For those who were on the lake in the days before this recent cold front came through, can you tell me if you noticed the birds flying or shad being chased at all? it may be a bit early still, but I was wondering.

The bait is saturated in the back of the creeks right now. I actually caught sandbass chasing shad a week ago in the very back of twin coves. Have not looked in the main lake lately, been chasing the green fish exclusively. Fish are pushing bait into the creeks, and cornering them. I noticed something last week when I was fishing a spot, and when I see this I typically move out of that area. I cast back into the very back of a very shallow area, and when my bait hit the water you could see that I spooked a large school of bait. They jumped out of the water, and it looked like bait soup. I have not had that good of results in areas like this at night,, during the daytime that is another story. I will be throwing the biggest double willow spinnerbait that is made. These areas that are saturated like this at night are tough to catch fish (for me), as the fish really don't have to try hard to fill their stomach. I would say the fish are as healthy as I have ever seen them on GV (sandbass & Bass (all bass species))
When I was out with my son a couple of weeks ago, we saw seagulls pounding the water surface on the north bank (just north of the humps which are north of the crusher. Basically west north bank from twin coves). I told my son that the birds were a trap for fisherman/women. The Cormorants are migrating north and there are thousands of them on Grapevine that day. The Cormorants were working bait in groups of about 5 birds, pushing the bait upwards. This was allowing the seagulls to take part of the action, but to someone looking for sandbass it would look like schooling action. I tell people to keep some good binoculars in their boat, and observe from a distance before moving. Since we were catching fish, you never want to break the golden rule of "Never leave biting fish". We could see the cormorants pop up every now and then, so we knew what was going on. We are about a month away from the magical shad spawn, so if you have never fished during the shad spawn you need to see it. The shad spawn is triggered by water temp, so it could be earlier or later based on the coming weather. The bait will go up along the edges of the lake, and you will see what looks like them jumping out of the water. During this time you can take a spinning rod with a 1/6oz white rooster tail and cast down the bank parallel and absolutely wreck them. During this time you can fish down these banks and absolutey have the best time catching bass, sandbass, & catfish. I will add some clips of what I am talking about, but you will see catfish, carp, buffalo working the shallows eating the bait & shad eggs. The shad need some kind of organic material (wood) for the eggs to stick to. Since we had several years where the water was at full, or like last year 20ft over full we had amazing shad spawns. Sometimes I think we have too much bait, as the bass are stuffed and will not entertain my baits. But back to the question, you will see bait shallow during the nights and then the bait will move down deep (20-30) ft unless they are pushed into areas they cannot escape.


Here is a picrure of bait in scotts marina last tuesday morning, if you look at the second picture you will see that I am out very early. The bass bite at night is magical if you can dial them in.







Shad spawn videos

Prosise, thanks bud thats the information Ive been hoping to find. Ive been out at night at Grapevine a few times when white bass were schooled up and it was a blast, even from the shoreline. I think as soon as this rain clears out and temps warm up in a few days I might try my luck with a night trip.

I'm not even sure that we have seen the main push of whites up in the creeks yet. This rain the last few days should help but even with consistent rain last year it lasted about a month and a half. Very little females for me up the creeks so far. Time will tell this week I suppose.

You may be correct. All the huge sandies I caught were full of eggs on the main lake. Even the males were huge. I had some bird action, and it was right on top of us just on the north side of the rock crusher area. But there were plenty of fish all through the water column when that was happening. Will be out there Friday. I hope all has settled by then. The action was hot and heavy on those humps a week ago.

Any signs of shad spawn?

I fished Lewisville today in the shad spawn is in full effect. Nothing really eating on them where I found them. Not a Sandies or hybrid etc. in sight. Lots of turtles and snakes. Throwing a cast net right at the water's edge was a guarantee full bag of threadfins. Lasted from sunrise until about 930am.

I would have to assume that the same thing is happening on Grapevine? I'll go check next week Just wondering if anybody has been more recently.

I fished the last three days and haven't seen any shad spawn. The birds are expecting it to happen any time now

Thanks brother.

It may not show well but all the ripples paralleling the bank are threadfin doing it. I guess the Sandies are still up a creek. Not a sign of anything feeding on them other than birds and snakes.

Awesome thread.

I fished yesterday afternoon. I checked the humps both north and south of the crusher. A few schools of sandbass swam through and I was able to cast to them and caught a couple but they were moving fast. At 5:30 my son joined me and we headed out. Birds were working Murrell flats and there were schools of white bass on the graph. Fishing was good until 7:00 and then the sandies were nowhere to be found.

We caught mostly large fish with a few shorts mixed in. Most were caught on MAL lures and a few were caught on white slabs. Most sandies I've caught on Grapevine in a while.

I was out there Friday morning 7 till 12:30. We fished all the known spots, and we only put 2 legal fish in the boat plus a large 8lb channel cat by the island. We did catch a dozen small 6"/8" sandies. We threw Slabs/MAL's/humdingers. Even hit some shallow water with 3" swimbaits in case the shad spawn was on, but to no avail.
Never found a good number anywhere we went. I didn't go up into twin coves or scotts to search those areas. Great day weatherwise but the fish were hard to find.

We fished this morning from 7 to 1. From a wind perspective, it looked like it may be the best day this week. We started by checking Murrell flats and while there were fish there, no sandies. Headed to the crusher and checked the humps both north and south and found the same. Changed gears and checked a few brush piles for crappie and were able to get a couple in the cooler. Decided to head back to Murrell and we found sandies - I do not know where they were when we checked the first time. The fish were cooperative and hung around until noon. They hit MAL lures and also white and yellow slabs.




My neighbor kept a few fish for tomorrow's dinner and we threw the rest back. There was a good mix of sizes from dinks on up.

Son and myself went out early on Wednesday morning, but it was so windy that we didn't stay very long. We did find some white bass near the crusher, but very concentrated in only one area and seemed to be moving through, because as soon as we found them the wind pushed us out away, by the time we made our way back they had disappeared. Like I said we didn't stay long, so hopefully this wind will die down soon. Looks like Monday isn't supposed to be too bad as far as wind goes so we are going to give it another try then.

Tough Sleding !!

JWC, it’s not just Grapvine. Most lakes here in North Texas have fishermen who practice the 3 B’s.
Birds, Boats anchored, Boats catching fish. 🤪