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Flounder stealing the show on Sabine.

Capt. Dickie Colburn - For The Record

“I can’t believe that I let you talk me into this,” mumbled Jim Ray while climbing into the boat with a sack of soggy kolaches, his signature lukewarm diet Dr.Pepper and a pair of really smelly Frogg Toggs.“We darned sure couldn’t have white perch fished at my place today……it was already pouring when I crossed the dam.”

“Did you bring that rain suit I gave you just to prove that you haven’t lost it or thrown it away,” I asked while holding the bibs up with the tip of my rod.“They stink too bad to actually wear!”

“No…unfortunately I have been having to wear this suit too often lately and that odor is a combination of crappie guts and wet hay,” he noted as if proud of the stench.“I actually bought a new pair of Toad Skinz to wear when I visit my polite friends.”

Having fished in the wind, rain or both on three occasions over the past two weeks and caught flounder on every trip, I had suggested that we try it again when he nixed the crappie trip the previous night.The wind was already howling when we pulled away from the dock and it did look like it might rain or possibly even storm as forecasted!

Including the time spent standing waist deep in the mud and water cutting a crab trap off my prop, we were limited on 15 to 20 inch flounder in less than two hours.Cutting the entangled wire mesh loose would have gone even faster had I not dropped my side cutters in the water about half way through the job!

I initially intended to fish a stretch of canal in the Game Reserve that is protected from the wind and had been very productive.After the prop fiasco, however, Jim pointed out a narrow band of clear water in the mouth of a nearby drain on the shoreline and we decided to give it a shot before moving on.

By the time I was through cleaning the mud off my feet, he had already caught two small reds and our first keeper flounder on a quarter ounce gold spoon.I planted the Talon so that we could both reach the clearer strip of water and for the better part of the next hour we enjoyed far more catching than fishing.

The majority of the catching took place after he switched to a GULP shrimp and I tied on a three-inch Usual Suspect Swim Bait.We had fished nothing but those two lures on the most recent trips as there was no reason to further experiment.

We caught and released a few more keeper size flounder before Jim dug his rain suit out of the live well. I had stowed it in there hoping some fresh water might help a little, but it only stunk up my live well.Before I could grab mine as well, the bottom totally dropped out and we knew we were done.The best we could hope for at that point was beating the lightning on the southwest side of the lake back to the dock.

While on the subject of Frogg Toggs, I had a client at the Redfish Elite weigh-in note, “A lot of those guys are wearing the same rain gear that you do, but I’ll bet you a bowl of David’s gumbo they don’t wear it as much as you wear yours.”

It was also pointed out more than once that the visiting pros were wearing the new pilot suit.It is not only lighter than you would expect, but unbelievably dry and warmer to boot.Strictly because of the warmth factor minus any unwanted weight, I have worn mine over only a T-shirt and pair of fishing shorts to at least start every trip this spring.

I know it has to be difficult for manufacturers to determine the bang for the buck spent on advertising, but the Frogg Togg brand was well represented at the classic. Most of those same pros will be back here the last weekend in April to fish a tournament out of Pt. Arthur and I can assure you that they have one eye on all of the rain we are getting.

And, in the event that you possibly give a hoot, the 40 mph return boat ride in the driving rain washed most of the scales and dried blood off Jim’s rain gear, but none of the odor.It rode back to T-Bend in the bed of his truck!