Caught fishing with Bink's Guide Service yesterday on the spoon.
The lake level is 572.14 and has dropped about 1-1/2 inches in the last 24-hours with generation about 1/2 the time. They are still holding the White River at 12-ft. stubbornly at Newport and have missed many chances to drop the area lakes. We are below average rainfall for June. We have been in a pattern of warm sunny days with pop up showers during the heat of the day. Just enough to keep things green. It is hard to believe that the 4th of July is this weekend and it is only about six weeks until school starts. Town traffic is building already and it looks to be a very busy week. People are tired of being restricted because of covid and are really wanting to get out of the city and away and Norfork Lake is a good destination. Overall fishing is not the best now but several temperate bass are being caught both by trollers and spoon fisherment in 50-80 ft. of water. All fish caught in this manner die after being stressed by fighting in warm water and coming up fast out of deep water with low oxygen. Bass fishing is just fair as is the crappie bite. Catfishing is a little better as is bluegill fishing. Usually some walleye are with the stripers in deep water but that does not seem to be the case now. Some are being caught off main lake points at the thermocline which is about 23-ft on the spoon but not a lot there either. There is just a lot of bass fry and other bait fish in the cover on the old shoreline at about 20-ft. so game fish are scattered out all over with lots of cover and food. Usually stripers and walleye are caught regularly in the heat of the summer deep as the water temperature gets into the high 80's. It will be interesting to see what happens this year. We will see what july and august brings.
