Good sized Yellow Bass today on the woolly bugger.

Great sized!

Thats a biggun! Would love to tie into some of those guys, only caught em once when I was stationed at Ft. Knox can't even remember what lake in Kentucky I was on; I do remember they were pretty tasty.

I haven’t consumed any. More of a saltwater fish eater. Yellow Bass are a resident fish in the private natural oxbow 77 acre lake I and about 100, 150 or so other folks live on. I suppose they worked there way into the lake via some flood, but they’ve been in here for 40 or 50 years at least. Maybe they got into the lake when it was formed, likely by some action of the Brazos river centuries ago. Karankawas or some such similar group had campsites on the lake so we know the lake is at least 250 years old or more. Looking at the native range of Yellow bass, the lake is supposedly just outside the range, but range maps aren’t perfect.

Buffalo Camp Bayou is very close by, as is Oyster Creek, both well under a mile away, weird little ditches/canals with imperfect barriers connect them all. Then the Brazos River is maybe 2 miles away if even. Buffalo Camp bayou has a nice small public boat/kayak ramp at HWY 332. No doubt during the Hurricane Harvey Flooding, flood water from the bayou and Brazos made it into the lake. Oyster Creek has a canoe launch at Dunbar Park in Lake Jackson just below Hwy 2004. The Brazos river has a 2 slot bigger boat type concrete ramp at 2004, right where Buffalo Camp bayou meets the river.

Years ago, I fished Buffalo Camp bayou. Back then, it had a good amount of hybrid bass, white/stripers, wipers, along with Crappie and maybe yellow bass, I don’t really remember those so much. Lots of blue cats, I have not fished there in 40 years though. The Brazos at 2004 is most of the time in normal water all about catfish and gar. I’ve barely fished oyster creek there at the park. Green Sunfish, as I remember it. The Brazos river and Oyster Creek are by statute saltwater below hwy. 2004. The saltwater fish rarely get up that far, though. I’ve caught redfish in Oyster Creek a few miles down stream. Occasionally, redfish and trout make it to the 2004 bridge of the Brazos.

That is a really good one. I catch lots of them on Lake Benbrook that would fit in the palm of your hand.

I thought about putting the fish on a scale. This lake I live on seems to produce pretty good ones at times.

Lakes apparently all cycle, sort of go up and down on quality of the fish, our lake at the moment is on an upswing. Bass all look fat, all the fish look pretty fat. There’s a good amount of natural cover in the form of coontail moss, spatterdock and bushy pondweed. Plenty of artificial cover such as 50 Georia PVC/Septic pipe structures sunk around various places and Crappie Condos. I built 5 Crappie condos not far off my dock out in 7-10 feet of water. Water quality is good. Lots of quality forage fish, shad, bluegill, tilapia.

Oddly, according to the biologist that helps manage it all, our lake was one of the few smaller, not so deep lakes that managed to have some tilapia survive last February’s freeze. He said tilapia were largely wiped out most everywhere in these kinds of water bodies, but not ours. Tilapia can help feed the LMB in the winter. The tilapia get sluggish in colder water and the bass can then pick them off. The bigger tilapia get eaten by big blue cats. But, some survive to reproduce. I had a huge tilapia on a woolly bugger a couple of years ago. I’m going to tie up some more buggers, about out. Olive seems to be the best overall color for most everything.

I'd say Karstopo is living in a pretty great part of Texas.

I’d agree, but a person had better enjoy fishing the saltwater. Thousands and thousands of acres of quality inshore public saltwater nearby and that is a big positive. The nearby public freshwater isn’t nearly on the same level of quantity and quality.

Those Benbrook rats don’t get big that’s a real good one any water body not named the Sabine can’t believe they get three pounds plus there never caught one full blood out there few white yellow hybrids though