He mentioned the Alberto knot. That is the one I use. Sometimes called the "Crazy Alberto". Its easy to tie and is small. Super strong knot. I have not broken one even when I tried. The leader will break first. It calls for 6 to 7 wraps, but you can get away with 5 if a compact knot to get through micro guides is important for your application. Trim the ends close and add a drop of super glue to really secure it and smooth out the ends so it will get through the eyes of the rod easier.

I have also used a small silver swivel about 12 inches up to join the lines. This helps with line twist and I think also may add a bit of attraction to the presentation, maybe making it look like the "shad" or "minnow" is interacting with a small bit of prey.

I did fish this morning and based on Prosise's earlier comments, headed to the island just after sunrise. I was heading to one of the marks I have on my graph but saw the birds working the shad really close to the island. Headed in their direction and caught a nice fish on the first cast. The boat was in 8 fow and I was casting towards the island initially so the fish were shallow. Good fishing for a while and the fish were mostly keeper size with a few shorts mixed in. Before long, the birds and fish moved towards the shore in front of Oak Grove Park. We followed them and it was not long before the bite dropped off. We headed off in search of Crappie so I did not check any of the other spots.

Good reports all, chores and paying the tax man today on 4 items. Hope all have a good week, keep all the reports coming in to help others. Great job to everyone making the grapevine thread a hands down exceptional thread. I really appreciate all the input, and I don't care if you are fishing (off the bank, in a kayak, canoe, or a boat) it all helps others. Hats of to you guys, year is winding down and will be good for a little longer before we wrap this one up with a bow.


Brent Prosise

Get off my spots,

I fished last Thursday night from the bank around the Walnut Grove Trailhead and had no luck. Couple of nibbles was all. Fished Saturday night from the bank at a few spots around Oak Grove and wound up with 9 keeper channel cats using chicken livers and cut bluegill. Tried catching some live bait with my cast net but didn't have any luck. Best day I've had in a really long time. I'll be back at it again Friday night. I was excited to hear the other day that Snakey Lane is finally open again. Looking forward to fishing that side of McPherson Slough again. It's been over a year.

Any reports with Crappie being the target fish ?

I found some good trees just west of dove point, just off the point that are jam packed with crappie. Strangely I have been catching smaller crappie on the brush, and the donkeys on the ledges or small drops near the brush. The smaller the brushpile, the bigger the crappie I have found hanging on it. The great big brush piles have big schools of juvenile fish doing the safety in numbers tactic. You can still pick up some decent fish off of these, but you have to be patient. If you had minnows you can clean house. WHen I am bass fishing I have been getting "whacked" by the bigger crappie on the ledges, so I will creep up to them and drop a small jig on them and pick some of these jumbo crappie.

Look over in this area. I have about 250 brush waypoints on GV, and I only share the ones I find. They are on every main lake point in the lake, and we have allot of new ones in the last 6 months. Someday I might put together a big list of GPS coordinates of about 30 good brush piles for crappie. In the meadomere area look around the no wake buoy on the east side of the creek. They are harder to find than you think with side imaging, but they jump out on livescope.

After fishing for Sand Bass yesterday, we targeted Crappie. We fished brush piles on both the North and South side of the lake. We did a little better on the North side but not great - I think we caught 10 Crappie plus a couple of Sand Bass. Jigs were more productive than minnows. We were fishing anywhere from 17 - 25 FOW. LiveScope showed that there were fish on most of the brush piles we checked but they were being finicky and I am pretty sure there were a lot of Bluegill mixed in. Size wise we caught dinks up to a 13 inch fish, a mix of black and white. We had a limited amount of time so we stuck with brush piles and did not check any drop offs etc.

It's been the worst crappie year out there that I can remember. I think I ran 2-3 trips out there in the last year that were any good. You can catch them for sure, ledges and rocks are your best bet for keepers. Brush is full of small fish and there is WAY too much brush in the lake now. Some places have 5-6 piles scattered on a single point and all that does is scatter the fish out. Minnows have been good but the small fish just grab the tail and can't get the whole minnow in their mouth. Seeing a lot of black crappie in the lake this year.. Even got a few big cross over hybrids too.

I hope next year is better and it should be as long as the lake doesn't end up 20 ft high again.

I went out Wednesday and made stops at the deep waypoints in this thread. I think it saw a bunch of catfish in those areas on my 2D and also livescope. But they didn't want my slab bait, crappie jig, or minnow.

I also fished the timber at twin coves. I thought it might be crappie there but it was bream confirmed with catches on jigs.

It was a gorgeous day and I was playing around with electronics a lot and marking brushpiles, ledges, and rock. Fish are in some transition pattern & at least i will have some structures marked that they will find later on.

Not sure when I can get back to grapevine...a couple trips planned elsewhere.

And yes that is a painter's pole. Prosise has some effective tips!

Here's a decent trick for those who like to do things cheaply

https://youtu.be/PiZ-wba8Euo?si=4Y2mwa2gO3DEE2yA

Tell us about the painters pole !

I don't recall him describing it in detail, but the design for a functioning transducer pole seemed kinda obvious once he suggested it. If you see the clip below I think that is the best way to explain it.

https://youtube.com/shorts/0VHWBDxDD3I?si=EU8UyLsbnRCwKAEZ

When I first got the livescope I tried it on the Trolling motor for one trip. I came home and built a pole to mount the livescope separate from the trolling motor. I really like to spot lock and look around. I built a livescope pole out of a painters pole, and some hardware that I had in the garage. Loved it so much better this way. There is a pole that was a made by "shut up and fish" called the pole ducer. I found one on Craigslist, and picked it up to upgrade my setup. Some may like the livescope on the trolling motor, but I do not.

Casted for the green fish from 3am to around 11, only picked up some dinks. I was mid lake so I checked the long hump south west of the crusher. No Sandbass on that long hump, but it has large schools of crappie on top of the hump. I thought they were Sandbass, until I picked up three donkey crappie. I saw several groups on that hump. You will have to go back into the thread to get the GPS coordinates. Went to the humps north of the crusher and caught quite a bit of Sandbass but it was one fish for every 3 long casts. Note: I can see them with the livescope and they still were kinda uncooperative. Worked down the lake and finished on the hump east of the island and caught 30 or so really big ones. They were on the bottom, but would not entertain a vertical presentation at all. I eased off and casted over them, with a sporadic (three cranks) and let it fall retrieve. Picked up some, but they were not active. There are so many fish in the island area, but the damn things are not active towards the bait. Anyhoo, wx was great and only one or two wake boats on the whole Lake.





Sunken boat in Scott's

The crappie on grapevine are so weird this year! Nice post Brent

Not sure when I can get out on GV again. Going catfishing closer to west fort worth