Went out yesterday to graph, chase the green fish, walk some banks, metal detect, and play with the Sandbass. I cannot stress enough about wearing the right gear. I wear quick dry hooded shirts, quick dry pants, (all light colors). Just wearing a dark colored hat will ruin your day. The head is the best radiator your body has. I consumed 1.5 gallons of fluids from 5am-4pm and I ran out. Keeping the shirt/pants wet make it feel like it is 80 degrees.. If your not needing to take a leak, your behind the ball and will feel like you have a hangover the next day. It is very important to have something with electrolytes, as it keeps the body balanced.

For the record I threw into the mix the "Hey Bud" lure. They didn't like the chartreuse as much as the white yesterday. I will be torturing this lure in the next few months, and will be reviewing it.

A couple weeks ago me and my fishing buddy were graphing and he marked a boat on his sidescan. As I was exiting the cove at Meadomere I did some sidescan in the area out from the swim area and marked a canoe. I didn't see the john boat out deep, but I gave up and went to fish for some bass. I found tons of sandbass on the top of the drop near the main point of meadomere park early, but I drove right over them and was looking for some green fish. Bass fishing is tough right now for me. I practiced my casting before walking several miles of banks picking up trash. Water is getting really low, and you can find the old coke bottles everywhere. I found a can that has been there for a while, and will add the pic below. Did some metal detecting and was a good day with 3 rings, and some cheap earrings. Around 1pm I went to the humps I referenced last week, south west of the Crusher and caught about 30 fish (it was one every three or four casts). Fish were there but not as thick as last week. I did see a boat working in the area where "Slacklinedime" referenced but I never went that far north. When I see a boat fishing what i think is sandies I almost 100% of the time look elsewhere, to gather data and see what I can find. I checked the humps north of the crusher but it was dead. I headed back to meadomere and snagged the canoe, but it was too heavy. I tied it to the back of the boat and idled over to the swim area at meadomere, and when I was in about 5 ft I got out and wrangled the canoe to the bank. It has been in the water for a while, had zebra mussel's all on the inside lip of the canoe. Got the mud and sand out, and it had no holes. I pulled it back to the ramp, and got it on the boat for the ride home but this one is heavy. It is a solid fiberglass boat, with reinforced aluminum tubing. It almost looks like a row boat, or possibly a skiff for a high end sailboat. I wonder it if was lost in the big storm we had about 4 years ago. Pressure washed it and it's a solid little boat. This is the second canoe that I have salvaged. There is quite a few boats sunk in GV. I know of a john boat (off the end of the north side of the island near Dove), a big sailboat (near Grapevine point), a big cabin boat (behind Silver Lake), john boat on the entrance of Twin coves (by the little island), and what looks like a long rowboat 3 seater in the channel (classified info). You would need a big pontoon boat and a winch for most of these, but the large boats are there to stay. Take care all..


Pictures from yesterday.

Sidescan Canoe



Hummingbird 360 canoe



It's alive








How long do you think this beer can has been at the lake


Sandbass stacked up on the top of meadomere in the morning. I drove right over them, and didn't fish for them.

Great report. Thank you.

The rest of the story. The boat I found is made by (Rivtech drift boats LLC). Made in 1982, reached out to the only contact I could find. Don't know if they went out of business. Would be cool to find it's owner, prob a fly fishman. It's a very solid made boat.

I have another canoe that I found over 2 years ago, it's going to be sold as I couldn't find it's owner.

Upper end is stained from the high winds & clay banks. Didn't find anything on the humps. Came down and found some big ones on the humps north east of the island.

Fished for the green fish early, and it was nice out. Then I went and did some metal detecting during the hot part of the day. Around 4:30 went and checked the humps Southwest of the crusher and it was dead, went to the humps just north of the crusher and had fun. I would say 80% of the fish were just under size, but it was fun. I didn't want to go down and deal with the other boats. Stayed off the hump and would cast the jig, or other bait to the hump and drag it back. Worked better than sitting on top of them. Take care all.

Great reports as usual please keep them coming!

Fished today from 2-6. Checked Murrell park way out on the end (nothing). The humps from the island to Scott's (nada). Humps north of the crusher (a few). The long hump Southwest of the crusher and it was good. Lots of catfish, and 30% keepers in sandbass, lots of drum, and 3 cats. On the way back to meadowmere ramp I found more sandbass (50% keepers) before heading in. The screenshots below are the areas I did well.

Did some metal detecting at the swimming area at Meadomere. Picked up a little gold, and it has a date inscribed inside. This will help in finding it's owner. The apple watch is charging, hopefully I can get the owners name when it charges above 10%.

What metal director do you use? Can you recommend one to newbie? Thanks for all great reports

Great looking fish and a great gesture, sir. I hope you're able to find the owners.

I use a Garrett at gold which is 100% waterproof, I work out in the water up to my neck.

My favorite right now is the minelab equinox 800 also waterproof. Amazing machine.

For a beginner pick up a whites and spend some time with it. You will want a good pinpointer, the orange Garrett is 100%waterproof. There are allot of tricks, so spend a couple hours with someone who has been doing it for years. This will help you tremendously.
I only work volleyball courts, sandy beaches, and the such. I don't like digging in the hard tx soil.

I can pay for a unit by the end of the year easily, and usually keep 1 unit, but these two have some tasks that are specialized.

Prosise

Hey Prosise, I didn’t fish Grapevine at all this year. In fact I didn’t fish much at all. I was working on my house. A few years ago and in the past in general it has been a great Sandbass lake, so it was great for teaching my granddaughter how to fish. Did you see much in the way of schooling fish this summer? The Sandbass population seems to be down. It’s that way on Whitney too.

Schooling this summer has been slow. I think the Sandbass population is actually doing well. I think the bait situation is a factor. (I think) Two great years with the shad spawn, and the lake has almost too much bait. Fish are fat, dumb, and happy. But time will tell.

I fished this morning, and small fish were chasing bait from sunrise to 8am in Meadomere. In the 15ft-18ft depth, fish were moving fast. When the fish were not on the top, I was using a jig or a inline spinner. About 9 I did some metal detecting in the swimming area in Meadomere. Hot as Hades out there by 1pm.

The surface schooling has all but disappeared. That pattern has been almost nonexistent for about 3 years now on GV. Don't know why but they only pop up a few at a time and disappear. Gone are the half acre boils. That use to be common. At least from my observation. I want to say it's the 300% increase in wake board boats on the lake chopping up the water all day, but I really have no idea. I was out near Meadowmere a couple of weekends ago in the morning (area circled by Brent) and the whole area was full of sandies, but they were staying below the surface.

Don.t know if it has any bearing but the sand bass routine on Grapevine changed when they got rid of the Aerator.. I.ve fished Grapevine for 44yrs. In that time the fishing changed when they started the Aerator. The schooling always went counterclockwise around the lake, you could follow from point to point like clockwork. It stopped when they turned off the aerator. There were 2 Aerators 1 by the control structure and the other towards the southend of the dam.The control one was shut off due to people not staying outside the buoys around said tower..It made fishing easy and at times the boats were so thick you could walk between them. It was a great area to fish for catfish as they would wait for the shad schools to come thru and pick off the ones injured by the sand bass. Good Times.

I see sandies surface weekly but they never stay up long. Last year they would school in front of Katies woods for hours and hours. Haven't seen it this year. Sandies are doing well and I catch them all the time not trying and the spawn this year was strong in DC. There is so much bait in the lake I think they don't have to school on the surface to eat. They can just open their mouth subsurface and let them swim in LOL.

With that being said, There is an area by Katies woods that has smelled bad two times. Almost where one of the aerators were and I can go to the area and smell it and know there won't be any fish over there. I'm thinking its upwelling from a SE wind maybe. It's not turnover as its still too warm. Lake is getting really low and I think I have a couple weeks left of being able to run my trips out of Meadowmere. Zebra Mussels are everywhere on the ground also now that the water has dropped.