Saltwater

School Trout in Sabine Lake

Spoons are a highly underrated lure for catching speckled trout. They are easy to cast and can cover much water in quick fashion.

Capt. Bill Watkins (www.fishsabinelake.com) reports that Sabine Lake have mostly the smaller school trout in the lake, 12-16 inch fish. There is a little bit of school activity going on. The shrimp are still in the marsh; most have not migrated out yet.

“We had high water because of the hurricane that pushed the tides up over normal, and they really haven’t receded to normal levels yet,” said Watkins. “Along with the shrimp back there, there are a lot of fish also back there.

Watkins continues: “The flounder are still mostly in the marsh, or in the middle of the lake. When they come up on the shore, the fishing becomes pretty dramatic

The redfish schools are awesome. We have some schooling reds that are mostly middle to upper slot size. Some of the schools have up to 300 fish in a school.

Most everything is eating small menhaden or pogy, or what a lot of people would call shad. A few shrimp, few mullet, but we’re right on the edge of the fall transition when everything starts feeding on the shrimp, when they come out of the ditches and bayous.

We’ve seen a little bit of bird action. Mostly that’s been over ladyfish or skipjack, but the ladyfish are slowly leaving the system. When they’re gone it’s just going to be the birds over the trout and the reds.

It’s pretty well a normal pattern for late summer. We still have trout on the short rigs in the Gulf and on the jetty; there are a lot of big reds on the jetty. That’s normal for this time of the year as well.”

He uses only artificial, mostly throwing soft plastics and some topwaters, probably a MirOlure Lil John. “That is one of the best school trout/redfish lures you can throw.” His favorite colors are white/glow chartreuse, red and gold flake/chartreuse tail, and chartreuse gold. If the water gets real clear he likes to throw Ice or Chartreuse Ice.

Story by Tom Behrens