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Tu as beau changer l'appât, les poissons ne mordent plus.

Tu as beau changer l'appât, les poissons ne mordent plus.
You change the bait in vain, the fish are no longer biting.
From Lesson 224:Doing something in vain (avoir beau)·French

Questions & Answers about Tu as beau changer l'appât, les poissons ne mordent plus.

How exactly does avoir beau translate to "in vain" here?
The phrase avoir beau followed by an infinitive (like changer) is a set idiom. Literally, it looks like "to have beautiful to change", but it expresses doing something uselessly. In this sentence, Tu as beau changer means "You change it in vain" or "No matter how much you change it."
Can I translate this as "Even though you change the bait"?
Yes! Avoir beau is a concessive phrase, meaning it sets up a contrast. While "in vain" works perfectly, you will often see it translated as "Even though...", "Although...", or "Despite...". Just remember that in French, this idea is expressed with a verb phrase (avoir + beau + infinitive) rather than a conjunction like "even though".
Why does the sentence use ne ... plus instead of ne ... pas?
The negative structure ne ... pas simply means "not", while ne ... plus means "no longer" or "not anymore". Using ne mordent plus tells us that the fish were biting earlier, but they have now stopped.
In English we say "the fish are biting," using "fish" as both singular and plural. Why is it les poissons with an 's' in French?
Unlike English, which often uses the same word for one fish or many fish, poisson is a regular countable noun in French. To talk about multiple fish, you must add an 's' to the end of the noun and use the plural article les.
Why does appât have a circumflex (the little hat) over the 'a'?
In French, a circumflex often indicates that an "s" used to follow that vowel in Old French. Appât originally had an "s" and is historically related to the English word "pasture" (food for animals).

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