ML56 is spot on at Lake Somerville.. when the lake is up and the Yegua is running full at the right time of the year we have good reproduction and not so good production on dry years. But certain areas of the lake hold spawning whitebass every spring year after year regardless of flow into the lake from the Yegua.

I remember reading somewhere that male whitebass will attempt to spawn in their first year of life but females take two full years to reach maturity. That would explain why the females are so much bigger.. and they are a relatively short lived fish at about 4 years which explains why several drought years in a row really knocks the population down.

Like most everything on the planet fish need to reproduce and whitebass will attempt to do so in whatever conditions are presented to them. That being said, whitebass will spawn where there is moving water and the success rate goes up or down with the volume and movement of the water.

One thing is for sure.. the whitebass don't stay in the creek after the spawn is done unless they get trapped by fast falling lake levels..

My TPWD Inland Fisheries friend tells me that surveys they do (gill net and creel) show that many whitebass never leave the lake but I do not know if anyone has done a study to determine the reproductive success rate of whitebass in creek-river verses open lakes.