Norfork Lake Condition and Fishing Report by Scuba Steve from Blackburns Resort and Boat Rental (click here for comment)

Scuba Steve Caught a few yesterday.Image title

The lake level is 553.38 and is up a fraction with no generation for several hours and the White River at Newport is 11+ feet. I guess they are holding and hoping again for a drought. Their plan is hold it up high all winter, hold and hope all spring, not generate when it rains, let the level go up higher and higher in early summer and then open up the gates and flood everything downstream after the crops are planted and up and nobody seems to care enough to do anything about it. The surface water temperature was exactly 57 when I went out yesterday and the sunny skies turned cloudy about 3:30 PM. We got just a sprinkle of rain last night and the mixed precipitation did not happen as predicted. I thought it was too cloudy to get very cold.  Fishing was a little slow but steady and I caught both bass and crappie. I saw four boats all evening and three were from Blackburns and one was a troller. I watched him troll from the bridge to Cranfield Island but saw him do nothing but loudly talk on the phone all the way. It was the only thing disturbing the peace and quiet and it was very nice out with the wind being just right for drifting down the shoreline and the temperature in the low 50's. I was using both the spoon and the grub with none working better than the other but caught fish on both. The winter fishing on the steep river channel banks and on channel swings seems to be here even if the water temperature is 57 degrees. It will get better when the water cools. I am catching less fish on the brush and more on the bank. The moon is starting to get smaller now and Bink reports he always catches the biggest fish five days before the full moon and smaller ones until that happens again. I guess that is why the smaller crappie are showing up now but I am catching some in the 11-13 inch range but not the great big ones approaching 16-inches like a couple of weeks ago. Several keeper bass in the 16-18 inch range are being caught but also not as big as a couple of weeks ago. The lake overall is in excellent condition and fishing is just fair.