Robert Sloan's archive

Robert Sloan Outdoors: You never know where you're going to find a game warden

Robert Sloan photo

One of the wackiest things I’ve ever seen a game warden do was to crawl up a tree so he could see where three young squirrel hunters were heading after a successful hunt. Those hunters were two buddies and me. We were around 12 years old at the time. We had bagged five big fox squirrels on family land in Polk County not far from Lake Livingston. We saw the game warden coming down the tree. As we stood there in complete disbelief, he asks to see our squirrels, and we pulled them out of our game bags and couldn’t have been happier.

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Cranks, spinnerbaits best for Sam Rayburn bass

Robert Sloan photo

Once again, we’ve got a cold front plowing through Southeast Texas, and the high winds and cold air will slow fishing down on inland lakes and coastal bays. This is unprecedented weather for the right side of Texas. Temperatures in the upper 30s and lower 40s are practically unheard of the Piney Woods at this time of year. Needless to say, we’ve had a colder winter than usual, and the spring temps are way lower than normal.

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TPWD reduces trout limits along the middle Texas coast

As of Sunday, March 30, the water temperature on Sabine Lake was 67 degrees. That’s still a little cool for this time of year, but it didn’t slow the numbers of trout, reds and flounder being caught along the Louisiana shoreline in 2 to 4 feet of water. It looks like we’re in for a warming trend this week. If so that could be the rise in water temperatures that’ll turn on the topwater bite for anglers looking for double-digit trout.

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Ableson, Prye win big trout contest on Sabine and Calcasieu lakes

Trey Prye used a floating Fat Boy lure to catch this 7.13-pound trout while fish

Cold fronts continue to make trout fishing extremely tough to figure out on Sabine Lake. However, a few anglers willing to grind it out are finding heavy trout on both Sabine and Calcasieu. During the Dailey’s Hunt N Fish big trout contest held on both Sabine and Calcasieu lakes last Sunday, March 23, the heaviest trout came from Louisiana.

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Big trout are good on Sabine Lake

Charles Shelton

The water temperature is right around the mid-50s on Sabine Lake, but that has not affected the catches of trout and reds so far this winter. In fact, regardless of how many late-winter fronts Old Man Winter sends our way, fishing in East and Southeast Texas has been pretty darned good. For example, there was a 10-pound trout caught on Sabine Lake last week.

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