I've had the opportunity to fish a number of Texas lakes for white bass from 1967 to the present. For lakes that have a population of white bass, I have discovered there is an amazing difference between the lakes in terms of both quantity and quality of white bass. For avid white bassers, I thought I would share my findings. Let me be quick to say there are a number of lakes I have not fished, so this evaluation just pertains to those that I have. Here is the list with the number of times I have fished there in parentheses:

Lake Bob Sandlin (1)
Lake Buchanan (1)
Cedar Creek Lake (many)
Lake Conroe (a few)
Cooper Lake (1)
Eagle Mountain Lake (many)
Lake Fork (3)
Lake Waco (several)
Lake LBJ (1)
Lake Livingston (many)
Lake Lewisville (4)
Lake Limestone (2)
Lake Palestine (several)
Lake of the Pines (1)
Lake Ray Hubbard (several)
Richland Chambers Reservoir (several)
Lake Sam Rayburn (1)
Lake Tawakoni (many)
Lake Texoma (several)
Lake Whitney (1)

Here are my evaluations best to worst:
1. Lake Tawakoni: This lake gets my 1st place vote primarily because of the average size plus plentiful numbers. I believe Cedar Creek edges Tawakoni out in numbers of fish and numbers of good structures, but the size difference is significant. There are sufficient numbers of structures at Tawakoni to handle many fishermen and to make it interesting to search for schools of fish. In most instances, when you find the schools, you catch huge white after huge white.

2. Cedar Creek Lake: It has an amazing number of good white bass structures, and on many days they all seem to hold fish, For its size, compared to a lake like Livingston, it holds enormous quantities of white bass.

3. Lake Livingston: The lake has a large population of whites and they historically run big. There are plenty of good structures including old hwy 190 roadbed and submerged bridges in the mid-lake area and a good number of structures down south around Pine Island.

4. Cooper Lake: This is based on my one trip there several years ago, when we caught over 100 fish, and the large number of fishable structures there.

5. Lake Lewisville: I've fished it four times and always caught large quantities of 13 to 14-inch fish. It has a lot of structures on which to search for fish.

6. Lake Ray Hubbard: For me, it and Lewisville have been about the same. It has plenty of white bass structures and decent size fish.

7. Richland Chambers Reservoir: This large lake has huge potential with many white bass structures. This year it has been off but historically it holds good quantities of good-sized fish.

8. Lake Palestine: The lake ranks this high because of one fantastic structure - the old hwy 155 roadbed and submerged bridges. The whites on the submerged bridges run really big - rivaling the size of the biggies in Tawakoni. I have caught hundreds of fish a day there.

9. Lake Waco: The lake has plenty of good structures including old submerged hwy 6 roadbed and the old submerged original dam. It holds good numbers of whites of 13 to 14-inch fish.

10. Bob Sandlin: Fished there for the first time on October 10, 2022, and caught 98 with 94 being good-sized white bass. Found fish on only 3 of the fourteen structures checked.

11. Eagle Mountain Lake: This used to be a very good white bass lake, but in the last 10 years or so it has been difficult to find quantities of fish there. It has some great structures, where I used to catch tons of fish. Don't know what has happened there.

12. Lake Sam Rayburn: I fished this lake for the first time this past summer and found fish in 30 fow using my sonar. Never saw any schools on side-scan, which makes me suspicious. Nevertheless, I caught good numbers fishing straight down in the deep water.

13. Lake Texoma: If it were not for the overwhelming population of stripers there, it would be a much better white bass lake. This summer we caught good numbers of whites on back-to-back days when we targeted the one area we knew had held some in the past.

14 - 20: Lake Buchannon, Lake Conroe, Lake Fork, Lake LBJ, Lake Limestone, Lake of the Pines, Lake Whitney: These all are about equally bad. In a day or more of fishing, I caught less than 5 white bass in Lake Conroe and Lake Fork, less than a dozen in Lake of the Pines, and one limit of 25 smallish white bass each in Whitney, Limestone, and Buchanan. These are lakes I do not plan to go back to for white bass.

Tawakoni is the no 1 catfish lake.
Tawakoni is the No 2 striper lake behind Texoma

good notes.....thanks for your thoughts. Many times I wished to live further east to be closer to your favorites.

on a side note, I also have wondered what is going on with EM.

Great report Dennis, thanks for posting!

Very interesting post. I don't see White Rock Lake or Joe Pool in the list iguess cuz they ranked -99

Well after this Monday hopefully you will add another white bass "hot lake" to the list and yes to BSing Monday. I am hoping BS will crack top 5 after we conquer him

I'm going to try to hit #2 tomorrow if I can get the darn propane people to commit to a tank delivery date. I hate wasting days this time of year waiting on someone to call.

whjere would you put the sabine river above tolledo bend...carthage to lognsposr ?

Solid post.

Dennis,
My ? Is why,, a lake such as Whitney is not a good sandbass lake?
In years past it was great but now even the spring run is nowhere it used to be.

great

me and the boys: Maybe some fishery biologists can tell us why Whitney and Eagle Mountain white bass fishing has declined. For EM, one thing that correlates to the decline from my limited observation is when they started dumping water into EM from Cedar Creek and RC.

of all the lakes i have fished lake limestone has the best quality by far.

Phoenix 920 Pro xp: The last time I fished Limestone was about 10 years ago, and we could not find any white bass after searching for a full day. How are the numbers there? i.e. How many do you typically catch on an outing? How big are the big ones you are catching?

EBLane: I have never fished that body of water. Where would you put it?

you forgot bridgeport