I am a new member to this forum. Lake Grapevine is 2 miles from my house. Just bought a new fishing boat and $60 in Humdinger baits. I understand the following locations are good fishing but how do you fish them ie lures, colors, depths, live bait etc.

1. Meadowmere Park

2. Rock Crusher

3. Old Road Bed - Where is it located?

Are there any other locations you could recommend? Thanks for any guidance!!!!!!

Six Anthonys

1. Slow down
2. Learn to troll
3.Let your fishing partner drive the boat
4. Let your wife figure out the bill
5.NEVER spray your neighbor in the face with water cannon while he is asleep in lawn chair AGAIN!

Seriously, 6 Anthony and I have 2 boys 10 & 8 who love to fish, that is why we got the boat. We just need some help finding spots to get these 2 fishing, we aren't the most educated when it comes to fishing so he was just trying to glean some info about Grapevine and it's structures b4 I hijacked it. TYIA

It's going to take a while for you to learn what sandies look like on your graph. As well as what "active" sandies look like on your graph.

When they are on the bottom, use the slab. Either bounce it back to you or slow drag. When they are schooling, use the rattle trap or sassy shad. Let your crank baits sink a little before you start to retrieve.

Lucky for you, this time of year the birds are a dead give away. Look for the birds diving and your sure to find some fish.

Other than that, when you do find the fish, take some time to really look at your graph and study what your looking at that. It's hard to not cast out when those sandies are boiling the water but it will help you out alot in the future.

Hope some of this helps. It took me a while to get the hang of it my self.

Welcome six anthonys and Iwejun to the TFF.

Sandbass fishing on Grapevine is generally not that tough to get a grip on. Mastering it however so that you can catch fish in most scenarios during most times of the year can take more time.

You've started out with a great bait. Those Humdingers absolutely catch fish. There are three widely accepted ways to fish with the humdingers.
1 - Cast out, let it fall to bottom and bottom bounce it (like a slab) back to you.
2 - When fish are surface feeding, cast out to them and reel back with a fast retrieve with 2 second pauses. Personally, I reel about 6 cranks as fast as I can and then stop it for two seconds, reel 6 cranks and pause, etc.
3 - Count down method is for suspended fish or fish in the middle of the water column. Cast out and let it fall to a desired depth and then use a steady retrieve with short pauses.

One of those methods should get you bit.

That's after you've found the fish. The harder part for newcomers can be finding them. This time of year it will begin to get harder, yet easier at the same time.
The birds (our flying friends) will start to migrate and be gone before summer sets in. But, once summer sets in, other fisherman will park on top of fish. Look for the birds and/or look for the boats. Join in a boat show with good boat show etiquette and ask around as to what's working and how.

Your next investment should be a good GPS. These under water humps, ledges, ditches, drop offs, flats, etc are hard to find without one. Get a good GPS and when you find fish, mark them on your GPS. Sandbass will return over and over to the same locations for feeding and just hanging out (suspending).

Learning to read your electronics is best shown rather than told how to.

For that...you might consider investing in a half day trip with a guide on Grapevine.

Omar Cotter and Don Novak of Luck \'O The Irish and myself Fishy Memories could shorten your learning curve in a half day of fish catching, fast learning fun.

Hope this helps a little and good luck.

six and Iwejun,
I would strongly consider a guide to significantly shorten your learning curve and besides you can take the kids and they will catch a ton of fish and they will really be hooked.
You will learn baits, places,speed,reading charts, and fish types. We did it and it was a great investment.

Get some blue a chrome rattle traps. They were on sale at BPS for 1.99 Get a map and mark they areas you catch fish in. Until you get a gps. Then its hot already go straight to the bubbles by the dam. If fish arent there then go to north side and go to murrell we have always caught fish there.. Next get some hellbenders from academy the name brand not the tournament choice brand they come with and without hooks also get some petspoons same as above name brand stay away from tournament choice. (for these 2 items) I do use the topwater from TC. Then tie the spoon to the hellbender with about 3 foot of line best to do a search on here for the hellpet combo to get the right set up. You need trolling rods for this also. I have had very good luck with the cajon red fishing line for the trolling rod.

Grapevine is low so some of the olds spots we fished arent good this year. We trolled some spots that are out of the water now. During the right time of the year you can see fish on the graph so thick it turns the screen black this is from meadowmer to the island. Fish can be found off rockledge also. But with kids and the heat here already go to the bubbles you can see them run there. If you can throw a net then get one and get some live bait at the bubbles also.

After all this learn the way to lewisville grapevine turns into a wave machine during the summer on weekends.

Also - you may want to pickup a copy of the Texas Fishing Hot Spot (or something like that) at Barnes and Noble for 9.95. They sell them in the magazine section. It does a pretty good job of marking 8 or 10 white bass spots to try on Grapevine with GPS coordinates with one liner tips on what to fish at the location. If you join a boat show, you will see some folks catching and some wannabees. Watch the techniques and lures the catching folks are using. Depending on how aggressive the school is, how big the shad are that time of year effects lure decision and how you work it. If you hookup with Don or Jeff, they will show you these subtleties. Take a notebook and take notes, it will be information overload but well the $$ and will start getting you some return on investment on that nice new boat.

Its actually called Texas Lakes and Bays fishing atlas.

http://www.fishgame.com/tlb2005/index.htm

6,

Looks like you've got most of the bases covered with the above but I do want to add something, make sure you've got some Torpedoes and Tiny Torpedoes with you in case you catch the sandies surfacing on a calm day. There is nothing more fun.

Kevin

Thanks for all the responses, we got out on Mon. morn at McPherson Slough and the water was boilng right at the ramp. Fished for about 20 min right there b4 they moved on, didn't have much luck after that. We do have a GPS, the Lowrance H2O version and I picked up the Navionics chip since it shows Grapevine and Lewisville where as the Lowrance version doesn't at least the guy at BPS said it didn't. Still trying to figure it out and went looking for the road bed and still didn't pick it up, anyone have a GPS location? Thanks again.

Use your Navionics card to mark the two or three humps south of the Murrell shoreline (the ones east of Dyer Slough), mark the four or five largest humps around the Rock Crusher bouys, humps off Sandbass Pt, and some of the underwater points on the south side near Meadowmere. I tried the Lowrance hot spot card and I think you could download the Grapevine map but it was not very detailed. The spots above plus fishing around the Island will get you a good start on Grapevine. Good luck