This is what it looked like last night. Almost daytime.
Scuba Steve with some of yesterday's catch.
The lake level is 553.55 and has dropped over an inch in the last 24-hours with several hours of running one generator as predicted. The White River at Newport is 3+ feet and hard to navigate and launch. Bull Shoals is now 6-feet below power pool and that is about where Norfork should be instead of just at power pool level. The surface water temperature was 62 when I went out yesterday and the ambient temperature did not warm up much. It struggled to get to 50 but was sunny but breezy and then finally calmed down. Largemouth bass fishing is picking up and crappie and walleye fishing is just fair. You can catch some if you know where but they are not in a feeding frenzy, hammering anything or jumping in the boat. Open water fishermen are catching some stripers but they are not very big and they have to look hard and long for them. I was out until after dark and saw no striper fishermen in the full moon which was very bright rising from the north east. It gets cool fast after sundown. The month is 2/3rds over and we have not had much rain as of yet but there is a good chance again Sunday. It is to warm up a bit with a high near 60. Everybody caught a mixed bag of fish yesterday but not a lot. It was just slow and steady. Bink is on stripers and walleye, Dave and Mike are catching crappie and Kentucky Bass and Tom is catching Largemouth and Kentucky Bass. Scuba Steve is catching crappie, Kentucky Bass, bluegill and an occassional walleye. Several others report slow fishing. I will start smallmouth bass fishing soon. We have a good crew painting, doing carpenter work, plumbing and cleaning gutters and raking leaves. It is a busy time here at Blackburns and we will get as much done as possible as long as the weather holds. This is the time to get it done because spring comes fast and people want to get out and we have to be ready. We get busy again by mid March. Blackburns is open all year and we will not charge you too much and will help you with fishing. We do not claim to be experts but do catch a lot of fish and have several good brush piles.