Depends on the lake. 18mph from the North on Falcon can be insane, on a more protected river lake it can be nothing.

It’s Texas bro. If you don’t then you miss 70% of the year.

This is a true statement about large sections of the state. For the next two + months I just anticipate dealing with the wind and by mid-July I will be hoping for any breeze at all. 18mph is not going to keep me home. Sustained at 25+ with gust in the 30s, that’s just no fun and almost impossible to do anything but fish vertically. Otherwise the only thing keeping me off the water is thunderstorms or the strong possibility of thunderstorms.

As a qualifier I fish from a deep v multi species boat so it has to be pretty rough before I start to worry about the boats capabilities. But if I was fishing from an 18’ or less shallow bass hull, either fiberglass or aluminum I am sure my enthusiasm would be tempered by my desire to not become a statistic. At the end of the day every individual boater needs to be honest about their level of seamanship and the capability of the boat that they are in. If it feels stupid and risky then it usually is.