John Bornhop with some good ones. 
The lake level is 557.80 and has risen 2-inches in the last 24-hours with no rain and no generation. They always quit generating before and during a rain to make the rise as much as possible and keep us one big rain away from high water. There has been ample time to lower the area lakes but they refuse to do so. At least they are keeping Table Rock at below power pool to protect Branson Landing while raising the other area lakes. It is all about the $ and political pressure like everything else. Hold and hope and open the gates after the crops are planted downstream to inflict as much damage as possible is the game. We have had several days of beautiful weather since the last rain. KTLO radio has the best and most accurate forecast for the area as we do not fit in with Springfield or Little Rock. It looks like we will get quite a bit though and we can expect a significant lake rise with no generation. They could mitigate the rise if they wanted to but refuse to generate. We just do not need three or four inches in the Norfork Lake watershed in Southern Missouri. The big rain that made a mess of things in 2017 happened on the last of April and I was hoping that date would pass with no major events but it does not look good. A couple of inches in this area will not hurt much but we will see what happens. The lake is in excellent condition, clear and warming and the bass and crappie spawn is in full swing. A lot of fish were caught out of Blackburns yesterday and the Black crappie that were brought in were spawned out. This just happened in the last couple of days and they were on brush in about 25-30-ft. of water 10-ft. down and biting minnows and jigs part way back in the creeks. Many bass are on the beds with some females having just spawned and on shad and coming up in the early mornings. Several males are still on the beds either waiting on the hatch or protecting fry. I am seeing no schools of fry yet and they always come in under my dock when they leave the beds in this area. It has been a good spawn so far with the water remaing fairly stable and in the buckbrush providing good cover. We could use a couple of weeks of the same to really help things out. It has been slow warming up this spring but it looks lke it is here to stay now. Walleye, bass and crappie remain the best bite with a few hybrids and a few stripers in the 7-9 lb range being caught. Every once in a while a 15-lb striper is being caught but not very many. Twenty pounders used to be an every day occurance and thirty pounders not uncommon but those days are over until they can make a comeback. I hope they do. Blackburns still has one bedroom cabins for $59/day until Labor Day so come on down. We are very busy here. If you are staying where you are nearly the only customer you are paying too much. Blackburns is the fishing headquartes for Norfork lake and spend all winter putting in brush piles for our customers. They catch fish and we will show you where they are.
