Colburn's Sabine Connection

Beautiful day and the fish cooperated!

It was a cold early morning boat ride yesterday, but we could not have asked for better weather conditions.The vast majority of the lake is as clear as you will ever find it making it a little difficult to sneak up on fish on the shallow flats.  Long casts and no banging around are a must.  The only folks I talked with that didn't like the weather were the duck hunters, but the water is till high and clear in the marshes and it really has the ducks scattered.

We could have fished the birds all day long, but there were other bites going on that produced larger trout.  The water was 58.5 degrees at daylight and only 2 degrees warmer at noon. We stayed with tails only because they produced more bites and we were only fishing a few hours.  We went through a lot of fish with most of our keepers ranging from 2 to 4 pounds.

The redfish never managed to find us and that was a change.  That bite, however, has been more consistent for me in the afternoons. We had no reason to fish with any other colors than bone diamond and plum chartreuse.  I apparently haven't been fishing the Lil John enough lately, but it worked well yesterday.  I did talk with two other groups that did find the redfish and bass as well fishing the marsh drains and back lakes.

Make sure you know if the water you have been fishing prior to duck season is leased before you just pile in there.  A great deal of it is and you may learn that the hard way.  If you look up only to see decoys on the water you are in the wrong place!

Decent bite ahead of front.

We squeezed one in just ahead of the front Friday morning, but were forced to bale early and cancel Saturday as well due to to the gale force south winds.  Before the wind picked up, we found several groups of birds working over pretty decent specks and sand trout.  Had it not taken me so long to figure out what the fish were doing, we could have easily finished with an even better box of fish.

Most of the fish were in 2 to 5 feet of water  chasing small shad.  Plum-chartreuse proved to be the color of the day and fishing it on a lighter head made a world of difference.  We tend to stick with a quarter ounce head when working school trout in order to make longer casts and stay off the school, but these fish were into a much slower fall.

The wind turned around and blew equally hard out of the north last night, but it has died down this morning.  Water clarity continues to be good and the surface temperature was in the mid-60's.  I talked with two friends that waded the same morning and they caught nine trout up to four pounds on Mirrodine XL's.  Surprisingly enough, they didn't catch the first fish on a Fat Boy or a topwater.

That means there won't be any left by the time I can get back over to Outcast Tackle.  I haven't tried the new larger version, but it looks good.

Good-bad-good, but at least it is a bite!

I am currently on a "good day-bad-day-good day" schedule and it has had nothing to do with the weather.  The wind has made it a little tougher some days, but that doesn't explain the inconsistent bite.  My biggest problem is that I have been relying  on small flocks of birds to at least give me a place to start and they are bad about taking a day off.

The water clarity is great and the surface temp is holding around the 67 degree mark.  Aside from the fact that they are biting at all, the biggest improvement has been that a lot of the trout under the gulls are keepers and most of the reds are in the slot.  There has been no wrong bait to throw at the reds, but our better trout are eating topwaters and five inch tails.  When the gulls won't work we are grinding out a few fish drifting the flats in 3 to 5 feet of water.

The bottom line is that the bite is improving, but you absolutely have to be in the right place at the right time and that changes every day....sometimes hour to hour.  We do not expect the birds to hold very long and they don't.  You need to get there quickly and hang around after they leave.  The flounder bite has also been steadily improving for the folks fishing the ship channel south of the causeway.

 

Better than expected

Had Mike Alexander heeded my advice and cancelled yesterday, he and Larry and I would have missed a surprisingly decent trip.  The forecast was for wind just as hard as the previous day and that was too much.  They got it right for the latter part of the day, but they missed it early and we found birds working over solid trout and over sized redfish right off the bat

When that bite ended we ran further south and beat the banks for the remainder if the morning. We picked up a few more keeper trout, but never found the redfish and I don't know why.  The water from Three bayous to Greens was in great shape and we never found any water with less than a foot of visibility anywhere.  A week ago the fish were chasing some very nice white shrimp, but the shrimp they were chasing yesterday were small.

We caught our fish on Usual Suspects and four inch paddle tails.  Business to take care of today, but we will be back on the water Wednesday ahead of the front. 

Looking at a bumpy ride tomorrow!

We ran out just long enough to check out a  friend's new prop and make a few casts in the process, but the wind was howling and the nearest water we wanted to fish was really dirty.  It won't take much for it to settle back out and i hope the little front headed our way mid-week will do that.  We are going to give it a shot tomorrow, but I don't like our chances with a wind that is not only howling, but blowing in the wrong direction for us as well.

if something surprisingly good takes place I'll let you know.  The prop did not work out, but he was already getting 70 mph with his old prop so who really cares!

Reds kept us busy!

I fished with Doug Patterson yesterday morning and the conditions could not have been more fisherman-friendly.  We fished an outgoing tide all morning long.   I really don't know that it had much effect on the bite, but the further south we ran the dirtier the water.  It was also more off colored on the west side of the lake.

We found some  slot reds under the birds, but for the most part we fished only the reds that we could see plowing down the shoreline.  They were all full of small shrimp and small perch as well.  When you have bream in the mid-lake area the salinity is still a tad low!

Five inch tails and Usual Suspects were basically all we threw at them.  Bone diamond and plum-chartreuse were our best colors. We found small groups of terns working all morning under overcast skies, but most of the fish under them were small trout. I don't think this rain will be enough to slow down what has been a steadily improving bite.

If it is going to rain all day I am going to run over to Outcast Tackle in Groves and talk to Steve about the flounder fishing.  We have been doing some things a little differently that have produced larger flounder and he has ordered just what we needed.  He has also shared some tips with us that have worked well for him.  If I can only keep two flounder this month I want them to be quality fish!