RESPECT THE DUCK HUNTERS

The bad news for Sabine Lake trout fishermen was that a 1.22- pound

trout earned the first place check in the S.A.L.T. club’s monthly

tournament.The good news for Phillip Pauling was that he caught that trout!

Monthly fishing tournaments for the members are one of the many benefits

of belonging to the family oriented club.Each month they target a

different fish which keeps everyone in the hunt.The key to winning this

month’s event was simply catching a keeper trout.

Unfortunately, that pretty much sums up the dismal trout fishing in

Sabine lake over the past year.Not only are the numbers still way down,

but the size as well.

I have caught only one trout over five pounds this entire year.We were

griping the year before when we were catching only one or two fish that

size virtually every trip!

The S.A.L.T. club will host a Kids Tournament Saturday morning that is

tailored to fit even the busiest schedule.The event concludes with a

weigh-in and hotdogs at 11:00 at the Clubhouse, there is no entry fee

and the kids can fish anywhere they wish as long as they make the

weigh-in with their catch.

The winning kids in three age divisions will win money, a trophy and a

rod and reel.Kids in the 3-7 and 8-12 division can win with the largest

crab, piggy perch and red fish.The 13 to 16 year old kids can win with

the largest red, trout or flounder.

Every child that weighs in will be eligible to win the drawing for the

Grand Prize which is a Lifetime Fishing license donated by Dawn Jones of

ReMax-1!

It just refused to quit raining this past week making it a tad difficult

for even the most persistent fishermen.Aside from the crabbers we saw a

total of three other boats on the two days that we endured the steady

downfall.

In spite of the additional freshwater making its way through the lake,

we still saw porpoises in the mouth of East Pass.In fact, we saw more

porpoises than keeper trout!

The best news is that we caught a few very solid flounder each day on

three-inch Usual Suspects and four inch Sea Shads tipped with shrimp.I

prefer to add a liquid scent to my plastic tails, but a small piece of

shrimp produced strikes when nothing else would in the dirtier water.

Bone diamond was easily the most productive color for us on both the

flounder and redfish

On two previous occasions this summer, redfish just under the slot

invaded areas that had been consistently producing upper slot fish.That

was very much the case for us once again this past week as only every

fifth or sixth fish was a small keeper.Tipping with shrimp may well have

been the reason in this instance, but we couldn’t consistently get

strikes without it.

I ran into Paul LeDoux, a dedicated bass fishermen, on the river around

noon last Tuesday and he said that he had been able to find only small

bass due to the extra water with more on the way. He added that he had

been drop-shotting a finesse worm in deeper water and the sand trout and

small croakers would not leave him alone.

After hearing that, I checked a few spots before calling it a day and

each of them were holding huge schools of sand trout running anywhere

from 6 to 13-inches in length.We got a bite virtually every cast

bouncing a tandem rigged 3-inch grub off the bottom in 22 to 28 feet of

water.

I cleaned a dozen and the wife and I very much enjoyed them that

night.If you can eat them without ever freezing them I find them second

only to crappie when fried.The flesh is so tender, however, that they

are difficult to cook any other way.Great fish to park on top of with

the kids!

While a large number of duck hunters are avid fishermen as well, they

rightly become confrontational when fishermen invade their leases during

duck season.For the most part, as long as you avoid blinds and don’t

burn the grass in their ponds with outboard props, they have no problem

with you pursuing redfish and bass the other nine months of the year.

Access into the Game Reserve is denied altogether October 15^th through

March 15^th .Once the northers start blowing the water out of the

marshes they become virtually inaccessible anyway.I am more than ready

for a little sunshine and that first howling north wind!