The much anticipated cold front that crept through the area late last week did little more than make things a little damp and windy for both the Lion’s Club Carnival and Friday night football games. Relief from a stiff north breeze while waiting on another one of Larry David’s legendary hamburgers definitely made for longer lines in front of that semi-protected area.

“How many hamburgers do you think Larry has cooked at Lion’s Club Carnivals over the years,” I asked Stan Prejean while waiting on yet another of my own.“I wouldn’t attempt a guess,” he replied, “but I’ve been eating them every year since I was ten years old and I turned fifty last week!”

The accompanying rain muddied the bayous up just enough to slow down the bass catching, but had little or no effect on Sabine Lake. Area anglers were hoping that the north wind would blow hard and long enough to lower the levels in surrounding marshes, but that did not happen.

The one bite that continues to improve is the bite under small flocks of gulls and terns.Unless you drive all the way around the lake and launch in Louisiana, however, you will be hard pressed to catch five legal trout.Having said that, the bite is still a lot of fun as it can be non-stop on a variety of lures.

The future of trout fishing in Sabine Lake remains very fragile and taking the time to release with very little handling goes a long way towards shortening the process.It’s not like you need to hurry up and make another cast as the fish are pretty much all the same size and you can catch a lot of fish from a single school.

Easily the bonus fish is still a slot red.On occasion they are the ones pushing the bait to the surface and there is nothing quite as enjoyable as suddenly finding yourself smack in the middle of red torpedoes blowing holes in the surface.The water clarity from one end of the lake is still very good, but the chances of running into schooling reds is much better in the lower half of the lake.

Once again, that could change overnight following a couple of days of howling north winds.You probably can’t do much better than to tie on a Trap or spoon when fishing these schools as you can cast them out of sight and easily control the depth of your lure.If it is pure excitement you are after, however, lob a topwater lure in the midst of all of that surface activity and hold on!

A Super Spook with the treble hooks replaced with single hooks is deadly and less difficult to remove when the fish is finally in the boat.Lure color is seldom a difference maker for this type fishing.

The real bonus over the past couple of weeks has been a much improved flounder bite.I don’t think the Cameron run has kicked into gear, but the ship channel, south of the Causeway, as well as drains and ditches in the main lake have been pretty productive.

Most of the coveted flatfish are being caught on Gulp or small soft plastics and a lot of these fish are under the fourteen inch mark.Gary Chesson blew that program up, however, when he opted for a bone colored crankbait last Wednesday and kept two flounder over five pounds!

He said that he only caught four fish while his brother caught at least a dozen on Gulp, but most of his flounder were small.“The lure I was using only runs about three feet deep and they would hit it right after I stopped my retrieve.”

We will be abiding by a two fish limit starting next month, so Gary’s approach sounds even better to me.I would also urge you to take care in releasing flounder once your two keepers are in the box.