No news on fishing. Heard today about a drowning on GV which happened on Sunday around 7pm. Game wardens are out in full force as they are continuing their search for the body. Search area is huge .. Prayers for the family.

Is ferris still open? Wonder if some of the high water ramps are open.

Unfortunate about the drowning. It is almost a weekly deal out there. They were searching for someone when I was out there in May too.

Ferris is open, if you get there early parking is simple. The septic boat said Silver lake was open, but it's 20$ to launch.
(Ferris ramp) Yesterday most of the parking lot was used by the state. I got three at 4 am, and when I saw a game warden boat I was happy to finally see a warden out checking people, but he drove by me and asked how the fishing was. After two more state boats launched, I knew something was wrong. Heard a couple of reports about an incident, but both were different. FLOWER MOUND, Texas — Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) announced that the body of the man suspected of drowning in Grapevine Lake was recovered on Tuesday, July 9.

I started in the cove at Scott's Marina beating my head at the electronics fishing for the green fish. Big schools of catfish are in the very back of Scott's (mouth of Pooh creek). The whole cove is jam packed with bait. The farther back you go, the more bait you will find. Picked up several real nice catfish, if you load up this area with jugs your going to be busy. Depth is around 16-20, when you get shallower than that the fish thin out (catfish).

I've got a friend who works at Silver Lake and he said the ramp is definitely open but it's a mad house with all the ski and wake boat parking after basically 9am-10am, even with the $20 ramp fee. Plus it's a long walk up and down the hill to get to parking. I was at Silver Lake last weekend walking around the marina and there is a TON of baitfish in and around the flooded parking lots. Not just the small minnows either but decent size shad pods. Saw some big gar chasing them in the parking lot which was fun but no signs of bass or sandies.

Is that all of the Game Wardens? Dang they rolling deep. Never seen that many of them in one place.

Life jackets save lives. I wear mine all the time and I am good swimmer... Prayers to the families

*Also good tip on the catfish! Can you launch a kayak at Scotts or in that area? Or is the water so high the roads are closed off to getting near the water? Anyone know?

You can launch a kayak anywhere on the lake, just park in the correct spots. If you launch at ferris, don't park in the long trailer only parking spots. I would drive over and park in the grass across the street, or in the marina parking lot. Just drag it down and roll on..

Right on. They had totally closed Murrell so you could not even get near the water... I was wondering if they had maybe done the same over at Scotts.

Thanks amigo!

It's official. I can finally stand up and pee, I caught two overs (bass) on Grapevine. Sand Bass are working the North Bank by rockledge Park and the North Bank by the dam in the mornings. After about 10:00 you can go to rockledge. Just stay close to the bank and look for the sporadic fish feeding on the small Shad. There is a tremendous amount of bait on the North Banks, the shed are about 1/2 in Long up to 3/4 of an inch. The small bass and the sandbass are capitalizing on these giant schools of bait and you will see them on the surface. I cross paths with mr. Who I had met in the past. We had some fun on the North Bank catching sandbass. I was primarily focusing on Bass but I did have a little bit of fun with the sandbass schooling. The fish are in 5 to 7 ft of water and they're looking for those small bait on the surface so you don't have to go deep for these sandbass. I used a shallow running crank bait and did very well. Finally, Grapevine is rewarding me. I didn't go up the lake farther than morrell point and morrell point was a Ghost Town. Stay with the bait and you'll stay with the fish.

Fished today from 6:30 to 1pm. I started at the Northeast corner of the dam. I saw some bait on the graph but no sandies. Worked my way down to Rockledge Park and found sand bass there. It was steady and then they stated schooling about 15 feet from the boat up in one of the little coves directly in front of the park. Caught several before it ended then back to working for them. A few minutes later, more schooling, more catching, this time a little west of the first school. This was at a point between 2 coves but right up against the shore. After it ended I kept heading west along the bank. Just a short distance down, a large school hit the surface. This one lasted a little longer then either of the other two. After that ended, the fish were still in the area but the bite slowed down. I lost count of the number of fish I caught - which is a good problem to have.




I then tried a few other spots and I did find a few sand bass on the east side of the island but that was it. I also caught 3 catfish, 2 at Rockledge and 1 near Sand Bass Point.

I have been fishing 3 days a week every week, and the lake is making some big changes. Lake level is about 4 feet over full pool, and other ramps are opening. Katy woods deep water ramp is available, and Ferris ramp (behind Scott's Marina) was the only ramp that did not close. The lowering water is pushing all the fish back out from protection, and some really good things are surfacing.
First, we had a stellar shad spawn and we will be overloaded with bait for another year. I think this kind of hurts the bite sometimes, because the fish really do not have to do much in order to fill up their tummies. There are massive schools of small shad (3/4" to 1" long) in the mouths of the creeks, and along the north banks in certain areas. The fish are pushing the bait up into pockets, and the bait has no where to go. The Green fish bite is super shallow, and some have come in less than 1ft of water. Cloudy days are really good for the Green fish, and clear days are tougher.
Second bit of good news is that we had a really good bass spawn. I have never seen so many baby bass "ever" up in the shallows, and around the marinas. You can literally catch a hundred small bass (4"-6") long up in the marinas on a 1/8 oz rooster tail casting down the shadow areas along the backs of the boat slips. You will see small fish schooling around the marinas, and along the banks which look like sandbass. These are schools of these small bass chasing the very small shad. When the sun gets high, take the kids up to the outside edge of the marinas, and get up close to the shadows and you can slowly reel a small rooster tail down these areas, and you will be smiling very quickly. Try to stay on the west sides of the marina slips, which have the best shade. Don't be afraid to let the rooster tail go down to 10ft, or more. These fish are very small, but kids will love it.
As for sandbass, I have been catching them in the roaming schools which are targeting the smaller size shad. The north banks which are showing mud lines, or windy banks along rocky deeper banks are the best. But I also have been catching them in the backs of the marinas, which surprises me. Some of the bigger fish are in the backs of the coves roaming. I checked the humps on the lower end from Murrell park to sandbass hump and they are blank. Find the bait, and you will find the sandbass. They are not in the deeper water right now, the water temps dropped to @ 83-84 and the fish are loving it. I was in Murrell creek on Wednesday when the winds were howling, and the whole creek is stained from the exposed clay banks. This little cove is just inside the main point which runs way out into the lake. Around the no wake buoys, you will see the bait schools completely cover the graph. There are sandbass in the area, but not easy to stay on and affectively catch. As the lake gets to full pool, the majority of the brush will be out of the water and then the fishing will get interesting. Sandbass hump is stacked with catfish, take some kind of catfish bait out there and sit on the top. You will have fun catching cafish and drum (catfish are 10-16" long). I have not been up the lake, because I have been chasing the green fish. Starting last week, I began doing really well and enjoying it. It will get better as the water drops. If you can get out an hour or two before sunrise and drag a worm somewhere near a rocky bank where is meets a group of brush. I wouldn't fish on sundays if you are going to be on main lake, the wake boats are brutal. If you stay in the coves it's not so bad. Take care all, and please don't hesitate to add any small bit of information.

Forgot to mention, I found another kayak. if you know someone who lost a kayak have them get in touch with me. If they can describe the yak I would love to get it back to them.

The small bass around the marina



My fishing buddy snagged this out on a hump, how long do you think its been there?




Some of the lures found in the past 8 weeks. I have another pile in the boat.

Do you clean up those lures and reuse or get them out of harms way ??

I will clean them and when needed I will install hooks on the ones I want to put into use. I used to clean them all, and replace the hooks but it got too expensive buying good hooks. So now I just clean them, and will install hooks when I pull it out for use. I have a whole drawer full of "sometime" baits, waiting to be put into circulation. I wait until I get a big batch before doing a cleaning session. Here is an example of a batch of squarebills that I cleaned, and replaced the hooks. I typically do a big batch every spring, and late fall.

My neighbor and I fished yesterday (8/2) morning from 6:00 - 11:00. We put in at Ferris Branch and idled out. When we got to the east end of the tire wall at the end of Scott's Marina, we saw some surface activity so stopped and fished. There were a lot of sandbass there right against the shore but most were small. We had fun with them and decided to check the northeast corner of the dam to see if we could find some bigger fish. We started at the dam and worked our way down the shore. We did not see much until we got to the west end of Rockledge Park. There were sandbass there with a good mix of small and large fish. The bite was slowing down so we made the short move down to the humps in front of Murrell Park where there were small areas of schooling fish. When one stopped, another would start a few minutes later. Fishing was steady and we both put plenty of fish in the boat. Here, there were a lot of small fish, maybe a third were legal size.

After the bite slowed down, we checked the island, a point by the Glass Cactus and Sandbass Point, all were blank though we did snag an old hat which we removed from the lake. It was getting hot and we had planned to be back to the house by noon so we headed back to the ramp. On the way by, we did check the area around the tire wall at Scott's and, as expected, the sandbass were long gone.

I see that Sexy Shad and Chartreuse seem to be some of the favorite colors.

A couple of those look like mine I lost on some Big Bass or Tree-pounders

If you happen snag up an old 5600C combo near the Island, let me know, lost one trolling over there in '86.