Grapevine Lake 2022

This thread is for sharing information for Grapevine Lake. Please feel free to throw out any information out to help others. Please do not throw out any negative comments, and keep this a friendly positive thread. Thanks all..

Prosise

I was out with my fishing mentor yesterday chasing the green fish. About mid-day we shuttled a man from mid lake to Scotts landing, so he could drive his truck-trailer near his boat. He had motor trouble, and trying to save him some time. Birds were pounding the surface between the island and Scotts landing. About 2pm we noticed them pounding the water on the north side of the lake, ventured out and had a great time catching some sandbass. Caught allot of really big ones, and the others about keeper length. I guess they didn't get the memo about the run up the creek.. I have heard from people about fish that spawn on the main lake, and my fishing buddy said the same. I was throwing a small shad crankbait that goes to about 8ft, reeling-pause-reeling-pause. This worked really well, they would crush it when it stopped. You will need to keep up with them with the trolling motor, but we spot locked on them twice and when they moved on we went back to the green fish. I saw boats on the north side of the lake where we were for hours. The shad spawn in on right now in many areas of the lake, and also up the creek (pretty hard). But if I had to choose right now, I would go to the main lake.. I have some video and pictures, will try and get some to share. We had the hummingbird live, and we could see them hanging down in the 20ft range. I dropped a jigging spoon down to them, but they just looked at it and really didn't want it. BTW, we were out in 40ft of water. Hope this helps. Wind was light, and no cloud cover so that might have helped in the schooling activity.

Take care all.

Caught some shad spawn fish this morning on a wind blown point. Got a late start or it would have been better. Not to mention the front that blew through. The sandies I caught were fat and full of eggs. Not sure if they will go up the creek to spawn or spawn main lake. They may have just been fat from feeding on the shad as well.

Good to meet you out there today! Thanks for the tips. I did catch a few today.

Fished the dam when the sun came up, chasing the green fish. Caught about 6 chunk sandies instead of the green fish. Shad spawn is "On like Donkey Kong".


Looked for fish and birds but nothing found. Supposed to be clear tomorrow, maybe I'll get lucky. East Main point off Meadomere park is jam packed with shad. Didn't go up into the swim areas of Meadomere but i bet it's saturated. If you want to find fish, follow the bait.

Still chasing the green ghost, that's all the info i have.

Take care all...

Fished for the green fish yesterday, between stops i did some searching on the lower end. Lots of bait down in the lower deeper part of the lake. Massive bait schools playing security by numbers in the 5-15 ft range. Birds seen sitting on the water in various areas. The areas I saw birds sitting all were on the areas with concentrations of bait. No sandies seen, looked around several areas with livescope and simply amazing. We really were lucky last year when the lake went up and covered all the small brush. When it flooded, all the brush allowed us a tremendous shad spawn that loaded up the lake. Yesterday's cooler weather dropped the water temp about 2-3 degrees on the surface and i did not see any shad spawn along the banks i fished. I did a little scouting by the island, and caught some 6" sandies off the bottom in @ 15-18ft of water. Didn't find any fish, and didn't see any other fisherman out in the lake that appeared to be fishing for sandbass. Water is still lightly stained in the creeks, and some mud lines seen from the north wind. Bass fishing for me was really good, but very draining. Fished from 4:40am- 6pm with one break where i went looking for sandies. Im recovering today, and need to do some chores. Btw, I upgraded my trolling motor, and electronics batteries. Two flooded group 29 walmart , and two 55ah AGM which i used for electronics. Swapped to two 100ah lithium batteries for the TM, and one 100ah for electronics. I went with the eg4 100ah lithium. At the end of the day the lithium for the TM were on 71%, and electronics were at 69%. Truly amazing, I can run two to three trips between charging. Batteries are 550 each, and i know its high but I play hard and fish allot. If you are on the fence and thinking about lithium, it is worth it if you fish 3-4 days a week. If you fish 3-4 days a month probably not. David at "shut up and fish" in lewisville has the batteries. He is good people, and i have purchased a TM, mega 360, livescope, and batteries from him. Cash is king..


Thinking of hitting the creek today, but i have to get some rat killing done first.

Prosise thanks for sharing all this great info and posting this thread for folks to share info on fishing the Vine! Its really enjoyable to read and helpful info.

I will share as soon as I start fishing Grapevine again. I kayak fish for bass but also sandies if they come along! Sometimes I will run a couple jugs for some catfish. *I am not one of those guys that throws them out and leaves them to litter the lake or kill fish wantonly...If I am jug fishing I can see my jugs the whole time and take them when I leave an area. Anything over 8lbs is released. The rest well... blue cat make a fine dinner!

Anyways great thread! I look forward to reading it throughout the year and contributing when I can!

Thanks for your comment. There are quite a few really helpful fishermen on GV. When it comes to sandies I try to wave in anyone that is interested in catching them. I have had an interesting spring and I have not been out in weeks. I try to contribute when I can. The wind has kept me off on the days I had a chance to go. So today I have nothing to offer but thanks for the update "Prosise".

Any one been out this week? Thinking of trying it this weekend , been chasing catfish the last month or so

I was out last evening from 5 till 7:30. Lake doesn't seem to be too muddy from all the rain now. I searched from Rock Crusher area to Scotts marina (had to get some fries). Not one fish was caught. Windy cloudy evening and no birds to speak of. I did not mark many fish except out on a far west hump close to rock crusher. Still no takers.

I saw scattered birds on Tuesday, around 230pm. Some diving around the mouth of Scotts Landing marina. Livescoped the area and followed the birds for about 15 minutes. There were only 6-10 fish chasing shad, and a few scattered ones roaming. No concentrations of fish seen, at all. I fished the dam all day, and caught some sandbass on a crackbait on the north east corner right on the rocks. But I was chasing Bass, and got two smallies. Was a real treat. Have not been up the lake in a week, and haven't been near the creek. But in the next month when it really gets nice, the beach area is something to check every now and then. Lake came up a foot at least, and there is small brush in the water so this should help the shad spawn. Friend of mine caught some sandies at the very end of meadomere, but they were cruising looking for bait shallow. Find bait, and fish will be near. Bait is everywhere, so finding the fish makes it even harder. Saw a guide boat out on Tuesday, but he was moving allot so it's tough.

I was out last week and sandies were scattered. Crappie are spawning full blast

Sorry for the late response.. Fished twice this week, and some input to share.

Sunday: I totally forgot how much I dislike fishing on Sunday. The Wake boats were out, and really makes it difficult to fish with so many "Village Idiots".. I launched at Katy Woods ramp, which is a nice area to go out from. When the wind is not blowing into the area, its a good grade so you don't have to back so far down into the water. I launched at started fishing right at the ramp for bass, the smallmouth are eating a worm. I ventured out to the dam, and battled the Wake boats running a 6-8 foot diving crankbait down the rocks. I picked up crappie, and med size sandies from the middle of the dam all the way to the north east corner. I kept my boat really close to the rocks so I could cast parallel to the rocks. The crappie are up in the 4ft range, and they were concentrated about 100 yards north of the tower. Look for any dead brush on the bank, you are close when you see the brush. The sandies were random but would typically hit it really close to the rocks (Bumping the rocks). If you do not have a lure retriever, make one. I have an old pool cleaning pole, which has saved me thousands in the last 3 years.. I used it to grab lures hung up in the rocks, that were lost by other people. About 4pm I eased over to Rock Ledge park and found that this area was saturated with small sandies. The whole point was stacked with small fish, just sitting in schools completely surrounding the point. If you do not know what Rock Ledge looks like, you need to learn this area. It is a hump that extends way out into the lake, maybe 100 yards. It is about 10ft at the top, and has deep water on all sides. I caught probably 150+ easily, and about 10 of these were just over keeper length. Was fun, but the fish were small. A boat came in, and was trying to drift the area and fish them but he was not doing well. I waved him over and tied him up to the back of my boat, so the spot lock would hold them. They were using smaller size spoons, and caught allot of fish. The two younger kids were all smiles. It died around 7:30ish and never recovered. I was using a shallow diving crankbait which was a whole lot more fun to fish, and the fish were hitting a bait moving above them better than working the bottom with a spoon. I have some video, and will try and put together a clip to share.

Tuesday (5-3-22) Mid lake. Launched at Meadomere park and stayed mid lake from 10am to 4pm. Shad spawn was good, and every piece of wood, vegetation, roots, etc are covered in eggs. The Buffalo are shallow, and I think they are either spawning or trying to get in on the shad that are being pounded by fish. The windy banks are loaded with shad, and several banks I walked had dead shad up on the gravel. I threw moving baits all day, primarily the rapala DT6, and the DT8 in any shap pattern. This little crankbait casts really well, and works.. If I wasn't bumping with the DT6, I changed to the DT8. I stayed in the area that would not go deeper than 10ft , and concentrated on any type of gravel, rocks, or structure. The main points on both sides of Meadomere had good size sandbass on them. The wind was coming out of the north and you can easily see the white cranes along the bank working the shad. If you stay where the shad are you will find the sandbass. I caught some really nice sandies, and there would be cycles of 5-6 fish then a 10 minute slow period. The rocks I was targeting were primarily for bass, and when they would move in the sandbass would move out. I did see a couple of Gar out deeper crushing sandbass but they never moved into the shallows. The drum are thick, and I caught two big ones on the crankbait. They ate the bait, and i had two experiences that i thought I had a double digit bass. Yesterday was a really good day, and It was hard to leave the lake. Knowing the current status of the fishing is really going to make it hard to work 4 days. I would skip the lower end, and stay mid-lake, on the main lake points that have some type of shallow tapering depths out to the deeper water. The key to this, (In my opinion) is to have a shallow taper with a ledge at the transition to deep water. The fish are holding on structure, and pouncing on their victims. I will try and get some video of yesterday as well, but will add when I can. Stay on the windy side of the lake, period.

Short clip of Sunday. Just repeat this over for several hours, and you get the idea.. This has a wake boat driving between two fishing boats on the hump, and me tying up the other boat..




Picures of Rock Ledge. Note the hump when it was out of the water in 2014.






Some pictures from yesterday (Tuesday 5-3-22). Note: wx was overcast, which likely helped bring them up shallower. Winds were light @ 15mph.

The yellow star is where I was fishing, and the blue specs are the better fishing that I experienced.







The little crankbait that "Does" ...... I throw it on 12lb fluoro Invisx on a 7.6ft glass feeling rod.

Up in the GV area for work this week and brought the boat along. This will be my first time on the lake and will likely get out there on Friday 5/6. Any recommendations on where to launch? Primarily looking to largemouths, but anything is always good. Thanks for the info, this is a great thread!

Jason

I like meadomere ramp, you can fish the main lake points I have in the above picture. Also, go north to twin coves, the ramp in that cove has a good hump to the left of it. Wacky rig, crankbait (shallow), and a spinnerbait is what I have been using. If you aren't having any luck, goto the dam and work the rocks with a 4ft diving crankbait running parallel to the rocks. Get as close to the rocks as you can, you will keep your bait in the strike zone for the whole retrieve.

Prosise

Jason, i shot you an instant message..

May is looking good for GV! I tried to take the boat out 2 weeks ago and uh-oh. The motor won't turn over. I'm going to work on it today and do all the troubleshooting I can. My goal is to get it started and if I can't... To the mechanic we go. I'll be out there soon, but it could be a couple of days or it could be weeks. We'll know more later today.

I plan on being out there today after 5. Will do some searching for sure. I use Meadowmere 95% of the time anyway.

I’m back! Drained the carbs and changed the fuel filter and spark plugs. Took it a minute, but she fired up. Had help from a mechanic that works on boats on the side. Good to know people like that. I’ll go tomorrow and fill the tank and run around the lake a few times to burn all that old gas.

Let us know what you find. Hope you crush some sandies and really won’t matter if the fish don’t bite. What a good day it’ll be!

Heard from a "usual suspect" that they were good in meadomere in the AM. Going on Sunday and will stay out of the wake boat areas.

They were hot and heavy on the meadomere point on the west side. They stopped about 6pm. Then we caught a few more on the far east point of Morrell but they all but stopped by 6:45. 16 to 22 ft. both areas.

A good boat show was going on at meadomere and the birds were working.
surface action got alot of 8 to 10 inch. slabs below got the 12 to 13 inchers.

I fished Meadomere area All day yesterday, shallow early AM and out deeper under the birds the remainder of the day.. The wife and I boated well over 100 fish and was able to pick through and catch enough decent size fish to break out the fillet knife.

JWC, pretty sure I saw you guys, we were in solid white Sportsman CC..

Tight Lines

Fished 6am to 10:45 this morning. 6ft and 8ft diving crankbait on the main points out of meadomere were decent. Never ventured out into anything deeper than 10ft. Massive shad bonanza along the bank on the west all the way out to the main point of the park. When i pulled out my motor was covered in eggs , haven't seen this before. Wind was alittle high, but points were protected..

Wow that is amazing.
Was at Texoma yesterday, went back in a cove and shad were everywhere. If you threw a cast net you would not be able to lift it out.

It was! We got there at the end of the fun, but we scratched out a few. My neighbor noted you had given up laying on the front deck, but the wife looked like she was not going to stop catching no matter what.

Nice boat ride by the way.
I took my T top off of mine to redesign the base. I have not had the nerve to drill more holes in the floor yet.

I had been on the water all day and she came out and joined the fun around 2pm. I was beat and ready to head in. Only answer I could get from here was "just a few more minutes".. hahahaha

Went back on Sunday and it was just as fast and furious as it was on Friday..

Be sure to say hello if you see us on the water...

I hear ya! Will do. I backed out of going Sunday due to the wind. I was wanting to go and had the green light from the boss.

Fished from 5am to sunset for the Green fish. Started on the East main point of Meadomere, shad spawn working up on the bank for at least an hour after first light. Cranes working the shad, and everything else as well. Up really shallow there were smaller gar cruising inside the small brush, but just outside the brush line you can catch sandbass. Caught sandbass until mid morning, then from 5pm-sunset. They are in the 4-6ft range, using the DT6/DT8 crankbait. Any shallow diving crankbait will work, just bump the bottom and when you make contact slow down. I picked up "THE DON" at about 5pm at the Park, and we had fun. Note: Yesterday the biting flies came out in full force on this point, take some bug spray. Wind was lighter than it has been, and was nice on the south side of the lake. I did venture to the north side of the lake and fished a few points west of twin coves, and caught sandbass. I was fishing shallow, and gets a little hairy when you get hung up. If you don't like to get up close and personal with the windy bank just stay where you are safe, or break off. Take care all, and will be out sunday. Bass fishing is really really good. I probably caught a couple hundred sandbass by myself for the day, but It was 5 fish here, and then 10 fish in the same spot 10 minutes later. they moved thru in waves from mid morning until 5pm. They were schooling out in the main lake between meadomere and twin coves in the afternoon, but I didn't want to leave bass fishing. There was a couple boats working them, but it looked like they were covering water chasing them. If you don't see bait off the drop on a main point move on. Find the bait, and you will eventually find the fish. Forgot to mention, out of all the sandbass I caught only about 20 were under 10".





This is the color I was using with the DT8, which was the big color for me.



Some good ones..

Awesome trip prosie

All those catches! Nice. How’s the shoulder feeling? Your green fish I’d guess they is a 20 on stringer. Cool report. I’ll be at GV next Friday. These reports will surely make it more enjoyable on the water. I’ll be at Ray Hubbard on Saturday.

Shoulders are good, and have absolutely no pain at night. First symptom of a torn rotator cuff is pain in the shoulder that wakes you up when you sleep on that side. Mine got real bad, and it started affecting my sleep badly. Good now, and fishing allot. If your bass fishing, stick to your guns and slow down on the spots and the fish will move in. I fished 4 spots on wed which is about 200 yards of bank and basically pinpointed specific structure. Cast and repeat over, and over, and over. Then move to approach from different direction. Taking breaks and fishing for sandbass was refreshing. Take care, and will be out sunday if I can tolerate the wake boats. Might go off the beaten path and fish something out where they don't go possibly.

Launched at 4am, and pulled out at 9:15pm. Long day but fun. A good friend was in town, and he met me around 6:30am for some sandbass fun. We caught around 340 fish, about 40% keepers at meadomere. We started at the east main point, but wasn't that hot, wake boats were out in full force so I eased over to the drop of the main flat. Turned on the Bluetooth Thumper and they just wouldn't stop. We caught our first 100 in 47 minutes, the second in about 50 minutes, and at 85 Admiral John Slade said Im done, his back was worn out. We estimated about 65 were caught before we went to the drop, and it was a very memorable day. Using a med size cordell spoon, with a second homemade lure which is made out of an old rooster tail blade. Nothing spectacular seen on the graph, they just liked the thumper. Talked to several boats, and shared some lures to help others. Saw the moon go down when I was fishing early, and saw the moon rise at the end of the day.. Just eased out to around 22ft on the drop and spot locked, nothing special. We were knocking them dead, and we had a grand time. We used to go hit Lake Powel every year and wear out the Stripers.. Was fishing 8lb flouro on spinning gear so it would get down quick. Sunday fishing is brutal, village idiots are out in gangs. Saw a wake boat swamp a kayak, and then another boat just come by and not even slow down for them. Caught a nice bass, and many chunks..




First Texas fish


First 100 fish.

Yes good job! That's the spot for sure. Will be out Wednesday after 5 pm to see if they are there to play.

That Cotten Cordell is my favorite! Fresh and saltwater!

I fiahed yesterday from 4pm to 6am this morning. The fish were not out there in the afternoon. I stayed in mid lake area until dark, then ran spots. Shad spawn going on at Meadomere boat ramp when i left this am. You can catch shad off the dock early and late. Caught some sandbass on a crankbait, but didn't find them like i did on sunday. Lots of shad in this area, so they aren't far.. forgot to mention, when my battery on the Bluetooth speaker died the fishing also died. Thumper is your friend. Just spot lock or anchor on the drop. Drifting will only waste your time. Let them come to you...

Btw, caught catfish on the main points with a crankbait in about 10ft of water. Thought i had a big bass, but when your catching catfish on spoons or crankbaits its a good tell your in the spot

East point of meadomere in the morning from the crack of dawn (@ 545am) is good up close to the bank with a shallow diving crankbait. My fishing mentor put a whooping on them while I threw an "un-named" bait. Brutal hard day fishing, but a good day practicing my casting. Wind is strong out of the south, we didn't cross paths with them anymore after we moved chasing the green fish. Didn't look for sandbasss, but I would think the north main points would be a good start after the morning bite died down. We checked the east point of meadomere later in the day and it was a ghost town.

Working 3 days, take care all..


Prosise

I have just bank fished using waders this past week at Murrell catching enough sandies to make it fun. These seem to want the smaller lures I can catch some on a spoon but heaps more on a smaller bait like a Rooster Tail. Normally that bite is very early and over very early. i am retired so fun to me just to catch/release a few fish and make the 8 minute home and do other things

Fished Monday, and Yesterday (wed). Fished for the green fish but I crossed paths with the sandbass on the main point of meadomere on monday for a brief sprint. Looked out on the drop but just a few here and there which were right on the bottom. Didn't see any schools. Crappie are out in full force, if you know of any brush in the 10-15ft range it has crappie on it.

Yesterday 5-25 the wind was coming out of the Northwest and going right down the lake. I caught some sandbass on some wind blown points on the notth side of the lake early, and on the secondary points in meadowmere cove at the end of the day. Wind was brutal, and not a day to be out on main lake.

Bass fishing was really good, landed 31 bass.

Fished yesterday from 5am-4pm. Wind wasn't bad in the early morning, i was pounding the sandbass on the rocks at the mouth of twin coves for almost an hour. Wind steadily got worse and worse. Picked up my buddy at the Meadomere ramp at 745am and we went looking for some fish. Rollers were to bad to fish the rocks on the north side at twin coves. Tried to find some fish, but couldn't find an area with fish that was not in the rough water. We limped back to the south side, and hit all the structure drops that were semi protected. Nothing was working, so we pulled out some crappie jig and fished rock piles, and brush that we found. My buddy caught 5 species of fish, which turned out to be quite fun. Perch, sandbass, bass, crappie, and a gaspergoo (freshwater drum). He did catch a big black nose crappie, which was cool. We were forced to stay on the protected points on the south side, and it was a zoo. Pleasure boats were holed up in the projected areas, enjoying the day. If it wasn't for the wake boats it would have been not so bad. Never got into any sandbass schools all day, but caught a couple here and there. I had great intentions on working humps up north of the crusher, but the wind and rollers were stupid out on main like. The wind was blowing right down the lake from the dam to the beach. The water is tore up from the mud lines. Going out on wed, and will try again. Suprise of the day was catching about a 5 pound bass on a crappie jig, with 4 lb test. I was using a Garcia 3800 reel that is old as i am, and never been serviced. It was given to me from a retired Colonel from the Air Force. It was still in the box, with a sticker price tag on it. Been using for over 5 years, hokey as a rednecks checkbook with all the quirks. But it's fun to use things like this.

The thing that made the day fun started when we stopped thinking we were going to catch them like we did the time we fished two weeks ago. We caught @ 340 fish from 7am-1pm. We caught about 65ish before we started counting, then caught 285. Expecting to repeat this made it kind of suck, so I told him we were going to go fish for crappie. Setup a jig for him, and i fished my ultra light rig. I told him to sit up front, gave him the 5 minute how too with the livescope and it was "On like Donkey Kong!". We didn't slay them, but it's really cool to see how the fish react to your bait. I told him it's like video game fishing, and it's really unfair to then crappie . We just stayed out of the wind on the points of meadomere and looked around for fish. The crappie are out on main lake points, not so much on secondary points. Stay on main lake. He had a great time sniping fish on livescope. The person you fish with, and doing something different is what makes things fun. Telling someone to run the trolling motor, and them replying i can't do that is fun for me. In 30 second they are doing it, and allowing them to decide where we are moving is part of the fun. When it gets tough, put your kid in control of the trolling motor, or let them steer the boat while your idling looking for fish. We really just made the best of spots that were out of the wind, and we had a good day. I have many people i love fishing with, but i have about a dozen that have shared life experiences with me fishing. This man was the one that started out annual lake Powell striper trip. We would catch 1500 fish in 5 days back in the late 90's and did this trip many times back in the day when there was no limits. Imagine 7x 36quart ice chests completely full of fillets only. I was the last boat to pull out of hite boat ramp when the water got low and the upper end silted in. Mud was like chocolate pudding at the ramp and very dangerous.

Sometimes it's not what you catch, or how many, but how the day ends up. But who your fishing with is what makes it special. Many people ask me why i dont guide, and it is easy to answer. When you start making a passion into a job it ruins it. Don't want to mix my passion for fishing with a job. You just can't make the fish bite. I have been pretty mad at them Bass lately, and not spending as much time on sandbass but it's nice to take a break and hunt them down.

Now, the lake is going to be tore up for 4 or 5 days. In my opinion the bait will migrate to the off color water, as it's a form of shelter. So look in the deeper water humps where the water is a little stained. I have been catching big sandbass on the windy points in the morning, so i know they are somewhere mid lake, but i have to do some looking on wed. Take care all.





Caught on 4lb test

Great post! Lots of folks don't get that it isn't only about the fish that you catch. Love the old school garcia. I still use a Pfluger medalist fly reel of my dads. He has been gone for years but every time a trout jumps on that rig I can feel him smiling down at me. Thanks for all of your good posts.

Fished from 3am to 1:30pm today. Bass fishing has been off the chart this week, early bite is really good and I caught good fish today. Got a text from one of the usual suspects that was going to be out on the water. We crossed paths out on the water and had a god visit. He found fish and I went over and had a good visit. When it slowed down I went hunting and finally ended up at Murrell Point on the East side of the end of the point. Fish were there, and thick. The thing that was interesting to me was the way they were holed up on the point. I had standard down sonar going and saw something on the bottom, I dropped my double rig (large cordell spoon, and the smaller metal lure above) and after about 5 vertical motions picked up two fish. If you are not paying attention you will go right over them. I could see the sonar show multiple lines, so I fired up the livescope and recorded some footage. The fish are sitting on the bottom, you can get them excited and had some good fun. I sent a text to Mr "R" and he came over for some more fun. He was keeping fish for a friend and finished his limit of 12"+ fish. Me, Mr R., and a new contact had some fun with them, and when they called it I stay for a bit longer. Didn't see much bait on Murrell, but the fish were there on the bottom. If you look out on the end, you will see an occasional fish stuck to the bottom, just anchor or spot lock and see if you can get them to bite. I was running the Bluetooth "Redneck Thumper" and it wasn't bringing them in but I think it helped. Maybe 4 fish caught under 10" today, and most were over 11". Was really nice being out with the light winds, I am rendering a video and will add it when it's done. Today was a tripple digit day on the sandbass, but I wasn't counting as it was just fun fishing today.






Here is a video to show the fish on the bottom at Murrell point, they are stuck to the bottom.. Pay close attention to the two jigs in the video




5am small sandbass schooling at the discharge.

Some footage from Murrell point. I tried to speed it up as fast as i could.

Texted one of the "Usual Suspects in crime" that fished yesterday. He said vertical jigging on the bottom wasn't working. He was casting out, and working it back on the bottom and caught fish. He caught fish on the south side of the lake until it slowed down, then he checked Murrell point and wasn't any good. He went back to the south side of the lake and found some fish for a bit. He checked Murrell point one more time but the fish were movibg thru pretty quickly. He usually leaves by lunch. He uses a slab with a jig above it. Think he was using a chartreuse curly tail jig on wed and he did well. Since wed the lake is up 2ft 3in from the rain, so be mindful of floating debris if you are going out before sunrise, or heading up. When the lake goes up like this a tremendous amount of brush is introduced to the water on the upper end, shad will flourish in this and will really help us in the long run. It sure makes bass fishing tougher, as the bass are usually focusing on rock piles. When they have brush in the water, they get up close and personal with the wood structure and can be tough to catch. Going out in the morning early, and will prob be looking for the green fish until my buddy gets his butt out of bed and meets me for some sandbass fun. Hopefully the wind won't blow 30 tomorrow, as the wind forecast is looking decent. Don't know what the water looks like but I would expect the upper end and creeks are heavily stained.


Here is the wind app I use for the grapevine area.

https://windalert.com/spot/574

Link

wind alert link

I was out on the lake yesterday looking for crappie. The water is already starting to get into some parking lots but the water color is good. Lots of floating debris. IMO, there is way too much bait in the lake right now and it has been this way for years since the lake is flooded each May/June every year now it seems. EVERYWHERE I went, they would cover up the screen and even black it out to where I could not see anything. More bait for the fish, the less they want to bite. I have said for years that some hybrids would do really good in Gvine and would help improve the fishing overall. The crappie are tough more times than not because all they have to do is open their mouth and let a shad swim in.

Fished from 3am to 2pm. I fished for the green fish until about 7am when the Admiral finally got out of bed. With the wind not blowing 30+ we had a great day.

If you do not have a thumper, make one or do like I do. I use the Redneck Thumper, a big bluetooth speaker and pump out a deep thump into the boat. It really helps. I have instructions on last years grapevine thread on the App I use (android) and how to set the app up. Long story short there are many areas holding fish, and they are tight to the bottom. Only a couple fish caught reeling up, you have to keep the bait near the bottom. We started at the mouth of Scotts landing picking up about 40'ish, scouted the humps by the Island and they were a ghost town. Checked Murrell point and did not find fish out on the drop. The cranes were working up close to the point at Murrell point, but I didn't see fish in numbers. There were a bunch of loners working shad, pushing them up to the surface for the cranes. I wanted to check the humps north of the crusher last week, but the wind was too bad and I couldn't hold on them without water rolling over the bow. We checked them today, and did well. We finished our first 100 there, and restarted the count. The wind started to pick up, so we went to the drop at meadomere and as I was side scanning the top of the drop i could see allot of fish. We eased up and stopped about 35 yards from the drop up on top and casted back to the edge and had fun. Vertical jigging did ok today, but casting out and working the jigs back to the boat like you were worm fishing really was fun. Still using the jig on the bottom, and the metal lure up top. We left there about 1pm with 60 and stopped back at the main point at Scotts landing (west side) and finished our second 100. We had fun, and I wish I could share the video but boys will be boys. Too much incriminating evidence. I posted the waypoints for the two humps that I have done well at (north of the crusher). Will post them below. We left the lake at 2pm with 202, and I am tired. Take care all.

The fish will focus on humps, or drops out on the lake. The fish we caught today were just stacked up on these areas. The bait wasn't in the area.

Area we fished near Meadomere park



Area near Scotts Landing




Humps north of the crusher.

Got many requests for info on the bluetooth speaker, what I call the redneck thumper. The bigger the Bluetooth speaker, the better it thumps. I ended up installing a buck boost converter in the boat. My bluetooth speaker charger runs on 19v, so I added this so I can run the speaker all day long if I want to. It was a bummer when the apeaker would stop working. Best thing about the redneck thumper is you can play music as well. We joke about how different songs do better. Orange blossom special is a real good song to fish to, and the faster tempo songs do better. Here is a link to last years thread. Just scroll down to the instructions.

https://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/14199544/1

Link


Buck booster > changes my 13v to 19v so i can supply power to the bluetooth speaker all day. If your speaker uses voltages below 12v, just look for the term buck converter.

Buck booster voltage regulator > Amazon

What speaker do you use? Link?

I have a Harmon Kardon onyx 6 studio that i got on black friday. Loud and proud audio.. It was just over 200$ and it was half off. They are more now. There are many party Bluetooth speakers that you can buy that will do the same thing. There is no doubt, im a redneck and cheap when it comes to buying stuff. I made a thumper but it would only thump, and the Bluetooth speaker is used 5x more for music than when im fishing so its not a expensive gadget that can only be used fishing. Hope this helps, bigger is better.

Launched at 330am and chased the green fish. Stopped at 1230 and me and my fishing buddy hit the hump near the entrance of scotts landing. We might have caught about 10 before he had ro head out. I went back and stayed there until 430pm. They weren't jumping on the spoon but i caught 88 keepers, not one under. I got hung up on something and got my grappling hook out and pulled up two large pvc pipes anchored with a mushroom anchor. Got all the jigs off the rope, and re-deployed the contraption. Stayed upwind of the fish and casted to them. Tired as hech, and im putting a dent in a can with a % sigh on the side. Getting hot, and i drank 96oz of water and then a couple backup waters. Take care all. Thought i caught a donkey this morning, but it ended up being a big goo. Talk about muscle, this thing peeled 20lb fluoro off the reel like it was nothing. Caught one good cat on the jighing spoon.

Take care all, until next time.


[

I also hit GV at 5:30 pm Tuesday. We had fish on in 2 places along the Murrell east point. Didn't even get the big motor shut down before our first fish was in the boat. Maybe 50 good sized 12" + till 7pm. Moved to the north or west of Rock Crusher, that I have a couple of humps out there I hit regularly and it didn't let us down. Stayed till 8pm. Lost track of how many fish we caught. all on white or chrome slabs 3/4 oz and 1oz. We had the place to ourselves last night. No real boat traffic either.

Had time Saturday afternoon at 2pm to make a quick pass on the end of Murrell point. Was in pontoon so I'm not able to stay in one location very long, especially with all the wake boats going by. Small sandies were chasing shad on the surface-oblivious to all the boats. Small terns were working the action. We caught 20+ small (under 12 inches) before I drifted off the school. Little George in white and a 1/4oz kastmaster spoon with bucktail. I did try to vertical jig to see if I could get the bigger fish but they weren't down there...wanted our lures worked pretty fast just under the surface.

Good to hear. I will be out again Wednesday evening to see if I can catch a few. Haven't tried the little george in a while.

Fished sat night, sun night, and yesterday. Fish on the humps east of the island sat and sunday evening and sandbass were there, but not easy to catch. Yesterday the schooling was just west of dove point over by the big protruding point. The cove was being bombed by cranes all morning. Several large schools of small fish worked thru the area until we left at noon. We were bass fishing in the area, but the wind was 35+ so we were camping on points fishing for bass. Would recommend the humps up the lake starting tomorrow, as the winds will let up for the rest of the week.

Put in 30+ hrs bass fishing this week, and it caught up to me yesterday afternoon. Licking my woulds like someone who went "honky tonkin". Take care and be safe.


Prosise

Darn I was hoping I could beat you tonight at the tournament.

Fished for the Green fish from 4am to 2pm. Took a few breaks today and checked some ledges, and humps for sandbass. Meadomere drop, and Murrell point were a ghost town. I went up to the humps that I posted the waypoints which are North of the Rock Crusher. Sandbass were large and in charge for about 1 hour, i got another boat to come in but they just went south on me. Caught many in the hour that i was on them, lots of small freshwater drum (gaspergoo), but no catfish. Later in the day I found some sandbass at the hump at sandbass point (west side of Scotts marina cove). Also saw some schooling fish in this area at noon. i didn't work the schooling fish, as I was focusing on the bigger fish on the hump. Wind was very nice, but there was a tremendous amount of boat traffic today so i headed in around 2pm. I took some good footage of the school up on the humps, the fish were just sitting on the bottom waiting on something to pounce on. The video is not that long, but is worth the wait. The number of fish in the school in the 3:00 mark is pretty amazing. Take care all, I will be out a couple more times this week chasing the Green fish so I will post any info i run across.

I have had several people tell me they are not good with electronics. Even with gps waypoints, they do not know how to use them.. I figured out a way to share the GPS waypoints for the humps I fished today so you can use google maps. The links below will allow you to use google maps on your phone, and zero in on the waypoint positions. When you are there, just save the waypoint on your depth finder. Just turn on location on your phone, and make sure you have google maps installed. The links will show up on the map.

Humps north of the crusher.
33°00'10.3"N 97°07'09.3"W
https://goo.gl/maps/mMHEmv3NTyEwPR669

33°00'10.9"N 97°07'10.5"W
https://goo.gl/maps/5HpsGsF6m42LgCP16




Caught some good fish mid-day.

What a classy move figuring out and posting the way points on google maps. You certainly are consistent in your efforts to help people on this forum. Thank you for all the info that you have posted over time. Great video of the schooling fish.

Thanks FishrDude, Much appreciate the compliment. And I want to thank all the people that have helped me as well, information goes both ways and I get allot of tips as well. Some people know my boat, some do not. I run across many people who just share info at the ramp not knowing me, and this is refreshing.
I have met dozens of people who turn down GPS coordinates because they don't know how to put them into their depth finder. Trying to think outside of the box to help. When I am in the canoe, i do not use a depth finder. I use the lowrance app and I have several waypoints in the app. I can turn on location on my phone and see the position of myself in relation of the contour on the app. The app is pretty darn accurate, and will get me close to ledges. But exact gps coordinates are the best in my opinion. I am bad about saying to myself, I will look into this when I get home. I never do, and I learned that if you read the manual about three times you will find that there are so many cool things that they will do.

Hummingbird has a great free program called (Hummingbird PC) which is really easy to use. You can make waypoints in Google earth pro and save them in Hummingbird software, and then save them to your depth finder. Most of the depth finders make it easy, but you would be amazed at how many waypoint I have for Grapevine alone. I met a local that has fished GV for 30+ years bass fishing, and he gave me his stash of goodies. He is my fishing mentor, and I have learned so much in the last few years. Fishing with new people really expands your knowledge, and little tricks can change the success of a bait tremendously. Only thing I remind people, sharp hooks. I can tear up a set of hooks pretty fast. I will touch up hooks many times a day. If you haven't sharpened a hook on slabs, or jigs in a while you will miss fish. When I loaded his GPS waypoints on my graph I jokingly told him "Thanks Allot!! Now I can't see the lake on the screen. I think he has waypoints for just about every rock pile, or object that holds fish. Yesterday I spent allot of time just cruising around looking at deep structure with the side imaging, and Livescope. I think I waypointed about 20 new brush piles off the beaten path. Some are small, some are big but they all had some type of fish in them. As an experiment, I planted a christmas tree out in deep water that is suspended off the bottom about 8 feet. It always has bait on it, and in it.

Take care all, going out tomorrow. If anyone is going out and looking for some help finding fish let me know. Instant message me, and if i find fish I will send you a text. Don't share any personal info on the thread, you might get spammed..

Prosise

Had the pontoon out on Saturday afternoon at 1pm. Made a quick run to the Murrell Point and found the fish shallower. Bigger fish this time (12-14 inches) and holding tight to bottom. So if you divide Murrell point into thirds-shallow, medium and deeper end these fish Saturday were in the shallow third. About 100 yards out from the concrete roadbed (so about 12-14ft deep) and on the cove side of the point. There were lots of fish but they were very tightly bunched....if you hit them on the head you could catch a bunch but if you were just a few feet outside the "sweet spot" you wouldn't get bit. Difficult to do in a pontoon with no trolling motor and 1000 ski boats but it was still fun and the kids were more interested in swimming anyway. Chrome 1/4ounce Kastmaster spoon with a bucktail. Didn't get the Lil George out this time.

I was out there on Saturday with a crappie trip and the sandies were schooling all over the lake. Seemed like when a wake boat would go by, they would school in the wake. They had plenty of wakes LOL

Nice patch of greenies. I passed on GV this weekend. We went to Ray Roberts Sunday, but it was from noon till 3:30 pm. I did not catch a fish. Searched a few locations from the past but no luck.

Fished yesterday for the green fish. Winds were calm and by 2pm the lake wasn't actually a nightmare with boat traffic. I saw 6+ boats out in the middle of the lake in the lower deep area of the lake, so i am guessing there was schooling fish. Mid-lake there was fish schooling on the north side of the lake out in the deeper water. I could see grey cranes flying out into the schools for morning brunch. I didn't fish for them, but I saw many wolfpacks working the surface. The interesting thing was the splashes of the fish were visible from a long way off. These were not small fish. With the lighter winds I have to say that the hotter it gets, the more fun tou can have. Prep for 100 degree temps requires about three things and you will not put yourself in a uncomfortable position. Long sleeve quick dry shirts with a hood are hands down the first necessity. I am typically a XL shirt because I am 6'4" and I have long arms. With these shirts I wear a 2x or 3x. You do not want skin hugging shirts. I used to haul hay for a job in the summers while I was in high school and long sleeve white cotton shirts kept me cool. The quick dry shirts are 10x better. Secondly, wear swim trunks if you can. You are going to be pouring water on your sleeves, and down your neck to wet the shirt. If your wearing cotton underwear your going to get "itchy butt" if you sit in wet shorts. And lastly, you need a hat, ai wear a hand woven straw hat that was given to my dad by a friend from Mexico. Straw hats are the best, but you may need to add a stampede string. The bigger the better. Now, the most important thing with clothes, dont wear anything dark. (Anything!!!). Ballcaps, do-rags, shirts all need to be the lightest colors. My quickdry shirts are so dirty that I typically look like a homeless person when I stop at the store. But when you get these completely wet you will cool down, initially the shirt will stick to you buy in about 5 minutes your arms will feel like your in an air conditioning environment. I copied this from the web >>> The color of an object is determined by the wavelengths of light that object absorbs, and because absorbed light transforms into thermal energy (heat), darker colors attract more heat. The only color that does not attract heat is white because white objects reflect all visible wavelengths of light. Black – the color that absorbs all visible wavelengths of light – attracts the most heat, followed by violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red, in descending order. To stay cool during the summer and keep warm during the winter, keep this rule of thumb in mind. White, red and yellow are best for the warm months when you want to avoid attracting extra heat.

I typically bring 192 oz of water in insulated metal thermos'. That is for me alone if I am fishing all day in the summer, and I try to mix two thermos' with electrolytes. Rule of thumb, if your not needing to take a leak out in the heat your behind the curve on water. If you get behind, your not going to notice it at first but that night and the next day your going to be wiped out. My boat has a ladder so i can ease down into the water to cool down. But 80% of the timebI am pouring water over myself with a bucket. Best little thing for little ones is a umbrella. With a lifejacket my kids would be doing cannon ball splashing off the back of the boat while i caught fish on the front. I am very accustomed to heat, and prefer it over cold. But if you get a heat stroke your life will change and you will never be able to take the heat. Don't know why, but that is the truth.

It was 100 with light winds yesterday, and me and the fish whisperer were not suffering too bad out there. The interesting thing about the green fish right now is they are biting really well in the heat. You can skip the early morning bite when its cool and dominate big bass in the hottest part of the day. If you are fishing in less than 15ft of water you are spinning your wheels right now. You need to be fishing 15 plus feet, and don't be afraid to be in 25 ft of water fishing for bass. My fishing mentor caught 10 fish (bass) to my 2 fish last Wednesday fishing rock piles in deeper water. I was literally spot locked 20ft from him while he put a whoopin on me. Yes you can catch bass shallow, but you will catch the big fish down in deeper water. I am seeing bigger bass schooling up inro wolfpacks and just hanging out on certain rock piles, and humps. When bait presents itself, they pounce. In the shallows, you can catch bass but since the lake is coming back down to full level, the bass/bait will not have the brush to lounge in. When they loose the brush, they go back to what they know most of the year (submerged brush piles -man made) & (Rock piles). I used to stay away from areas with sandbass when fishing for bass, but they are after the same thing . Along with bigger bass would easily eat small sandbass/crappie so I fish the spots.

Take care all, here is a link for the shirts I just ordered. If you wear a xl shirt order a 2xl, if you have long arms like me get a 3xl. Baggy is better, and the arms have thumb holes which are nice.

Amazon Link Shirt

Have not posted in a while, been chasing the green fish mainly. It is darn hot out there in the daytime, so be prepared for the heat. I fished three days this week and stumbled across the sandbass a couple times out scouting humps. I have seen lots of bait in the scotts landing cove, and out in main lake (Deep water). Wed I was near Grapevine point close to the entrance to the public ramp and found lots of big sandbass. I sat out in front of this entrance in about 25ft, and the fish seemed to be moving thru in a long line of schools. I was casting out 70ft and letting the big slab wobble down to them and picking them off. The only thing about this experience, was that I was using the livescope. I don't think that they would have been as easy to pinpoint. My thumper battery was not charged so I went quiet, and surprisingly still did really well. Wind was blowing into this cove, so I would recommend focusing on the main lake points on the windy side for a bit. Other than this large school that I found at 6am, It has been pretty quiet for me. I have seen lots of schooling fish over at the mouth of scotts landing, and all the way to dove ramp. These fish are really small and are a trap, if you get into these schools get out a large crankbait and work thru them. I was using a 6xd and picked up many large sandbass, and the larger hooks would keep the smaller fish from making it to the boat. For fish seen out on humps, they are stuck to the bottom like glue, and they will come up and work jigs. I think the fish are eager to bite, but you need something to get their attention. I have not been up the lake, but I would like to say the upper end humps should be worth checking out. Fishing is really good right now for bass, but I am catching them in the top of the day in the heat. For me the sandbass and Bass are easier to find in the middle of the day, and if you can take the heat you can have a good time. Calm winds will produce allot of surface feeding, but they will be small fish. Winds will make it harder for you to find them, but you have one really good hint to keep an eye out for. The white cranes and grey cranes are flying out and looking for schooling fish. They will dive down and pick up a fish, and it's off to the bank to eat it. Watch for the cranes flying, and if you see allot of white cranes on the bank they are close to some action. Right now, I would try to stay where they are. These birds are the best fish catching tip you have right now. Take care all....


Here is where I was yesterday morning.. But since I was using Livescope it would be harder to find them. Use a thumper (real deal or redneck stick version or bluetooth speaker). It might get them to pull into your area.

I ordered this shirt and its now my new favorite fishing shirt! Like it so much I went back and ordered 2 more!

If yall fish in the heat these cannot be beat and the price is not too bad at all.

Have not been fishing Grapevine lately, too many wake boats to be out there in a yak. Been mostly fishing smaller ponds or more remote lakes that do not have a big wake boarding scene . But I really enjoy reading these reports and great tip on the shirt sir!

Tight lines.

White bass were schooling all over the lake today. Most were small but a few keepers mixed in too. I must have saw at least 4 separate schools of them going at different places and times.

Fished 3 days this week. Mainly for bass, but I ran across very little action with sandbass. Yesterday about noon, I decided to do some scouting. I checked sandbass point, the humps out east of the islanc, the end of Murrell park point, twin coves entrance, rock crusher, and the humps I referenced north of the crusher, and lastly meadomere park the end of the drop to deep wafer. All were blank, no bait seen at any of these locations. Lastly I was just doing a quick visual around the lake and I saw some cranes near land up at Murrell park, the entrance of the cove which has the private HOA marina. Fishing was brutal, and it was hot. I was actually happy catching small sandbass vs not catching anything. I didn't go up from the crusher area, so you need to find the bait and you will find the fish. I didn't search out in the real deep areas of the lake, as I didn't want to kill fish bringing them out of 35+ foot of water. I saw small fish schooling on the windy side of the lake by the island a couple times this week (really small fish), and then yesterday at the north side by Murrell point by the west point going into the small cove. The humps I fished yesterday, just checking for fish had small gaspergoo (freshwater drum) on them all. You might see fish on top of the hump in a small compact school, but they wont hit a large slab. If you use the small cordell spoon, and work it very slowly about 4 inches of movement you can catch the small drum. They actually fight pretty good. But It was brutally hot, and without the right clothing you are going to get overheated. I went into the lake several times, then just dumped water over myself with a cup. Fishing has been good at the top of the day for bass, and the small schooling sandbass were out as well. Not much to go on, but if you go out I would be mid lake on the windy side at 5:15am and do some searching along the water at 25ft along the banks at first light. Grapevine point, and around the island is your best bet in my opinion. And lastly, watch for cranes. They are the best fishing locators on the water right now.


Take care

Prosise


Please share if you cross paths with the fish..

You do a good job of posting for Grapevine. I’ve fished the lake on three occasions this summer and each time I’ve found big schools of Sand Bass. I’ve yet to find fish of any size. That’s been perfect on the two times I’ve brought my granddaughter. They were perfect size for her to learn on. Before 2020 or Covid I could find schools of big Sand Bass all summer. Even when the fish up top were small I could catch larger fish under them. I’m guessing the lake has been over fished the last two years or something.

We have had two years of a really good shad spawn.. Fish are fat, and numbers are good. But I actually have been doing better on big fish in the last two years. I might be wrong, but me and my fishing buddy were talking about this.. Fish are getting good food, and numbers are good. But this week it was tough.

I saw a post of a local bass fisherman who has been catching good bass at night, with some sandbass.. I am going to do some looking in some areas I don't typically like to fish because of the traffic. Will see how it goes.

I have been fishing there out of a kayak and have been trying to fish shallow and its been miserable. Anything caught is about the size of my pinkie. Does anyone know when this lake became such a big party lake? I want to fish more of the main lake but it is impossible in a kayak. Also I know the lake has smallmouth, when is the best time of year to go for them? If anyone has any pointers on how to get one it would much appreciated.

Anytime of the year.. The dam is producing allot of good smallmouth lately. Check out https://www.facebook.com/groups/TxHarcoreBassFishing which has some posts from last night fishing for bass. He caught some nice smallmouth. I think he exclusively fishes the dam.

Link to Facebook TXHardcoreBassFishing

I have been fishing in the 20+ depth for about 3 weeks for bass after 8am and doing well. The water is really getting warm on the surface, which drives them down. I wouldn't fish in less than 10ft unless it's night, or up until about 6:30am. Now im strictly talking about bass. The big sandies are out there, and they are deep. With the wake boat idiots it is really hard to fish in a small boat. I fished last sunday out of my canoe, and they have no idea what safety is all about. They do have a right to the water, but i draw the line when I can cast and hit their boats. I would avoid sundays and fish the weekdays early and you will have a much safer time out.

If you fish the dam, I would start about half way and work north to the very north end..

Sandies schooled out in front of Katie’s woods for hours this morning. Only one other boat on them. I caught 50 plus and left them schooling about 9:30 to drive around.

Humps north of the crusher easy limit and 10 minutes at 11:00 and at 2:00. Will update later



Fished for green fish early and on my way to the beach I stopped at the humps below and whacked them. On my way back I did a repeat. Right now it's being at the right place at the right time..
Fyi..
If you don't know where they are. Open these links on your phone with google maps. Just make your way to these high spots out in the middle of no where. These are good spots when looking for fish.

Humps north of the crusher.
33°00'10.3"N 97°07'09.3"W
https://goo.gl/maps/mMHEmv3NTyEwPR669

33°00'10.9"N 97°07'10.5"W
https://goo.gl/maps/5HpsGsF6m42LgCP16

Thanks for the updates. Very helpful info!

And "YES", i'm a redneck.. My super sophisticated seating is really nice to fish with.


Fished yesterday from 3am to 4:30pm, chased green fish most of the day. At 10am small sandbass were schooling at the mouth of the south cove for Scott's Marina, which lasted for at least 2 hours. I did go in and pick at them a little, but they were moving so fast it was a little hard keeping up with them. Only one keeper caught in this group. At 11am I checked all the usual spots including the humps up the lake. Went back to bass fishing and around 2:45 I went back up to the humps north of the crusher. The two waypoints are about 40 yards apart, and are the very top of the humps. If you go to these areas, you might not see much. I wasn't seeing bait up there but the fish were there later in the day. Anyhoo there wann't much on the graph, turned on the Bluetooth thumper and sat on those two humps for about 90 minutes. Schools kept coming in and sitting under the boat. If you don't have a thumper take your bluetooth speaker out and play loud music, or do what I do and use the android metronome app. Didn't feel like editing so I just made a video of 70'ish minutes of catching fish. Sorry in advance if I do something silly. About 30 % were good fish, the other 70% were small to med size. But for putting kids on fish this would have been great. I was fishing a white spoon, with one of my homemade front runner lures. The front runner is made from a rooster tail spinner, or a small willow leaf blade that I added a hook to the back. I don't like adjusting the worm all the time if I use a jig above the bait. Note: even when I would cast out most of the time they wouldn't hit until I was back to the boat.. They sat onder the boat mainly due to the thumper.. If your not using a thumper you are going to struggle, just my .02 cents..

Earlier in the day it was overcast and windy, the schooling fish were in many places. When the cloud cover went away I think this helped with grouping fish on the humps. Bird blue skies will help on the deep bite, cloud cover will get the fish to roam.
In the video from 27:00-30:00 i move between the two humps and you can see the small dip between them.

Double rig I use.. I typically use the Cordell spoons this one is from academy. I have been painting them white or yellow with enamel paint. The one from academy comes in white. The picture below if from a post last year when I was using 6 baits at once, but I am only using one of the front runner baits above the spoon/slab.


When the bite gets harder scale down the spoon to the medium, or small cordell spoon. Note: Very Very important. >>>>> The hook on the large and med are too big in my opinion. I swap these out for smaller hooks. The large hook is way too large for Grapevine. The ones below are the med and small spoon.

Thanks for the report.

Decided to go out in the low drag ninja canoe today.. Launched at Trophy Club park at the very end of the road, as It is the closest launch to the beach.. Went and cleaned out some trash at the beach with my metal detector. No real cool treasures, a couple pair of sunglasses, about 37 cents, and a single helping of Jack Daniels whiskey, and allot of pull tabs. Finished up there and started walking banks picking up primarily bottles, and the trash that I could carry in my bucket. When I was done walking banks I was pretty close to the humps north of the crusher. I opened the link on my phone in google maps and worked my way out to the humps. I made a real bad mistake this morning by not bringing my anchor. If I would have loaded the anchor I could have had some fun with the sandbass. I caught about 4, and lost several but I had to drift over the hump, and it wasn't very easy fishing while drifting. But i had a good time actually catching fish using my cell phone as a GPS, and making due with what I had. I filled the canoe with trash today, and I feel good about what i did. Lady lake did not reward me with lures today, but that is the way it goes. Take care all, and in the mid afternoon check on the humps.. Thump like there is no tomorrow.. I took some video today out on the humps, I was tapping my foot and banging on the side for a thumper. I might just take the canoe out tomorrow with an anchor.

Note: The channel coming out of Trophy Club park is silted in, and there are new trees in the lane. I would not go up into the creek from the lake, or launch at TC ramp. I run abut 12" with my suzuki 2hp and I did not hit anything. But I did check the depth and it is about 5ft in many places where the channel used to be. When the lake comes down it will likely clean out the channel..

I ran into some fishermen, gave them the waypoint. Hope they got on the fish. And to answer your question, yes the single serving beverage was consumed.. Tasted like old crow, not a whiskey that is worthy.....

Was watching Shark Week last night and they were using a giant "thumper" (big speaker lowered into the water) to draw the sharks in....said it was to mimick whales breaching. Got me to thinking one of the biologists must be a TFF'r and stole the idea from Prosise!

Fished the last two days out of the canoe. I stopped by the humps both days and they are not on the humps I referenced. Did not see any surface feeding. Bass fishing is getting tough, especially out of a canoe. I fished mid lake both days.

Take care all.

Me and Mason launched the canoe out of Dove at 10:30am. We walked banks picking up bottles, and chewing the fat. Did a little bass fishing on a couple rock piles as well. The sandbass were schooling between the island and the point but they looked like small fish. Saw them covering water for well over 30 minutes in this area around lunch time. We didn't fish them, just covering water between areas we were walking. Very light boat traffic on the lake until about 4pm, calm water and light wind was very nice.

Working the next 3 days, take care and report if you cross paths with them...

Prosise

A short funny clip from yesterday, Me and Mason were walking banks and he found a float. They say boredom creates mischief, and their correct. Heading to the boat ramp, and mason had a idea. Definitely a redneck moment.

Watched a guy pull in the biggest smallmouth I have ever seen on Grapevine last night dragging a football jig off the bank next to the dam on the southeast corner of the lake next to sunfish dr. Absolute toad. I wish I had a scale on me because it looked every bit of 5-6 lbs. Really impressive smallmouth for that lake.

Geez that guy i that canoe was sure hauling [censored]

Looks like a hoot! Canoe tubing might be the next new rage!

On another note. Anyone have any suggestions on where to launch a kayak that is close to the dam? I will use a ramp if I have to but anyplace that I can back up my truck close to the water will work. Almost prefer to not be using a ramp if possible.

Thanks for any suggestions!

We found a big group of white bass yesterday morning around 10. They had the shad pushed all the way up against the bank, close to Walnut Grove Park. Had a friend and his son with me, and the boy, who loves to fish but rarely gets to go, caught 20+ on a 1/2 oz chrome rattle trap. He was pretty pumped up which was a blast to watch.

Cool! I love when kids who want to fish get the chance to go and catch fish.

There is nothing better than to see this. Thanks for sharing.

I went out in the canoe again, this is 7 trips in a row. I love the canoe fishing.. Sandies are favoring dove ramp area, and you can catch some small fish in this area. Don't know where the donkeys are, but with the dog days of summer it is tough finding them.

Anyone want a free boat, there is an abandoned boat on the north side with a johnson 70. Look up the maritime salvage laws, and you can get a boat/motor for a project on the free..






Prosise

Thanks Prosise

Prosise!
That looks like your Champion!

Katy Woods ramp by the Gaylord..

Very good ramp, with many police visits so you don't have to worry about your stuff..

Let it be told, I have not washed my boat since 1999. Mason will grab a towel and go around the boat, but i don't wash my boat. Don't want to wash all the good luck off..


Fished from 5am to 6:30pm. Fished for the green fish, crappie, and crossed paths with the small sandbass around Dove ramp/island most of the day. Caught a monster sandbass on Grapevine point fishing a ledge with a small jig. The school was large, but I only caught one from it.

Nothing to add, nice out today and wind helped the heat.. Take care all..

Got out on the bank today. Just happened to be in the area and had my fly rod with me. I went down to the closed boat ramp kind of in between Dove and the mouth of Scott's.

This is a very light fly rod a 4wt and I've just got little panfish flies. Found some large bluegill spawning beds and got to work catching several decent bluegill. The cool thing was about every 10 to 15 minutes a large bass or two would tear through that area and lay havoc on those fish! It was fun to watch and I kept playing my bluegill real slow hoping to get one to try to give me a ride. Didn't happen.

But I did catch my first ever Grapevine Smallie! Was also my first ever smallmouth on a fly rod.

Another thing I noted every single time a boat would go by small Sand Bass started boiling like crazy. I couldn't catch any. They were a bit too far out for my fly skills. I'm going to guess they were eight to nine inches. It was like clockwork boat would come by... 30 seconds later they'd start to boil.

Going tomorrow morning with my buddy on his bass boat. I was seeing a lot of activity out there today so hopefully tomorrow will be good.

I just got back from fishing Katie's Woods on my lunch break. PLENTY of eater sized whites from the shore within casting distance. Be careful though, also a ton of gar mixed in with them. I lost 3 or 4 lures due to them in the 40 minutes I was there. And, yes. I noticed the same with the boats. As soon as a wake made it's into the cove, the boil would start immediately.

We targeted lmb today. Fished from 630am until noon.

We were fishing fast covering a lot of water throwing Square bills medium divers swim baits and my buddy threw a top water a good deal of the day.

All that stuff sucked lol. I had two bass on the swimbait. My buddy had two on his top water walking bait. The fish were all about 2lbs.

We did see a few Sandie boils but they looked small and not really what we were after. I did notice that the strong connection between the Wake boats and then the fish boiling right after they pass... well that wasn't working like it did yesterday. I did not see that happening today.

So we didn't get skunked. That was good! But it definitely was a tough day.

Bass fishing is all about the rock piles, and planted brush on the lake. There are good spots that are always the best area to fish, then their is allot of dead water. But for me, Rock Piles.. Been targeting brush for crappie and seeing bass, but they don't want to play. But for bass I have been fishing early-8 in the 1-15ft range, and after 8am I am in 20+ looking for the big green fish. Don't get discouraged, as I have been practicing my casting allot lately. Thanks for the report, and keep it up.. Much appreciated.

We were out there same time period yesterday with only 5 small bass on t-rig & Ned rig. Had about 25 whites with 1/2 keeper size (not kept) out on the lake side of sand bass point. Going to do a night trip next time, too hot.

What a great thread! I haven't been there in years. Are "the bubbles" still a thing?

Right on thanks man. I really enjoy this thread and glad I have been able to get out a few times and contribute something.

Yesterday I went to Murrell with the fly rod and waded around catching some bluegills, couple of small bass and even a small channel cat! Nice to get out and just enjoy the summer even if the fishing is not lights out and I find myself down to chasing bluegills... still enjoy every moment of it.

Yes. So I have heard.

When I was out there they were not running. Someone who spends more time out there (esp from a boat and not the bank or yak like me) can probably give a full bubbles update lol.

Makes sense to be all about the subtle plastics. Its the dog middle of the dog days of summer... in a summer that is one of and maybe is thee hottest summer in the last 20 years so... yeah. Small plastics

Fished all day yesterday, when the storms blew thru me and another guy hung around Silver lake Marina in case we needed some shelter from the rain. Got a sprinkle on me and the boat, and that was about it. Fishing turned on and Bass fishing was lights out, when I was wrapping up I stopped by the hump on the west side point at Scotts marina cove. Sandbags were stacked up on the hump, and on all sides. I fished this area for several hours earlier in the day but it was a ghost town. Lots of really small Sandies found on all the usual spots, stuck to the bottom. Also some wolf packs working silver lake Marina chasing the small ghost minnows. Most of the humps lately have been scarse of good sand Bass, but they were at sandbags point yesterday. Lake was so nice yesterday, and after the storm I had it pretty much all to myself for a couple hours. For some reason the bait is staying on the south side of the lake, even with the south wind we have had for over 2 weeks. Silver lake cove is completely empty of bait. In the early morning (4am-sunrise) the bait is all up on the top couple of feet of water. When the sun comes up, the bait assembles into larger schools and goes deep. Main lake still doesn't show a defined thermocline which is odd. Caught bass and Sandies down to 30 ft yesterday. Seeing fish deeper but not going deeper than this. Scottsb anding and Silver lake marina, and McPherson coves are stacked with bait. I saw allot of small sandbags schooling by the tires outside of Scotts landing when the sun came up, but they were small fish (@8 inches). Long day, but was really smiling when I left, 4am-830pm on the water was a good day. But to be honest it was casting practice for big bass until the storm rolled thru. After 8 am, I fished 20+ the rest of the day. If you want some fun for into Silver Lake and throw a small minnow swimbait (1.5"-2") into the boat stalls, and you will catch allot of small bass. Thank goodness for lithium batteries, really needed them running the mega 360, and livescope all day.

Picture of the moon in the evening when I was on the hump by sandbags point.

I fished for the Green fish Sunday, and today. Sandbass are AWOL on the usual spots. I caught them at the dam discharge tower in the morning before sunrise but they were small. I checked Murrell point, the humps east of the island, and the humps north of the crusher and I didn't find any good ones. The bait is staying on the south side of the lake, all the coves on the south side have bait. If your looking for the green fish you need to be looking 20ft+ for good fish. Caught a really nice smallmouth today. Crappie are getting tougher to catch, every brush pile I can pick one fish then they all get lock jaw. Been spending allot of time covering areas of the lake for brush. Scanned the north bank from the dam to rock ledge and have over 30 pieces of cover with crappie on them. The smaller pieces don't hold the big crappie. Caught some small crappie just off the swim area of rock ledge, but it is nothing to spend any time on. The big sand bass I have caught lately have been consistently in the grapevine point area, but it is a situation of being in the right place at the right time. Take care all, water surface temp was 87 today, and bait was concentrated in the 15-18 foot range after the sun came up. Prob caught a limit of crappie, but they were harder to catch lately. I was using a 2" storm swim jig. If your going out for sandies, I would stay in the dove ramp area and settle for the smaller fish for fun. I can't say I am confident on the good ones right now. Take care all, and God Bless...





Smallie was 3.65 lb on a small 2" jig fishing brush for crappie. Was a surprise fish.

Launched canoe from TC ramp and when I left at 4pm I had to drive my truck around to the canoe. Creek went up at least 10ft, wicked current. Saw some mega catfish in the grass along the bank when I was trying to get back to the park. I ain't kidding when I say the catfish are working the shallows. If you like catfish, you need to get your gear and wet a line in the TC park area, closest to the mouth of the lake.


Conditions changed drastically when the water started to flow.

Had the whole lake to myself most of the day, nothing better.


Fished yesterday from 345am-5pm. Didn't know what to expect out on the main lake, so I launched at Katy woods I guess my weather app didn't get the memo. WeatherBug said clouds all morning, and sunshine by 1pm. Instead I got steady mist at 630, and steady light drenching rain until 2pm. Really flushed out the boat good. I crossed paths with the Sandies at the dam, the small ones were working the light right before sunrise. Chased the green fish all day, and took breaks catching crappie. I'm beginning to really like crappie fishing. If you are on the fence about LiveScope, you can catch crappie all year long using LiveScope. I heard once that crappie is "redneck lobster", and I would agree. Caught some really nice crappie yesterday. If I would have caught some bait, it would have been a slaughter. Some of the brush I found recently are stacked with 20+ nice crappie. Some look like bass, but are just really big crappie. Water surface temp at 6am was 77.5 F, and was 83'ish when I left. Didn't see the bass move up into the shallows like I thought. Good "green fish" are still in the 20ft range. Wind changed about 2pm, and I started seeing some light surface feeding just east of twin coves point. I could see small packs of fish in the dozen range scouting, and I was able to pick up allot of 8-9" fish for about 45 minutes. Had to use the LiveScope for the surface packs. Scott's landing, silver lake, and dove ramp areas are still stacked with bait. Never went above twin coves, and I didn't see any debris, and water is clear green and really nice. Water is up about 1.5ft from the rain, and will likely go up another foot. There is allot of grass, and new vegetation in the water so you should be able to see some shallow action soon for the green fish. Lastly, police are ticketing parking lots in full force, if you don't have a trailer don't park in the long parking spaces. I launched the canoe, and made that mistake. Maybe I can ask for a second chance, as I was fishing and picking up trash on the north bank at that time. Dove ramp is a bad situation, the plastic floating dock they installed is in about 3ft, so raise your motor if you use it. The dock that is right next to the ramp, has been on land for a while. Take care all, had a good week cleaning out the beach. Found lots of junk, and filled up 5 recycle buckets with beer cans. Take care all, working next 4 days.


Caught so many nice crappie yesterday. Nothing kept..





Things I found at the beach before the water level went up. BTW, I was shoulder deep using Garrett at gold waterproof detector. Filled canoe up to the brim with beer cans.

Lake is changing rapidly.. Did some metal detecting from 10am -230pm in meadomere. Sandbass all up and around the swim area at 10am, glass minnows on the run. Sandbass I saw were small, but they stayed in this area for over an hour. Water is getting cool, and bass doing some transitioning. I saw sandbass up in the extreme shallows chasing bait on both main points of meadomere cove. When I left, I was standing on the meadomere ramp and casting a dt8 out and reeling it back down the edges (rocks) and caught a sandbass that was a keeper. Caught a really nice bass in about 12ft of water fishing rock piles, and lost a really nice fish right at the boat that may have gone 8lbs. With any wind always keep an eye out for a white crane working the banks, points. Didn't see any surface action on the north side of the lake, but I saw some schools of bait on the surface showing signs of an attack by bigger fish up in the shallower areas of the points. Fished out of the canoe, and as always had a great time. Hopefully going out tomorrow for some more peace and quiet.

Saturday just after sunrise I got into a school of Sand bass that was epic, 90% were 11-14". They were just destroying the Pop-R for about 30min then they disappeared and i mean disappeared not a trace on the graph, anywhere in the cove! I am about 90% sure they were abducted by aliens....

If you want to sell that box anchor let me know I need one

Fished 4am-6pm. Ran across the sand bass at rock ledge park at sunrise. Lots of gar working the bait as well. Little to no wind makes for a bad day bass fishing. Scanned from rock ledge park to Murrell Point for brush. Crappie bonanza today. Strange thing about brush piles, it might be me but it seems that crappie that are the same size congregate on brush. I can tell there is a couple big ones, and then the rest are the same size. Some brush only have perch, ran across quite a few locations that were stacked with small perch. But I did find one brush pile that was stacked with big ones. Typically I can connect on two fish, and then the fish will not bite. But today, it was very different in that I could catch 3-6 per spot. A few brush piles has small Sandies, and they aggressively pounce on the jig. I was using a 1/16 oz jighead with a glow in the dark worm. Weatherman said no rain, but storms came thru and went around the lake on both ends, allowing me to continue fishing. Pleasant surprise today, as two boats recognized me and we had a short visit. "Charge the battery", just a little reminder to one of the TFF'r. After the storm blew thru, it was casting practice for me. Never connected with the green fish, but I sure had a great time picking on the crappie. As of now, I have 213 brush waypoints, and I'm probably 30% of the lake scanned. Some are big, some might be a lone stick but there are fish on them all. Note: all the brush in 20ft or more were easy pickings, the shallower brush were harder to get them to cooperate. Not much to share on the sandbass, but thought I would share. I scanned twin coves again and it's empty, very strange but eco systems are on their own schedule. Lots of bait in dove cove, Scott's landing cove, the north end of the dam, rock ledge hump, and both points at meadomere. My fishing buddy was recovering, so I did lone scouting today.

Also, thanks to the TFF'r who sent a instant message checking on me last week. Appreciate the thought

Bass fishing wasn't that good, but I sure had a good time picking on the crappie. Not that many people out today, but I'm staying home tomorrow..

Fished from 4am-4pm yesterday. Did allot of scanning yesterday in the AM, wind stopped and it was dead calm and hot. I looked around in deeper wafer between rock ledge, and Murrell point and other than small drum, I really didn't find anything. Not as much bait on the north side of the lake, as the south. When I launched at 4am at Meadomere ramp the surface of the water looked like soup with bait. Dove, Meadomere, and Scott's Landing coves look like this to some extent. I have checked Twin coves, and it was a blank canvas on sunday. Still chasing the green fish, and had fun yesterday. Did pick on some crappie when I was out scouting with the livescope. Stiil adding brush waypoints. I am not going to check about 50% of the lake, upper end areas because I just don't chase the bass up there. I know there is crappie up there, as I saw one of the usual suspects up there working crappie in the timber. I did see some very small sandbass chasing bait aroung the Island area, but they were the size of one of my larger crankbaits. I did not go up the lake to check any humps, stayed down. Fish making big changes in their routines, and good fish caught this week. Take care all..

Here is a video of the bait in meadomere at 4am on the surface. This is about half way out to the no wake buoys.

Things are looking up at the lake fellas.

Went out this morning with the fly rod to take a swim and screw around on the bank for an hour...work on my fly casting basically.

Well, today the water actually did not feel like bath water. It was nice. I have been going to that same spot once a week taking a swim and fishing for the last 7 weeks and the water has been like a bath warm. I never really caught more than a couple small bluegill.

Well today the water felt great and I caught TWO lmb bass on the fly from the bank! Small ones. But none the less bass. Also noticed a whole lot of minnows and baitfish shallow and even saw a water snake. Had not seen one out in the day time in several months. Supposing it was just too warm.

Its about to get better!

Fished last night, posted a quick update but I guess I failed to pull the trigger. Short story, after sunrise I found some sand bass sitting on the bottom is 24'ish feet out at the end of the Ice House. This is the concrete structure on the east corner of Grapevine point. Sat in the same spot for over 2 hours catching small fish, but I was happy to catch small fish. Even on LiveScope they would just come out of nowhere. They were 3"-10" and out of all of them maybe caught 5 over 12". I was using the Bluetooth speaker thumping. Will try and get some footage, but was a rerun of me catching, and releasing. Fished 11pm-11am full moon for the green fish. You will not see much on so are, they are glued to the bottom, but you will see small groups come thru occasionally. Even with gar in the area they stayed close, and would come back out of nowhere. Invited several boats to come in, but they didn't have spot lock.
Slept all day, heading out in a few hours.

Everything I said yesterday was not the case today. Chased the green fish last night and into the day. Caught many sandbass at night on the dam, but never got into then today. Got to meet Dan from the forum, which was cool.


Really tired, will update more when I have charged my batteries

Some video of Sunday fishing at grapevine point. I found shad in meadomere cove up by the swim area, and sandbass were up there in scattered numbers. I wanted to see what size the shad were, and caught 5x 6-8" sandbass in the castanet. Shad were 2-3" long. Shad in Scott's were 3-4" long. Been fishing the moon this week, and this old man felt like I went honky tonkin. Caught some good fish (bass, catfish, drum, and smallies) on the dam working the moon.

It was great meeting you as well sir!

I was able to catch 5 sandies in that spot where we met. That was after working it for 2.5 hours so not lights out at all but they were all good size. Keepers but not donkeys.

Then caught two LMB and a Spot near that same area but a bit more toward the west. Those came on crankbaits in about 12-15fow. Again not donkeys at all but nice fish. All very fat like you had mentioned. They have not been missing any meals.

Went back yesterday (9/13) and could not fish those same areas due to the wind. I got out there and it was just a beating. Constantly focusing on not taking a wave and keeping the yak facing into the swells makes it hard to focus on fishing. Forecast said 11mph with gusts to 15. It was more like 18mph with gusts to 25mph. So I had to run and hide back in some nearby coves.

Managed to hook and land a pretty large gar. My PB gar on rod and reel for sure. Thought I had a 20lb blue cat until it jumped. He was an impressive fighter.

Hope to get back out Friday. Depending on wind might have to launch from the Scotts area... that side of the lake is better for the yak with a Strong South wind.

Not much to share. I fished 3-3 today. Fished the dam Sat, Sun, and last night. Of all the places I fished the dam was the most productive at night. Anyhoo, when the sun came up I was at the north east corner, and small sandbass were working bait in the corner. I found out if you throw a small topwater as shallow as you can , you can catch small bass down the dam. I raised the back motor, and stayed as close to the rocks and casted parallel, and as shallow as you can.. Sometimes I would hit the rocks, and pull off and the small 8-12" buck bass would crush it. Nothing big, but it was fun. Also, (north east corner by the tree) there were small sandbass working shad. Easy pickings with the top water. Just around the corner from Rock Ledge park, the small cut is holding lots of bait. I stayed below the island all day, and did some looking after I was done bass fishing. I found some small sandbass between the island and scotts on a ledge. It is the end of the island that extends out to the east. Good day out, but fishing was tough when the sun came up. Will be working the next 3 days, take care and God Bless..

Here is a GPS link to the ledge I referenced yesterday. It runs a long way to the north/south. It kinda runs due north of the old ramp that is closed down. This had allot of fish on it, all along the top of the drop. I added a small clip of the ledge looking to the east. I included the screen with the GPS waypoint.. It might look like a hump, but it is about 200 yards long running north & south. More like an old creek channel ( the one just west of the boat ramp to the south of it.). It's not a large drop, but fish were holding to it. Something to put into your collection.

These links will allow you to find the spot with your cell phone, and then you can save the waypoint of your graph. For those that have a hard time with GPS waypoint data entry.

https://goo.gl/maps/wuo8b4Tyttkxk1sG6
https://goo.gl/maps/wuo8b4Tyttkxk1sG6

Were you fishing in a canoe in the evening on Tuesday Prosise? Went to the northside of the dam at about 5:30ish and saw a couple of guys in a canoe

No sir, I have been in the big boat last couple of weeks. My canoe is red and has a small suzuki 2hp motor so I don't have to paddle much..

Sitting on my creek channel edge i see. ,old dove creek

cool info! thanks for sharing, Prosise

Fished yesterday out of Murrell Park in my yak. Wind was 2x forecast and it was super challenging to stay on sandies. They were suspended and moving. 5 hours of being wind tossed resulted in 6 sandies, 2 crappie and a beautiful gar. He fought like a lion. Respect.

I won't suggest any particular method other than the normal ones. Nothing was predominant. Junk fishing. No bass and bait everywhere!

Been fishing allot of nights lately. Only thing I can offer: I have been catching allot of sandbass along the Dam at night, there is a ton of bait down in this area. The sandbass I am catching are in the 8-15ft range and along the rocks. In the AM I occasionally see some action near the north east corner of the dam over by the tree (small point about 100 yards from the corner). Day bite for bass is brutal, to be honest. I went to the humps north of the crusher on tuesday about noon and there were crappie on both humps. No sandbass, or bait seen in this area. Caught crappie, and gaspergoo (drum). I haven't been looking for the sandies, but run into them occasionally. Hope all are well, and the cooler temps are really nice at night. Water surface temp is @80 F right now. Been catching some big bass off the beaten path, and some decent bass on the lower end. Tuesday morning when it got light it was really tough, I picked up my crappie rod with a small berkley paddle tail with 6lb test. Casting as far down chunk rock banks, with deep water close yielded some surprising bass, and it was actually fun. Did this in Twin coves, and close to Grapevine point. I stopped at a couple spots on main lake points with a steep rocky drop and this worked for small fish. You cannot cast shallow enough, and if you have some shade on the bank it's even better. There are allot of main points with this, and when all else fails scale down in gear/tackle. Somebody had to be on the sandbass, and maybe they will add some info.. Crappie are out, and it's just plain cheating with livescope. It's so much fun picking on them.. For bass I have been throwing a black spinnerbait slow rolling it, bumping whatever area I am fishing. But if you don't make contact your spinning your wheels.

Night pix from Sunday 9-25, day pix from tues 9-27 morning.

Haven't posted in a while. Fished Sunday and Tuesday night all night. Bait galore in the creeks, and I have been seeing shad hanging out in the north East corner of the dam in 7-20 ft of water (all night long) for a while. You can go ever there during dark hrs and throw a cast net out and pretty much catch 6-8 shad on each throw. I threw my 12ft net to see how big the bait was, 1.5"-3" long. Sandbass are on the rocks of the dam as well, favoring this area. If you stay near the bait, you stay close to the fish. Lots of bait seen in the back of twin coves as well. Lake has turned, and there are spots on the lake that have a funky color to the water. Fish are looking for the best oxygen I'm sure, and I'm not a biologist so I hunt and peck to find the green fish. But typically the depth you find the bait, is the sweet spot for catching sandbass and definitely the green fish. Crappie are everywhere, and even on the humps in small schools. I caught a magnum crappie on a black spinnerbait on Tuesday night that was impressive. I was pretty excited seeing such a large crappie, prob 16"long at least. Haven't been looking for the Sandbass, but crossing paths with them occasionally. They are fat, and most I caught this week during the night were gorging on shad. Most had tails sticking out of their stomachs. Bass fishing has been real good at night, and brutally tough during the daytime.. Take care all..






Prosise

I have been on some very good Sand Bass and Crappie in this cove the past few weeks. The water is very stained i have been using a silver spoon and I put some black strips on it with a sharpie (it helped a lot!) and a Swimmin Super Fluke Jr in white pearl seem to be on point.

My wife and I were chasing the black bass this Saturday but I saw two sizeable boat shows presumably after the sandies-one was off the island ledge/channel swing and one was on Sandbass Point. That's more main lake than anything. We did not catch any "by mistake" fishing pockets and creeks. This was all between 10am and noon as they had scattered by noon. Marked a TON of shad in and around Silverlake marina but didn't see any bigger marks with them.

Managed 3 smallies on a bone jerkbait off the dam today on my lunch break.
Hopefully this is signs of fishing taking a turn for the better!

Fished yesterday, and had enough casting practice for the Green fish. Ran into Mr. R near sandbass point, and they had caught some fish but they were small. He was hunting and pouncing. I went to Murrell Point and there were some good fish out on the end of the main point. I fished there for about an hour before it was getting slow, moved to the east side of the drop and the fish were chasing shad. Strange thing I noticed yesterday, the better fish were chasing shad near the surface and the smaller fish were down on the bottom. Never seen this, or that I can remember. The seagulls were showing the fish that were chasing bait, but you have to be fast to follow them. Now the interesting thing I saw, the fish were not pouncing on the spoon like usual. I was watching the livecheat and you could see the fish checking out the bait but not pouncing. I started semi-dead sticking the wafer about 3-6 inches off the bottom with an occasional very slight pop. about 70% just bit it, and the other 30% hit it on the slight pop. So, if your marking fish try and just hold the spoon, or jig without popping it.. Worked well for me yesterday. We will just say I caught allot, I stopped counting after a big number. Have not followed the sandbass lately, so I don't know if this is repeatable. My fishing mentor did real well at sandbass point on monday in the rain. Anyhoo, bass bite was tough for me yesterday but I got lucky and picked up a real nice one in the afternoon. God Bless, and will hopefully get some more info on monday.

Prosise

Prosise, you are a treasure trove of info. 😎 where would a good map be that I can look at to figure out where the rock crusher and all these other terms I’ve seen you use out there? I’m thinking about heading out there in the morning and looking for some black bass and sand bass. hopefully it won’t be all that crowded on a Saturday. It’s either grapevine for black and white bass, or whitney for striper. 🤔

i was out there on 10/27 in the afternoon from 3 pm till dark , we also caught about 30 sandies all big boys , we followed the birds from the island to sand bass point . All where in 5 to 10 feet of water . 3/8 CC SILVER SPOON was our choice of bait used . Be ready to move quickly to stay on the fish , as the birds were moving fast and diving on bait being pushed to the surface by the sandies. we used a casting out ,let the jig drop to bottom then start and stop retrieve on the way back to the boat. I am not a up and down jigging person so i may not catch as many fish , but we were plenty busy for the afternoon . water temp was 67 degrees .

when your going up the lake, just west of the point of meadomere & twin coves mouth. Dead center of the lake, you will see a buoy. That is the Crusher, just ease up to it. Don't know when they put the buoy on it, but it makes things easy to locate. To be honest, I have only caught a drum on it. I like humps, and the drop on the humps much better. And I don't like getting hung up.. But the thing has fish on it. Hope that helps.

Caught some nice sandbass at rock ledge park. Running a crankbait over the hump.

Tough day, but I caught fish here and there. Crossed paths with Joe, who have me two really nice hugging spoons. Much appreciated. Bait is everywhere, and fish are fat. Take care all.

Here is a good picture of how the fish are eating. If you look closely you can see the tail of a shad sticking out of this fish' throat.

Sandbass bonanza on Murrell point most of the day. Without the redneck thumper it was no good, with it thumping we did very well. Met a couple new people and had a good visit with Mr. B. We whacked em. All I will say is I caught more than allot today, might be close to my all time count. Will have to check the video.

Birds were showing the fish who were chasing shad. The fish pushing bait up were the better fish.

Also caught a g blue in the back of silver lake marina. Found a big sunken boat, was trying to catch some crappie off the boat when I saw something big. Dropped my senko down and the fish inhaled the worm.

Picture of the blue, and Mr.B. we had a good visit.

Windy today, looked at Murrell point but there wasn't anything there. South winds pushed bait up closer to the bank. Checked hump by sandbass point and caught a couple, but wasn't the day to fish for them. Went back to the green fish and caught a real nice one on a wiggle wart crankbait.

Fish today for the green fish until about 1pm. Took a break and headed out looking for some sand bass. Looked at Sam Bass Point, and the hump but it was no good. Check some humps by the island out in the middle of the lake and they were empty. Went over to morrell point and found some fish on the bottom, but they really weren't active. Poked around on the east drop, occasionally picking up a few fish. I went out to the end of morrell point and found a big school hunkered down on the bottom. Caught quite a few, talked to another boat and told him about The fish and we went back out to look for him. They weren't still there, which figures. We caught some fish, but they're really not jumping on the bait. Basically letting the spoon hit the bottom and just picking it up off the bottom and let it sit. They are liking the dead stick presentation. Caught a big buffalo, and a really nice blue cat (25 lbs) on the med size Cordell spoon.


Met the M family, they were the boat I recruited to beat up on the sandbass with. They were my witnesses on the blue cat as well. Hope to cross paths with them again.






Here are some footage of the Sand Bass school that I was working before I went and recruited the other boat. Of course they weren't there when I got back. But I wanted to try to get them on some fish. At the end of the video you can see the GPS coordinates.

Great report as always!

Really looking forward to seeing how the fishing shifts in the next few weeks.

Also props to the lady on the SUP... looks like she has a life jacket and even a 360 light! I always keep all the safety stuff on the yak but see lots of folks on SUPs without a jacket or even a leash on their paddle. Want everyone to be safe out there so happy to see that!

I took her pic, she really was following the golden rules. I gave her big kudos for the light.

Lots of sandbass on meadomere point. Also fished Murrell point and lucked into some chunky ones. With the
Cloudy conditions I was dead sticking it with a slight bumping action on the bottom.

Fished yesterday from 7am-6pm. Went to several spots around the lake practicing my casting. Getting good at that casting thing lately. My Fishing mentor surprised me about noon, as he came out to enjoy the absolutely beautiful Wx. Long story short, about mid afternoon we went looking for some sandbass. There was two boats already out on Murrell Point beating up on the sandbass. We stayed out on the end and with the Bluetooth thumper rolling pretty loud we stayed in pretty much the same spot until sunset. We whacked them, and it was really fun. The fish cruising around working bait, were the big ones. I used a DT8 crankbait when i could see them on the livescope in the 10ft range. Mr. B caught two real nice catfish, using a normal size spoon on the bottom. You wouldn't believe how many fish are out there, it is amazing. Technique is very subtle, letting the jig hit the bottom just barely raise the spoon up off the bottom. A hard jigging motion works, but the good bite is more of a dead stick technique. Spot lock pretty much useless with the calm winds. Interesting thing noticed by Mr. B, the fish were stacking up below my boat and the thumper. He said it almost looked like they were looking up at the boat. We stayed close, and enjoyed the fun. It was funny listening to him fight the flathead, with 12lb test it was a really good fight. I had to land them with my net, and just left the net in his boat as he was catching all the big ones.. For a short day, it was very memorable.. if you don't know Bruce, stop and say hello. He will always lead you in the direction of fish. Been bass fishing all my life, and I thought I knew how to fish. He has a wealth of info on this lake, and I am pretty sure he has waypoint'd every big rock on the lake. Take care all, hopefully we will do a repeat today. Don't know if we are going, but if we do I will report. If your chasing the green fish, we need some sunshine. When the sun comes out I will catch a fish. Pretty strange, but if your on the sweet spot and the sun comes out your very lively to catch one. Take care all...

I landed the blue in my net, and held it for a picture.

Went out yesterday around 11:30am, until dark. Looked at Murrell, Sandbass point, Rock ledge, and a couple other areas with nothing seen. Fish are stuck to the bottom, and you will see smaller bait balls in 25ft.. This is the magic depth, and down to 33'ish. I forgot the bluetooth thumper in the truck, so it was work getting them to bite. All the areas I listed above had very to no bait on them, but you can see fish on the bottom if you look. The fish schools we did find were roaming looking for food. Meadomere cove is saturated with bait, and smaller sandbass. from 2pm, to dark your best bet is to look for the seagulls working the bait. If they are sitting in the water, there is something there but it might be tough. We followed a small school of fish working bait out in the middle of the lake, but it is tough to follow. I was using a DT8 shad pattern crankbait reeling it slow. The fish roaming are in about 10-12ft, and will pounce on bait if they see it. It was really cloudy, and hazy so not much light penetration in the water. I am pretty sure it's pitch dark in 20 ft, so they pretty much have to bump into your lure to find it. Will be out sunday, take care all. If the sunshine comes out, it will turn on. Only saw two other boats on the lake yesterday, and they were chasing the green fish also.. If your not seeing lots of bait, or birds move on. And if you don't have a thumper, or a redneck bluetooth thumper it is tougher. I was tapping my foot on the boat and you could actually see fish respond. It only sprinkled on us about 5 minutes.

Surprising day. Was planning on planting brush, not expecting a good bite. Caught 10 bass in the first 2 hours. Planted 5 cedar trees, and then went back to chasing the green fish. Checked out Twin coves and it was a blank. Coming out of twin coves I went to the humps north of the crusher. Caught a bunch, but even when the bottom was saturated it was a little hard getting them on the hook. Changed to a blade bait, and was casting out and working it back on the bottom. This worked well, and caught many. Went south to a ledge that is nearly due south from these humps. I found a hump that is deep on both sides, and is about 300-400 yards long. It was stacked with sandbass, and I caught allot. Both of these areas were good, but there was little to no bait. I had the bluetooth thumper on and the fish followed the boat. I saw a big fish and quickly put down the 10lb line rod, and picked up the rod with a large jigging spoon on 17lb test and hooked up on the fish I saw. Think it was about a 30lb flat head.. Finished the day chasing bass in meadomere and put a couple nice bass in the boat.. I put some gps coordinates below, they will get you on the ledge/hump. You can go either way to find the ends.. This has been a good little area for sandbass in the last year.

Visual of the long ledge/hump







My cute little spot.. I love these



Some footage of the ledge. Lots of fish on this hump, and the fish were following the boat with the thumper running. Amazing to see how many fish are in this area.

Had a good rain this morning, saw the sun poke out and decided to go out and look around. Got out on the lake about noon, meadowmere is chocolate milk all the way out to the no-wake zone. One of the creeks that feeds meadowmere was running over the road. I've chased the green fish for a couple hours, and then I went looking for sand bass. I went to the ledge/hump that I described on a previous post. It's saturated with sand bass, the birds were working above it and I was throwing a crankbait and a jigging spoon and catching fish. I will add the unedited raw video from the depth finder below. Along with a waypoint which is the very Southern end of the ledge/hump. I cannot stress enough, the Bluetooth thumper is essential. You can see that the fish are staying underneath the boat and I've traveled over 200 yards throughout this entire video. The fish are following the boat, anything is better than nothing when it comes to thumpers. If you have to take a broom handle and bang on the boat do it. There's tons of fish, when the sun comes out it's going to be really easy catching them. I had a dead stick the bait to catch them, but I caught a lot. Take care all, work in the next 4 days.

Another great report!

I think it's time to wrap this one up, and put a bow on it. I wanted to thank everyone who stopped to read the info, chew the fat with me, waved, or sent me an instant message. I really enjoyed chasing the green fish this year, and kind of neglected the sandbass for a spell, but it's getting better and better. It was really a good year, and I think we are very blessed with our little lake. I want to encourage you to throw anything out that will help others on the updates, any little tip helps.

I will start chasing the green fish really hard and not let up until the late spawn timeframe. Keep a mental reminder in the back of your mind for the full moon in March. This is when the smaller sandbass will start running up the creek.


God Bless you all, Merry Christmas to all, and Many Blessings from the Prosise household..


Sincerely

Brent Prosise

Thank you for all the info! I hope you have a fantastic holiday sir.

Thank you, Prosise! I have been working like a dog and haven't gone out since September. It was a good year for me too. I think much of my success was from the many contributions on the TFF. You, Holding the Line, and DCC were really instrumental in my finding and catching fish this year. I look forward to March and the run up the creeks. I trust it'll be a good one. Merry Christmas!

Wow, can an angler not dead stick Grapevine with any success ??

Piece of cake.. I have fun with them, and to be honest I would rather pick on the big ones when I can. But yes you can whack them, and I think with the thumper it's much better.. Might have missed something by your comment, sorry if I misunderstood.. When I find the fish, I look around to see how much are in the area for information more than fishing. I love whacking em'...

BTW, here is the catfish video from Sunday.. Love picking up the big ones on a spoon

Nice Kittie ! I must have misunderstood the references to wrapping up the year , not the fishing !! Looks as if Grapevine's boat traffic is weekend and summer specific !

Great video Prosise! And thanks for sharing the info on Grapevine. I've only fished it once and since I live in Austin now, not likely to fish it again. But, still very cool of you to share with those who can! Have a very Merry Christmas and keep these coming!!

Prosise I cannot thank you enough for making this thread and contributing all this great information. Its educational and entertaining.

Its super rare, I mean almost never anymore, that someone shares such detailed and up to date info as you do.

Look forward to seeing you on the water again in 2023.... and hopefully a Grapevine Lake 2023 thread up here soon

Merry Christmas!

Completely agree

I know I put a bow on this thread, but I went out this morning at 4am until 4pm. Practiced my casting for the green fish untill about 11am. Went to pick on the sandbass and whacked them on that hump southwest of the crusher that I posted GPS coordinates on back a month ago. Got tired of catching sandbass when I was around 200, went to the hump north of the crusher and started whacking big ones.. was using a spinning rod with 6lb test, and hooked a big cat. Took a long time but I got her in for a picture. Release her for another day. If I put together a video I will post it.

Bite: before I turned on the Bluetooth thumper I hadn't caught a single sandbass. I found the top of the hump and moved to the east side about 3 feet deeper (@24-26ft).. If your not using something to create the thumper noise, your spinning your wheels..

Forgot to add. Holding the smaller size jig about 1-2 inches of the bottom, more of a dead stick presentation.

Catching sandbass on light line is fun, but not big catfish.. Was a very blessed day.

Here are two videos from yesterday 12-26-22 on Grapevine Lake. One is some sandbass action, the other is the catfish on 6lb test.

I had allot more sandbass footage but there was a big booger on the lens of the bodycam, so the only viewable footage was from noon on.

(for those who do not know how to enter GPS coordinates in your graph)
You can open your phone, enable location and with the google maps app to go right to these spots.

I used a small cordell spoon, and one of my homemade front runner baits. It's basically a small willow blade, or the blade off a rooster tail. I drill a second hole for a split ring, and add a swivel/hook.
I cut one of the hooks off the treble hook on the top bait, it makes things easier when you catch two fish. We find hundreds of baits so we found a use for the parts.
We originally used jig heads with a worm, but we were always having to repair the worm or replace it. This bait is bulletproof, and only needs the hook sharpened occasionally.


Btw. Got asked twice. I'm using kastking amazon braid 6lb. Tied with Alberto knot to 12lb fluoro , I tie fluoro to the top bait, and 15lb mono between top and bottom bait. It's easier to hold on to mono line..


Notes: when I was checking out the first spot I wasn't seeing nothing. The fish are there but sitting right on the bottom so they don't show on the livescope. When I started the bluetooth thumper they stayed directly under the boat. The fish are there but stuck to the bottom, and will move in to the thumper area..
If anyone doesn't believe me about the thumper, I will happily make a video using only down sonar and show how it brings them in. As you can see it brings in a lot of catfish as well.
On a side note: This is pretty surprising. Out of all of the bass I have caught on Grapevine lake, the three biggest bass were caught fishing for sandbass with the thumper on.
I have videos of all the big bass caught.. I can easily show you, if you do not believe. I really think the real deal thumper would be a great investment.
I am still suprised to see is that I see guides that do not use one. This doesn't make any sense to me. I like the bluetooth thumper because I use it for music
more than I use it for fishing, it works and I cannot justify the expense.. But if you want the best of the best the real deal thumpers are way louder than what I use.
I use a Onyx Studio 6 bluetooth speaker which I got on black friday a couple years ago.
I bought my son a bluetooth speaker on Amazon for 60$ (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MFBNTG3?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1) and it is probable just as loud.. Take care all, and Many Blessings.
Time to clean out the boat, clean reels, and get ready for 2023.. I heard there are Bass and Sandbass in Grapevine, so I am going to check this "Rumor" out.

Last post for me, working next 4 days..


South-west of the crusher GPS coordinates (out on the end of the hump) There is a small piece of planted brush near this waypoint.
n 32.99924 w 097.12538
Google map link. https://goo.gl/maps/gs9C7G7oySWKHybB8
LINK

North of the crusher. There are actually two gps coordinates in this area. see prev posts.
n 33.00259 w 097.11718
Google map link. https://goo.gl/maps/RdUcXdK11iK2n4556
LINK

Catfish video.


Sandbass I added some raw footage of me fishing (at @ 2:45 in the video) so you can see how I am just barely lifting the bait off the bottom. I let the line out, and then simply pick the bait up..

Thanks for posting, great info, very helpful.