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

Caught this morning on the Bink's Spoon.Image title

The lake level is 578.97 and is remaining constant as all of the area lakes are about one foot from going over the spillway. It has not rained for 10 days and it is very dry. They are dropping the level of the White River as fast as they can and it is 18-feet now and they are hell bent to get it to 14-feet no matter how high the lakes are. This is crazy. Let some water out boys. You have shown us what you can do if you want to. Why does it matter if Newport is 24-feet or 14 feet. It does not hurt anybody. The truth is they would like it to be 12-feet but the lakes are too high. Who ever made these rules should be drawn and quartered. They are probably dead already anyway since they were made so long ago. Change the rules and quit holding and hoping. The surface water temperature was 82 early this morning and the lake is clearing. We will see what the weekend brings. I have not seen it so busy here in years. People really want to get out and I do not blame them. People are catching fish. Work the main lake points and secondary points in the creeks from as far as you can cast to the bank and work out to 25-feet.  The thermocline is 19-20 feet and there are a lot of fish there. The stripers and hybrids are feeding on crawdads early and then moving deep after sunrise. Spook for top water and spoon for deep water. Walleye are coming in and good ones too. A 22-inch one was caught yesterday morning. Catfishing is picking up and bluegill are biting off docks on crickets. The lake is big but in good shape. Just not a lot of stuff to do off the bank and day users are clogging up the boat launches on weekends. You can swim off our dock, in our big pool with slide or off a rental pontoon. There are no beaches and very few places to get to shore. Many campgrounds are under water. Most resorts have no diminished services except for launching but there are some good places for that just not many.