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

Caught fishing with Bink the last couple of days. Image titleImage title

The lake level is 579.08 and has dropped 1-1/2 inches in the last 24-hours with one generator running and all spillway gates open 6-inches. All area lakes are now less than one foot from going over the spillway and the White River at Newport is 25-feet. 26 feet is minor flood stage. They opened bull Shoals flood gates earlier and are really letting a lot of water out of there. They are only a couple of inches from going over.  They have really done a good job of holding and hoping and allowing the crops downstream to all be planted and up. Now everything is at max. One medium rain will really put them in trouble. About everything that can be done has been done here when we reached 579.74 earlier and were 3-inches from going over. Blackburns probably has about the best set up even though we have lost our ability to launch here for now. You can drive to the dock and there are just a very few steps to get on. No trailers at the dock allowed. We have parking at the resort.  Panther Bay is the best place to launch now. The lake is clearing again after the busy holiday weekend churned it up a bit. We have not have had very many quick level rises this year and the lake in this area has remained very clear. It has just been a steady rise with no fall or winter drawdown by our dam managers. After the next two days of rain, it is to be sunny for almost a week. We will see what that brings. The weather man has been wrong about everything so far so there is no sense in fretting. Just go fish until it rains you out. We seldom get washed out for the whole day. I was a little surprised about the boat traffic for the holiday but everybody seemed to have had a good time. It was very busy here at Blackburns with lots of boats rented and all cabins full. People were taking advantage of the best prices on both boats and cabins on Norfork lake here. The big pool was very busy as was the slide. I have a lot to do but will try to get in a little fishing and let you know. Bink is catching some good fish every day. There are a lot of shad about 1/2 inch long that spawned a few weeks ago under the dock and they are bringing a lot of game fish with them.