Colburn's Sabine Connection

We made a short run this morning hoping that a prop would work better than anticipated.....it didn't!  When we realized that the wind may not be that bad in the lake we made a short run down the Louisiana side. The water clarity was just okay (8 to10 inches) and it was high.

We very quickly hit two stretches that are usually productive when the grass is flooded and caught and released seven redfish.  Four of them were easily slot fish.  we saw very little bait fish activity on the surface.  We caught our fish swimming an Assassin rat tail shad on a 1/8th ounce head and a four-inch space guppy Usual Suspect Swim Bait.  i also ran into two other fishermen at Chicken Express that kept six very nice reds that they caught in Bessie Heights on spinner baits.  They said the water was in good shape.

It is just crazy hot after about nine o'clock so take a lot of water with you if you hope to fish past noon!

Just too much wind to look around!

We dogged off another trip early this morning due to the wind and made trailer repair the number one priority.  I am on my third set of flimsy fenders on my tandem wheel McClain.  They are overly flexible from the day I put them on and it doesn't take long for them to to develop cracks.  Frustrating!

We were able to fish a little the first day after the unexpected downpour that flooded parts of Bridge City and Pt. Arthur and the run off hadn't made it south at that time.  We caught a few slot reds under terns, but no trout.  We still had about 8 to 10 inches of water clarity.  Since then we haven't been able to run the lake due to a steady 20 mph wind that never lets up.

I recently received an email asking me how I could continue to book clients while reporting how bad my catching has been.  The answer is, "I haven't been booking any trips at all."  When I am fishing it has either been alone or with friends that are gluttons for punishment.  I have always canceled far more trips than I should have, but all cancellations have been warranted over the past few months.

I would hope that even bad reports are still useful, but if they are only deemed credible when I am guiding and the bite is easier I will gladly discontinue them until things get better.  Right now it seems that all I am doing is scouting and burning gas.  I welcome both good and bad reports from any one that reads this blog.

I don't know!

I have been reluctant to post anything as I have had very little to report that has been good.  The lake is in much better shape and the salinity obviously is no longer a problem as I have seen porpoises in Middle Pass twice in the past week.  Every time I think I may have something going it goes to pot overnight.  Over the past two months I have scheduled a few parties only to cancel them for good reason....they would have been a waste of money if they were fishing with me!

Case in point.  This is how my last six outings on Sabine have gone.....3 trout/2 reds, 5 reds/1 trout, 0,0, 6 reds.  Tuesday i baled on Sabine and we crappie fished on Toledo Bend with Steven Johnson.  We cleaned 75 fish up to a pound and a half that we caught in a little over two hours.  The crappie catching has been red hot for the folks with multiple brush piles.  The craziest part of that trip was that we caught all but four of those fish on jigs...they wouldn't eat a minnow!

This morning marked the first time in a while that I have been rained out and it is still raining.  The wind has blown just stupid hard across the past few days which inevitably dirties up the lake for a day or two.  It seems to dirty up quicker now, but I feel pretty certain that it is due to the 62 inches of rain Harvey blessed us with.   That record glut of water washed a lot of top soil into the rivers and bayous.  We noticed the thicker layer of soft mud when we were wading back in January.

i have multiple theories as to where out trout went,but there is no doubt that a significant number of them fled Harvey due to fresh water that improved the bass fishing, but shut down the trout catching.  I haven't caught a trout 15 to 22 feet deep in the river in three years and I made a living on that bite for years!

I don't know what the connection is, but the live bait fishermen are also catching very few gafftops.  I guess they moved as well.  i will keep looking, but there is no doubt that I have a lot of figuring out to do.  There are still just enough trout around to keep our hopes up, but it is a tough bite.  If you haven't done much fishing of late you may well do better than those that have simply by fishing a different program with a different lure.