The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

What a week!Depending on where you live in the Orange area, Laura was rated somewhere between a minor inconvenience and a disaster.Having lost part of the roof, two bedrooms, a bathroom and the garage, it has been a tad more than an inconvenience for us thus far.

Without sounding too Pollyanna, it could have been far worse as we narrowly averted a direct hit.I have friends in Creole, Cameron, Hackberry, Sulphur and Lake Charles that lost their entire residences.

As far as the fishing is concerned, the dreaded record tidal surge did not materialize and the flooding was not as devastating as predicted.When all was said and done the fishing actually improved, but taking advantage of that could earn you a divorce at this stage of recovery!

Larry Sargent, not unlike a lot of other local anglers that can’t even get their boats out of the driveway due to the debris piled on the side of the road, told me Friday that at the very least his bass boat won’t get stolen while out of service.“The garage collapsed on it and I can’t see anything, but the tongue of the trailer.”

If you rank among those that were little more than inconvenienced and don’t feel obliged to spending your free time helping others that were,

you will be pleased to know that the catching on Sabine Lake apparently only improved this past week.According to the folks I talked with, there

was even more schooling activity and larger groups of terns and gulls working the north end of the lake.

I personally have no problem with a friend heading to the lake while I am dragging limbs off the roof, but because that irks some folks, I will

not mention the names of the few active fishermen I have talked with this week.

The shad hatch is getting even stronger and the shoreline all the way from Willow to Blue Buck has been good for redfish in the mornings.There

have been enough small schools running the banks to prevent everyone targeting one small area.

I usually throw a Usual Suspect or weedless spoon to these fish, but they have been catching a lot of 21 to 26-inch redfish on bone topwaters

like the She Dog and Skitterwalk.A single spin spinner bait with a small Colorado blade and Gulp trailer have also been effective when the

redfish are not pushing a wake.

The mouth of East Pass continues to cough up limits of small keeper trout as well as redfish, but that area generally draws a crowd. I received a text and pictures from one angler that kept five trout between two and four pounds and three upper slot reds while no one else around him was catching keeper size fish.

He said the whole game changed when he switched out a four inch tail he was fishing under a cork for a larger glow-chartreuse Diedapper.He was

rigging it on a 4/0 worm hook rather than a jig head and reported that the smaller fish just left it alone.

Sharing that change in tactics was appreciated and could help local fishermen.He is from Nacogdoches and won’t be back until December.Not

many fishermen would have shared that adjustment!

Two reports were important, but had nothing to do with the catching. One angler lost a lower unit on his 250 hp Yamaha to a timber floating just

beneath the surface in Cow Bayou and another tore a hole in the hull of his bay boat when he hit a section of partially submerged fencing.Slow

down, keep an eye out for this dangerous debris and move it or mark it when possible.

Let’s hope we can get everyone back in their homes and fishing by the end of the month!