bag limit on grapevine odd

The bag limit for bass on Grapevine seems a little odd to me.
2 no mll ,3 over 18" whats with that. culling out the the small ones but turning back the larger ones would be better.

It sure sucks on Alan Henry. Makes it difficult to remove the number of spots from the lake that need to be removed.

I doubt most average fishermen are removing enough 18" fish to hurt any of the lakes. I do believe it prevents people from keeping smaller fish. I have no desire to break out the filet knife for 2 fish and i have no desire to filet a >18" fish.

Grapevine had a slot of 14"-18" on largemouth with any combination of 5 fish over or under the slot being legal for years and years. So you've pretty much always been able to keep 5 over 18", that part didnt change at all with the new regulations. Most bass fishermen are catch and release anyway, putting dinks in the protected category wont make any difference to the fishery at all... but it does make tournament fishing interesting, if you dont have 3 overs or some smallies or spots in your bag you cant weigh a limit. No length limit on spotted bass and a 14" min on smallmouth. FYI. So it brings about some strategy, perhaps to target the smallies and spots if the largemouth bite is tough. Or late in the day if you only have 2 over largemouth do you tie on the super bright smallie cranks and go run the rocks versus continuing to drag the brush piles?




There is no minimum length on spotted bass sir, you can keep 5 of any size. Filet an 8"er if you want to.

Wow. Just checked the regulations and see that you are correct. This must have changed this year. Good to know. I will try to keep 5 under spots every trip.

Definitely makes the tournament fishing a little more interesting. No more weighing in "5 rats." It does feel good though, being able to keep 2 good fish that were formerly considered "slots"