Norfork Lake fishing and lake conditions by Scuba Steve from Blackburns Resort and Boat rental (click here for comments)

The lake level is 559.86 and they have been reporting it wrong by about 1/2 foot until the last couple of days. They are also reporting opening one of the spillway gates equivalent to about another generator but I cannot confirm this. The lake is dropping very slowly and it just does not look like it is happening. They slowed Table Rock down a bit now that it is back to normal. The step child Norfork gets the left overs. We are lucky it has been dry for a while but more rain is coming Friday. The lake is in pretty good condition but is stained green. You can catch some smallmouth on the bank with a grub and the rest of the time I am still spooning. There are several small stripers being caught and just a very few big ones(over 20-lbs). I am not sure they are there. People are killing these 3-5 lb. stripers and think they are big. They are not. Please release them. After you cut out the red meat there is not much left of them anyway. I have never seen so many pictures of small fish. Blackburns is filling up for Bass Cat and I wish them good fishing. The weather does not look good for Friday. We are still on the weather rollercoaster with warm for tomorrow and cold again Sunday. The water temperature just will not warm up and the fish are wanting to spawn bad. Some years we just do not have any spring and we go straight to summer. This may be one. These cold fronts and cold nights kill the fishing and it takes a few days to get better and then it happens again. This has been the case for several weeks. Drop the lake a bit and warm up and things will be fine. I pick my day for fishing but the tournaments are fixed and have to take what they get. I am fortunate to live here and be able to just go down and get into my boat and be gone in 5-minutes during the best conditions and do not have to push the issue.