Greg and Randy Searcy from Spokane, Washington and Guthrie Center, Iowa with some of yesterday's catch. Good ones SGT. Major. We like Veterans. 
The lake level is 553.85 and has dropped 1-1/2 inches in the last 24-hours with generation rates of 1/2 to one generator about 1/2 the time. The White River at Newport is 4+ ft. This is unbelievable. The surface water temperature was still 80 yesterday afternoon and the lake continues to be stained green and getting a little more every day. You can see your lure down just a few feet where you could see it several feet more. Crappie, bass, bluegill and catfish continue to be the best bite and I am seeing very few temperate bass brought in but I did get a report of an umbrella troller catching a couple of small stripers. There are a lot of bass and creek minnows on the bank and bass are moving in early and late to feed on them. The fish that I see coming up on shad are mostly small bass. I am not catching any largemouth of any size but am mostly fishing for Crappie and Kentucky. I do not keep any largemouth or smallmouth anyway but like to catch them. There is a special place in me for a 4-lb. smallmouth and we have a lot of them in Norfork but I am not catching any of them yet but they will start showing up soon. There are more crappie in the lake than in precious years and I think I know why. Harvey Hall has died and Jay Smith has retired and they were the best crappie fishermen on the lake for several years. They both worked hard putting in their own brush piles after the ones put in by the Corps were neglected for a long time. The local Game and Fish Biologists since have put in and replentished many existing ones and that has really helped. I have been putting in brush piles on Norfork for 27-years for our customers. I am not an advocate of high water but it does help the spawn if it does not come too fast and stay too long. The Game and Fish quit stocking crappie several years ago after the Black Nosed experiment. I am still catching several Black Nosed Crappie but not as many as a few years ago. Two were caught yesterday. Norfork is now a premier big crappie lake. I really enjoy catching those big black crappie. Kentucky Bass, crappie and catfish are all together at various depths on brush from 25-32 feet. One brush pile holds fish and another one is empty and then that changes and they are roaming. It just takes one gar to clear out an area. The lake overall is in excellent condition and it looks like our best chance of much rain is friday with chances for the next several days. We need it but without wind. I am only using spoons and crappie jigs with both working about the same. Jigs when it is windy and spoons when it is not. Creature baits and worms are catching bass on wind blown banks.
