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Texas Parks and Wildlife stocked Lake Grapevine with more than 4,500 smallmouth bass last month. That's the scenic suburban lake's first smallmouth stocking since 1999. Anglers prize the smallmouth as a hard-hitting, hard-fighting, high-jumping game fish that makes its largemouth cousin seem lethargic by comparison.

Smallmouth bass don't grow as big as largemouth bass. It takes a fish weighing 6.13 pounds to make the Texas Top 50 smallmouth list, more than nine pounds lighter than the No. 50 largemouth. What the smallmouth lacks in size, it makes up for in attitude.

Smallmouth bass are not native to Texas, but TP&W has stocked them, off and on, for decades. They do well in some lakes, not so well in others. Until recent years, Lake Whitney was the state's smallmouth hot spot, but golden algae caused problems for that lake, as well as others on the Brazos River chain.

Golden algae likewise caused problems for the West Texas hatchery system, where smallmouth bass were being spawned. In fact, toxic blooms from the microscopic plants wiped out the hatchery's smallmouth brood fish.

TP&W replaced the brooders with fish donated by other states and also with wild-caught smallmouth bass from Lake Belton. This year's smallmouth production totaled nearly 150,000 fingerlings. The fish stocked at Grapevine were about six inches long, much larger than average fingerlings.

The larger fish have a better chance of surviving to supplement the few smallmouth that remain from the 1999 stocking. Fisheries biologist Tom Hungerford said anglers still report catching the occasional smallmouth at Grapevine. The lake-record fish, 4.75 pounds, was caught in 2006.

Smallmouth thrive in lakes with rocky structure. Portions of Grapevine fit that bill. So does Lake Texoma, the big boundary lake between Texas and Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation stocks smallmouth at Texoma.

Brian VanZee heads the smallmouth program for TP&W. He thinks Lake Belton could be the statewide hot spot right now. Lake Meredith, the Panhandle lake that produced the state record smallmouth (7.93 pounds), is suffering from low water.

The Devils River above Lake Amistad is easily the best stream for Texas smallmouth bass, but the river is very difficult to access because of vast ranches that control miles of both banks. You basically have to float the river in a canoe or kayak.

"It's hard to get a read on how popular smallmouth bass are with Texas anglers," VanZee said. "I suspect more people would fish for them if the fish were more readily available. We hope to have enough hatchery production to keep stocking the fish at Grapevine. There are plenty of anglers close by."

VanZee said TP&W stocked 10,000 smallmouth into the tailrace waters below both Lake Whitney and Possum Kingdom Lake. Like Whitney, Possum Kingdom is another Brazos River smallmouth lake that was badly hurt by golden algae.

Devils River: Difficult access but one of the few wilderness fishing trips in Texas.

Georgetown Lake: Northwest of Georgetown, in Williamson County.

Lake Belton: 12,300 acres near Interstate 35 in Bell County.

Lake Texoma: Smallmouth are stocked in this huge border lake by Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

Stillhouse Hollow: Near Lake Belton.

• Lake Belton, 87,250

• Lake Georgetown, 32,457

• Possum Kingdom Tailrace, 10,935

• Lake Whitney Tailrace, 10,428

• Lake Grapevine, 4,601

• Wheeler Branch Reservoir*, 4,263

*Small lake in Somervell County that's yet to open.