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

The lake level is 552.94 and rising a bit with no generation for the last 24-hours. The surface water temperature is 53 degrees on the main lake and you can see your lure down about 6 or 7 feet.  The creeks vary from stained to fairly clear almost daily. I caught a lot of fish yesterday but no big ones like the day before. Crappie, bass and bluegill are biting very well and you can catch white bass almost at will with a few hybrids mixed in if you can find shad in open water.  The shad are moving around with the wind and plankton and are shallower in the early morning than the evening.  Trolling umbrellas near East and middle Pigeon is picking up a few stripers in the 15-lb. range. But not many. Now is the time to catch stripers and other red meat fish as they will get more scarce as the weather gets cold and they move to the old river channels near deep water and get lock jaw. There will be stripers boats all around the bridges and in front of Panther Bay marina when this happens and very few people will be catching any of them. It happens every year. I caught 12- keeper fish of all kinds yesterday and they bit steadily from 3:PM until dark but like I said no big ones.  The bass were about 2-lbs and the crappie about 11-inches with several throwbacks. It was fun and the weather was nice.  Tom Kelly caught some good bass and Tom Stanton some stripers. The weather does not look good for the next couple of days but it will not hurt the fishing. I have caught some of my largest fish out of Norfork after a snow. Especially bass and crappie. Some crappie are moving near the bank just before dark and hitting the grub. The bass I am catching are in about 8-feet of water both inside and outside main lake points. When I am using minnows on a slip float for crappie they are about 10-feet down from the surface over 25-ft. brush. Not much in brush over 30-ft.