Note : Please register to post in the forum (anonymous users can however still view messages). Already have an account click here to login. Thanks.
From Capt. Dickie Colburn
It is drizzling and cooler today, but still not bad for December. I baled out on the redfish here on Sabine only to find more redfish on Calcasieu Wednesday and Thursday, We spent the morning pinned down on a short stretch of shoreline Wednesday, but were able to fish more water yesterday.
I can assure you that even the most seasoned guides get far too much credit for their intuitive skills and fish catching ability. We usually stay a little closer to the last good bite simply because we fished the day before rather than the weekend before, but I fish with a lot of very skilled clients each year. Wednesday's trip was a perfect example of being over rated.
The two friends that I fished with from Lake Charles believe wading is reserved only for duck hunting so they dropped me off while they drifted a semi-protected shoreline for redfish. Over the course of the next hour I never got the first strike while they beat up on reds only a few hundred yards away. I couldn't even catch a redfish casting toward the shoreline and wasn't looking forward to, "That's why we don't wade."
I turned my head to block the wind and call them on my cell phone, when a 35 mph gust blew my hat off into water deeper than the top of my waders. I clipped a tail off and tied on a topwater hoping to snag the hat with one of the treble hooks. The bait was almost to the hat when it just got clobbered. The line slipped off the cap, but I won the tug of war with a nice four pound trout.
I either caught or missed a trout for the next 15 minutes casting the bone Spook to the same spot while the hat drifted towards the open lake. When John and Mark picked me up they were duly impressed with the trout on the stringer and the fact that anyone could catch a trout while standing in the water. We found the soggy hat, but I didn't bother to share my astute fish finding technique with them. So much for experience and intuition!
Yesterday, Gene, Adam and I ran back over to Big Lake hoping for a swing at a big trout ahead of the front. We drited and wade fished and never caught a trout over 3 pounds, but we caught fish all day long. We caught fish on jerk baits, Trout Killer II's rigged on 1/16th ounce heads and Assassin Shads. The two most productive colors in the tails were Texas Roach and plum-chartreuse.
We didn't keep any fish, but we were all surprised at the number of solid flounder that we caught in between countless reds and a very decent number of trout. Oddly enough, the trout bite got tougher later in the day while the reds never took a break. The water is just beautiful and it was fun watching those fish not only hit the bait, but fight just beneath the surface. We caught everything in less than 3 feet of water.
I'll be back on Sabine most of next week, but the trout bite is much easier on Big Lake right now. We didn't catch as many big redfish as we have been catching on Sabine, but the numbers are there while you wait on the next trout