked like and the muddy water rushing down the river offered little encouragement.  Doug is to be commended for agreeing to even go as he lives on Cow Bayou and knew how bad the water was before ever leaving the house.

Before the day was over, much to our surpise we found some very decent water clarity and a lot of bait in several spots along the Louisiana shoreline.  The surface temperature had climbed from 42 three days earlier to 59 by the time we quit.  We caught redfish at every spot and finally, around 3:00 we started catching trout as well.

Yesterday morning was foggy and cooler, but I followed the GPS back to one of the areas we fished the day before.  I was hoping the redfish bite would hold together early as I knew the trout bite was later the day before.  The redfish were indeed there, but their first five fish were trout in the 18 to 22 inch class.  We quickly limited on reds as well and every fish they caught ate a Texas Chicken Fat Boy.

I was ready to hit the next spot when they announced they were soaking wet, cold and wanted to call it a day.  A pair of Frogg Toggs over their long sleeve T-shirts would have kept them dry in the damp fog, but it is what it is and we went in and cleaned fish.  Knowing that it was supposed to pour today and possibly screw the bite up again, I went back out to take advantage of the perfect weather and a bite that you don't get every day. I love guiding, but I am still totally eaten up with "catching".

I only caught and released three more trout on the same Fat Boy (they were good ones) before caving in and catching redfish cast after cast for the next three hours.  Brad Deslatte was on the lake as well and I called him to come over and beat on the same fish a while.

Cork...no cork...Tails...Corkies....it didn't matter on Wednesday. Hopefully rain won't back us up again!

Had we been in the same boat it may have been even more enjoyable, but visiting while power poled down, or in my case, lowering the Talon less than a cast away while catching redfish is far better than meeting up for a quick lunch.  We might have moved less than fifty yards at most three times before calling it a day.  I don't think it mattered what you fished, but we eventually switched to tails to save Corkies and the bite never slowed down.  Before we quit we even tied on a cork and experimented with different tails and they ate every color!

Its still not raining.....got my fingers crossed that it won't squat on us....think I'll run over to Daleys after lunch and maybe tomorrow as well.  For the past couple of weeks I have have enjoyed talking fishing with a number of local fishermen in these spur of the moment sessions.  Beats the heck out of cussing the weather and sitting around watching Deflate Gate on ESPN!

 

Doing Daley's starting around noon tomorrow!

I haven't posted anything lately because I have done nothing that would make you even consider going fishing.  I have fished three days since the big rain event Saturday before last and have done far more casting than catching.  The water in the lake has gotten a little muddier every day and it never warmed up due to the cloud cover and scattered showers.

I decided early in December that I was going to deal with the wind this year rather than run from it and it proved to be a surprisingly good decision for most of the month.  The big rain event and the miserably cold past few days have, however, have me re-thinking that decision.  It has just been so doggone cold. I was griping about 48 degree water earlier in the week only to see 45 degree water today!

We can still catch redfish, but we have not managaed to be in the right place at the right time to catch trout.  As cold as it has been, their feeding sprees have been very brief as they aren't going to leave deeper water to chase mullet all afternoon.  The few trout that we have tricked hit mullet imitations very lightly or it might have only felt light due to frozen fingers.

I am going to give it a break tomorrow and see if a little sunshine helps things out on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. If you get a chance, drop by Daley's Hunt N Fish in Nederland tomorrow and talk fishing with us.  We talk about everything from techniques to equipment and even hot spots.  These little unscheduled mini-seminars are a lot of fun as there is no one specific topic and no question is a dumb question.  At the very least it is warmer than standing waist deep in the water with cold rain dripping down the back of your neck!

I've already talked with a few other folks that are going to be over there as well.  We'll probably get started around noon.

  

Boat Show today.

More rain Saturday than we needed slowed a good trout bite down for us, but the redfish are still doing their thing in spite of the fresh muddy water.  There were still a few clear pockets of water on the north end, but we couldn't find the trout.  Aside from the poorer clarity we fished a lot of 46 to 48 degree water and probably fished it much too fast as our confidence level wasn't all that high!

I have decided to give it at least a couple of days as tomorrow is supposed to be really cold.  I think I will just drive over to the Houston Boat Show today and spend the afternoon at least talking about catching.  If you get over there as well look me up. I will probably be very close to the Laguna booths most of the time. My cell phone number is 409-313-3120.  See ya there! 

Perfect conditions.......lots of reds!

By the time Ohio State finally finished off what was left of the west division of the SEC last night, I didn't have much sack time left before answering the bell for today's trip.  I fished with Steve and Jimmy Osborne and we couldn't have asked for better weather conditions.  It was a little cool and the fog never burned off, but the wind was down and the fish didn't mind a little dirtier water than we have fished in a while.

Steve and Jimmy doubled up while filling their limits in the first half hour!

We caught solid slot redfish all morning long, but while it was fun, they apparently ran the trout off of two spots that had been very good for me lately.  We never caught the first big trout, but we caught some very decent fish in five feet of water and fifteen feet of water on Usual Suspects, Corkys, Maniac Mullets, Softdine XL's and Tidal Surge split tail mullets.  We even found gulls working in the fog, but caught and released only a few more redfish and two keeper trout fishing under them.

We were already well into the C&R mode by the time Jimmy stuck this nice fish.

The water wasn't as dirty as it is going to get, but it was headed that way on a strong outgoing tide that was jerking the ugly water in the river through Middle and East Pass.  The warmest water we found was just south of the Pines and it was 53.4 degrees.  I don't know that it is going to rain as hard tomorrow as they predicted, but it looks like it will get much colder once the system passes through.

Dayglow and pearl chartreuse were the best colors for us in the mullet imitations while guano continues to be a very good color for us in the split tail mullet.