And please explain why? I am new to these lakes and would like some prior knowledge.

Gibbons Creek Resivoir and Lake Somerville.

Thanks.

Gibbons is a hard lake to fish. I prefer Somerville, cause I have no idea what I'm doing and will still accidentally stumble across at least one.

Conroe or Fayette Co. are not much further than Somerville, and both are way better bass lakes than either Gibbons or Somerville.

Also at Conroe or the previously mentioned Fairfield, one of the really special species is the bluegill fishing. Both these lakes kick out some monster gills...

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Conroe or Fayette Co. are not much further than Somerville, and both are way better bass lakes than either Gibbons or Somerville.

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Agreed. All through college we fished at Somerville and the best we could ever do was the white bass run in early March.

IMO- Bluegill are way underated for great action on small tackle. Especially for younger anglers.

When you can get into them there is plenty of action and fight.

And really good eating too.

An extremely prolific fish and fast growing.

Bass fishing is overrated, if you ask me.

Gibbons is nice only if you have a boat, but it does have some pretty god fish.

Somerville is tough to fish at times, but can be a good "fill the freezer" lake if you work at it. Not much for bass fishing though, if that's what you are looking for. If you are making a weekend trip, the camping at somerville is FAR superior to anything else around BCS in my opinion, cept maybe Huntsville SP or Cagle on the north side of Conroe.

Conroe is a better lake than either Somerville or Gibbons IF you have a boat, and as long as you stay up in the coves or north of the 1097 bridge away from the freakin yahoos.

but catching bass is like fly fishing...it's like some kind of snobby heaven, and you are less of a fisherman for not being in the club...

It all depends on what you're going after and whether or not you've got a boat of some kind.

I grew up fishing one of Somerville or Gibbons Creek at least once a week from the time I could drive until I graduated and moved away from B/CS.

I've never caught a black bass at Somerville but have caught a ton of whites & hybrids and didn't have a boat. From what I hear, it's still pretty much the same. Very good lake for whites, hybrids, and crappie but pretty spotty for black bass.

Gibbons Creek used to be one of the premier lakes in Texas but it drew so much pressure that the fishing sort of tapered off and I'm not sure why. There's a larger story but I forget the whole thing. Anyway, even when shorebound I always caught tons of black bass there. I caught my personal best of about 9.5 pounds there. Two spots to hit are all along the earthen dam up to the spillway (all the rip-rap provides a lot of structure) or the dead, flooded trees across the cove from the boat ramp. We used to wade in those dead trees and do pretty well.

As for Conroe, I've also never caught anything but crappie, whites, and hybrids there. For years it was a pretty dead lake because of the hydrilla and then the explosion of grass carp that ate all the vegetation but over the last 10 years or so it's garnered a better reputation. However, I do second the idea that the fishing is much better above the 1097 bridge unless you're trolling near the dam for stripers.

I've never fished Fairfield but I have fished Fayette and even though we caught tons of fish they were all very small, in the 2-3# range.

Former Hall of Fame level poster w/ Ag tag who was banned for bagging on fran. Now that the wicked witch is dead I have returned.

I much prefer Gibbons. It is closer and a better fishing lake IMO. Somerville has never produced for me, be it whites, catfish or even crappie. We were out there (Gibbons) yesterday and got absolutely pummeled by the wind and waves. I couldnt even launch my 14' and instead went out in my buddies 19' skeeter. The only downside to Gibbons is that it only has one ramp. On days like yesterday, with a bad north wind, it can be terrible to try and put in. If it werent for the price of gas, I would be making the trip to Conroe, Fayette and the like, but for around BCS, I think Gibbons is the way to go.

there's better bank fishing in BCS than Gibbons has ever been for me...

Other than private waters, golf courses, the Bush School, and Lake Bryan, where in the hell are you shorefishing in B/CS?

I grew up in Bryan and other than driving to Somerville & Gibbons all of my fishing was done on private property that I had access to.

We always got run off of the lake at Bryan Municipal Golf Course due to fishing being prohibited because of pollution. And there was an old quarry that we could sneak into up near 50 & 190 (look on Google Maps for the waters just south of 50 & 190 for what I'm talking about) West of Hearne but the access was later restricted.

I even fished the two ponds on either side of Hwy6 immediately north of Emerald Parkway/2818.

Former Hall of Fame level poster w/ Ag tag who was banned for bagging on fran. Now that the wicked witch is dead I have returned.

Finn, there are other PUBLIC places that are really good...

Well, I've fished all those places like Carter Lake, Bird Pond Lake, and Oakland Lake and they're all semi-private. I've also caught fish in the small ponds around St. Thomas Aquinas.

And I've never caught a damn thing in any of the ponds in the various parks, or in front of the CSPD station, or the little arboretum across the street or in Brothers Pond Park.

Finfeather Lake is private and I've also never caught anything in Research Park or the ponds out at Riverside campus.

So that pretty well covers the public waters in B/CS unless you're going out to the rivers.

Former Hall of Fame level poster w/ Ag tag who was banned for bagging on fran. Now that the wicked witch is dead I have returned.

We have had some success at the PD, and good success at the Bush Library pond.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I will give an update for each lake once I have fished both of them.

are you fishing from a boat or the bank?

For Gibbons Creek, I'll be on the shore. For Somerville, I'll be in a boat.

I went bow-fishing at Gibbons on Saturday, and as we were pulling in to the ramp saw a Bald Eagle. Coolest thing that's happened to me there. Didn't boat one fish, but the winds were too high.

I second Lake Fairfield after going there I don't know why I keep going to these other lakes.