I have a swim on Grapevine that has become a bit of an unhealthy obsession. In 60-75 hours of bank time I have yet to catch a carp or buffalo. Why do I keep fishing it you ask?

There are carp and buffs all over. They are 20-30 feet from the bank and they are rolling and jumping consistently. This isn't spawn activity as they have been doing this at this spot for 2 months. If I bait the spot up the activity increases dramatically.

I have tried everything. Range cubes, maize, sweet corn, boilies, method, dough bait, bread, wheaties and big red, float fishing, free lining, running rigs, bolt rigs, etc. and nothing. (I have had two very solid hookups here and lost both of them to snags.)

I was there again tonight checking it out and there were some huge buffs and big carp jumping in the swim.

My only thought is that at this spot there is some abundance of a natural food source and thus they ignore everything else.

Should I just give up?

Any ideas or help is appreciated...I do not want to let this place beat me! LOL

Fish with mussel meat, or live crawfish?

Keep trying lol.

You have 2 choices. Use natural food as Justin is suggesting or get them used to something.

In Europe they bait an area for days or weeks so that the carp are used to eating it and begin to consider it safe. If you keep changing than they arent becoming familiar with it.

Tiger nuts work good in this situation because when you put a bunch in an area they stay in the area for a long time. In fact they will be only slightly digested each time they are "recycled" and the fish will think of them to be very safe and natural to eat.

Consistently bait the swim with the same thing for a period of time.

Sounds to me that your rigs maybe buried under grass, or silt?

Try a Zig Rig poped up about half way in the water column, or maybe even a running pop up on the surface.

Challenging swims like that are very addictive. I have I few that I keep going back to even though most of the time I blank, but when I catch one it sure is a great feeling!

NEVER GIVE UP ! I am with Golden Ghost, try pop ups on different length of hook lengths, say 6inch to start with, give it an hour or so if that does not work try adding a couple of inches, basically varying the height that the bait will float under the water, the idea is to get the bait just above the top of the weed,grass as the lead weight will still be lying on lake bed. good luck....

If he's fishing GV, there's definitely not a problem with Grass Or Weeds lol.

That like is all rock. Maybe getting stuck in the sand, but that's not a problem I've seen happen there before.

Yeah, and if it is on the north side of the lake, it is definitely rock. There are some sandy parts on the south side, but the north side is rocky rocky rocky.

Are you always gutting cut up when you hook a fish by snags or are you just losing the fish of the hook?

The two that I have lost both ran me into snags along the bank.

This swim is on the south western side of the lake. I know that the bottom here is a firm sandy makeup with a lot of small rocks. I have waded out into waist deep water and I didn't sink into any mud or debris. The contour is a moderate slope to a small drop into an old creek channel on the lake bed.

Two years ago when GV was in a bad drought there used to be almost no water here and where I now fish was dry land with some of those stiff shrub like bushes. Those plants are still submerged in the water and do cause some hangups and lost tackle.

I have basically started baiting now every day with range cubes and a specific boilie that I have a lot of. We will see what happens over the next week...although this rain doesn't help much.

The fish might be rubbing them selfs up on the plants or even feeding off them.

How are they jumping?
Maybe you could post pics?

Try changing the lengths of your bolt rig if you use one. Also change howmuch bait is on hair. Experimenting is the only way to achieve your goal. I would also get some packbait into the mix. Put some maize on a hair or boilie then pack your weight with some packbait. That works wonders for me.

Kinda sounds like you are fishing the Stinky Beaver swim. When I'm fishing Grapevine I swear by Strawberry Flavour'em PVA bags by PCI filled with bird seed and rabbit pellets. Those particular bags seem to work better than an unscented bag. I have my best luck combining that with a single piece of maize threaded lengthwise on a hair using a short hooklength of about 4 to 5 inches. If you get a tap or don't get a run in an hour, put on a new bag. Good luck!

It isn't the stinky beaver. I usually catch there. LOL

I got a bag of calf manna pellets yesterday to try something different in the pva. I also have some new method mix from dave to try.

thanks for everyones input and suggestions.

I bet the silt is deeper. Have you freelined? perhaps a pop up on a longer hair popped up 4 to 6 inches.

Just because they've been at it for 2 months doesn't mean they are not spawning...

Try using a zig rig. The fish might be suspended. Freelined dough bait is awesome at grapevine. I have caught more on dough then boiles or maize.

Only had about 3 hours to fish today but I managed to catch a small buff...12 pounds. Caught him on a ProLogic popup with a piece of Enterprise pop up maize for extra buoyancy.

What's interesting is I had a quick beep beep on the alarms and saw my hanger drop slightly. Then nothing. Around 10 minutes later I needed to pack up to meet my wife for dinner. I picked up the rod and went to reel it in and I felt snagged on something. I stopped for a second to swear and the 'snag' suddenly took off! This fish seems to have hooked itself 10 minutes earlier and just sat there. LOL

I thought it was a carp until I saw it since it actually fought hard. Not like the last buff I caught.

Buffs will suck it in and not realize they are hooked and sit with it. They dont get spooked like carp do.

did you get any pics?

I did a bit better yesterday: 3 buffs and 3 carp. Nothing big unfortunately. The largest buff was 13 pounds and two of the carp were 'micro carp'! I will post a pic when I get the camera back from my wife. This carp was like 8 inches long! LMAO

It seems that there is an area where the underwater brush ends. If you cast just past them you will catch...if you cast too far past them you won't catch. I had alot of missed bites and two buffs lost at the bank as well. All of the fish came on pineapple boilies with the majority of them coming off the rod with the BCT nutz milky method mix. The calf manna pellets in PVA also worked great at getting the fishes attention.

One of the carp I caught I hadn't even set the rod into the pod after casting when he grabbed the boilie and took off. I honestly though maybe some odd bass grabbed it they way it hit it after it hit the water.

I've also learned that buffs require a bit more attention to the rods then carp. 2 of the buff I caught only made a single beep, but I could see the rod tip slowly raising and lowering...I waited for a pull then was setting the hook.

Again thanks for all the tips guys.

Nice work!



Now you know why I blank so much! Them buggers are hard to hook sometimes

GG

Sounds to me that with the Buffs you could use a "mugga" type hook. I find that with fish that dont tend to bolt as soon as they know something is wrong that a Mugga hook will set with even the slightest movement sometimes which in turn triggers a run from the fish and = a better bite for you.



Worth a try i think.

I have some of them on my boilie rod... I have not got any buffs to bite, so Maybe they will work.

Isn't that the same effect that a line-aligner rig is supposed to cause?

Glad to hear you're finally catching out there Mike!