Whether this makes any difference to anyone's thinking or not I don't know but here it is.

I went to my slip at Twin Coves, Grapevine Lake, this morning (Wednesday) to look for my glasses in my boat (Don't ask!) and I took some old bread with me to feed the ducks. I was on the entrance ramp doing just that when a torpedo took the ducks out and sent them into hiding on the bank. Yep! The carp are back. It lifted an old hen mallard clear out of the water when it hit her! Kinda scared me, too, until I figured out what it was. That was the first I had seen of them since November. Nothing really very big, yet. Most were probably 5-8 pounds. They were as aggressive going after the bread as I have ever seen them. Maybe they just like Mrs. Bairds Honey Wheat bread! (Can you make boilies out of that? )

If there are any crappie fishermen reading this here is another bit of easy experience for you. Normally when the carp show up at the marinas the crappie are either already spawning or they start within the week. I will go looking this weekend.

There is one more thing that comes soon after the carp......SNAKES! I don't look forward to that at all. Be careful this weekend.

Another thing. I saw a HUGE something surface right outside my slip. I didn't get a real good look at it but my first impression was buffalo. The body was way to thick to be a gar and the color just didn't seem right for a carp. Maybe a drum, most likely a buffalo. Whatever it was it was big. A conservative guess? 25-30 pounds. This was in about 18-21 feet of water.

As active as all of the fish were I should have gone fishing. Too tired!

Kevin

Thanks for the report Kevin. I'll have a go on Friday. Headed to Houston for the weekend so I won't be able to make the fish-in.

Thanks Kevin for the heads-up,TFF is great!Like having another pair of eyes out there(although visually inept )Hope you find your glasses!!

I remember a couple of years ago there where 3 koi that hung out at the marina I wonder if they are still around?

There was still one Koi hanging out around the marina last year Zack. A pretty golden one. That was the only one I remember seeing, but that doesn't mean the others aren't still around.

Kevin - Sounds like it probably was a buffalo! What color did it look? I know it can be hard to tell through the water. You oughta start chumming the area around your boat slip every day, or at least every time you're out there. Get some of those really big carp/buffs used to coming in there to feed, THEN fish it!

SNAKES..............That's me then....

Thanks for the report Kevin. Im kinda new in this forum... and wanting to take my sons for carp fishing. As for snakes, as long as they are not big, I can handle it... hehehe

Joe

Zack, as Starless said, I only saw 1 Koi there all last year. It was a big one, too. And, yes, I have watched you fish. You were the guy that explained all of that European rod & reel and tackle stuff to me last spring. You had three 14 foot rods with huge spinning reels setup on a rod holder with strike indicators mounted. You had some parachute type things that you filled with corn before casting. They turned upside down when they hit the water to chum around the hook. You also showed me how far you could cast one of those things. You almost hit the bouy on the other side of the cove. I can see most of the cliffs from my slip. Sometimes I sit over there and watch you guys while I am crappie fishing. (I almost always have binoculars handy. There are women out there, you know? ) I've never seen anyone reeling anything in. (I think I did see Donny catch a big buffalo last fall. Someone was whooping and hollering which got my attention. I didn't have my binos handy.)

Starless, it was a grayish-brown color. It had a really thick and wide body. It also had that point on the front of the dorsal fin. It almost had to be a buffalo. My slip is currently 21 feet deep. It is 27-28 feet at normal pool. It's one of the deeper ones at Twin Coves. Makes it great for crappie but isn't that a little deep for carp or buffalo? If it's not, I'll start chumming it. If nothing else that keeps the fish close to the cliffs for you guys. I'm on vacation next week and will be going to Lewisville Feed & Supply to get some range cubes and milo, anyway.

I wonder how much luck I would have landing a 20 pound carp or 30 pound buffalo with all of the cr&p that I have in my slip? Not to mention the neighboring slips. A 5 pound catfish is almost impossible unless it is on one of my heavier rigs. There's the boat, the lift, all of the air hoses going from the motor to the lift, a couple of crappie condos hanging 15-20 feet down and normally a chum bag for crappie and a chum bucket for catfish. I sure couldn't "play it". I'd have to horse it in!

Kevin

Grey-brown? Yeah, probably real big buffalo then. Sweet.

20-30 feet can be a bit deep for carp and buffalo, but they've been caught at that depth before. They'll come up shallower in the spring and summer, especially the carp. I think buffs prefer deeper water while carp prefer a little bit shallower. But they will go that deep now and then, especially when they're looking for food. If the scent of chum drew them in they'd find it, and if they could keep finding food there, they'd come back too.

The more you chummed it before you fished it the more used to it they'd get.

Horsing carp and buffs is generally a bad idea. Not only are they very strong fish, but they have very soft mouths, and hooks can easily be pulled out. Though it does sound like it would be a little bit tough to get them to the surface and into netting range without them getting tangled into something.

Sounds like a fun challenge though!

Oh yeah thats right Kevin forgive me! I am sure you could land one in your slip....I have heard from several people that some one caught a 52 out of there boat slip over there