Triangle tail chasers cap very good year

After a solid week of perfect weather, the Triangle Tail Chasers were greeted with ugly weather Saturday morning for their final event of the year. With the club championship on the line, however, a little thing like wind and driving rain was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

When all was said and done, J. Rod Broussard and Freddie Frederick posted a 24.88 pound catch to take top honors for the day. Robby Trahan and son, Justin finished second with 23.47 pounds and narrowly missed winning the club championship in the process.

Each team can weigh in two reds, two trout and two flounder. Judging by the picture I saw on a cell phone it was a pair of huge flounder that earned Broussard and Frederick the biggest check. Clyde Mordica and his son, Clyde, finished third with 17.88 pounds. They added to their winnings when the youngest Mordica won the side pot for heaviest slot red with an 8.76-pound fish.

Steven Havard and Kory Earp finished fourth with 17.12 pounds and the team of Jim Oliff and Bobby James finished in fifth place with 16.26 pounds. Three of the teams managed to fill out their six fish slams.

With the “Team of the year” championship still up for grabs going into the final event, Havard and Earp held off the Trahans by a narrow 5 point margin. Based on the best four of five tournaments, the champions finished with 402 points. The top four teams all finished with 383 points or better! Cody Livermore and Justin Morgan posted the heaviest stringer of the year in the second tournament with 27.70 pounds.

Aside from the fact that they apparently only schedule their events on bad weather days even months in advance, the club has proven to be a big hit with area bay fishermen. The past year was a huge success not only from a competitive stand point, but from a learning stand point as well. The club hosts monthly meetings that often feature guest speakers and affords the members the opportunity to share information as well.

To join up, contact Michael Braxton or Damon Silva or just look them up on Facebook. Their web site is triangletailchasers.com.

Brad Deslatte just returned from a trip to Lake Falcon and he was amazed that the rest of his group considered the trip to just be so-so. He said the lake was really low, but they just caught a bunch of nice bass for four days on crankbaits.

“They had all fished Falcon before and I think they were upset that we weren’t catching double digit bass every cast, but we did get our shots at some huge fish and that is all you can ask,” said Deslatte. “I don’t consider it to be slow when you can catch 25 bass from 5 to 7 pounds in less than two hours!”

He also said that they fished both sides of the lake with no problems at all. He added that the netters were extremely friendly and even cut their own nets to help them retrieve snagged crankbaits. He didn’t catch the bass he was looking for, but he already has plans for a return trip in the near future.

The rain finally caught up with us Saturday, but we really had a good week on Sabine before it got here. The fog was a problem each morning, but the wind never hurt us and we were able to fish all over the lake. Catching solid trout was a challenge, but we just caught the heck out of redfish every day.

You did not need any help from the gulls to catch fish. As a matter of fact, the gulls only attracted other fishermen. I feel pretty sure that all of the folks I saw taking advantage of the easy bite had their favorite lure, but we did very well all week long with a Tidal Surge Split tail in pumpkin chartreuse or glow chartreuse. Any time the bite slowed down we quickly found them again crawling a Hoginar across the bottom.

We did have one very good day on 15 to 18 inch trout for no apparent reason after catching hundreds in the 12 to 14-inch class the previous three days. We changed tactics and drifted while dredging tails across the bottom in eight feet of water. The recent light cold front could change things, but we won’t know until we go!