Norfork Lake Arkansas near Mountain Home in the Ozark Mountains region fishing report and lake condition by Scuba Steve from Blackburns Resort and Boat Rental.

This is a sample of what Scuba Steve is mostly catching nearly everyday.Image titleImage title

The lake level is 552.85 and has dropped 4-inches in the last 24-hours with continuous generation since 7:PM last evening. The White River at Newport is 11.65 and dropping. The surface water temperature is just under 48-degrees and dropping and the lake is clearing more every day. You can see your lure down 5-6 feet. Everything in general is in pretty good condition but the fishing is just fair. The cold fronts continue to come through and slow fishing and then it gets better until the next one. The trend lately has been for it to get cold during the week and then warm up late in the weekend. It can vary from early 60's for a high to late 30's just overnight. Our normal average high is rising and is now 45-degrees. The bass have started biting in the evening on the grub near the bank and some very large crappie that are on the brush in the daytime are with them. I am fishing brush until sundown and then beating the bank until dark. Most of the bass are Kentuckies but a few largemouth are with them. Many larger bass are hanging with the shad in open water now that the big stripers are mostly gone. I have not caught a walleye this week. The crappie are finicky and will go for a few hours of not biting and then bite quickly for a few minutes. When I think I have it figured out they change. You just have to wait them out. There are still some 15-16 inchers but not nearly as many as last winter with 11-12 inchers taking their place. They are fat and healthy though as are the bass. Overall fish numbers are high on norfork except for white bass and big stripers and the white bass are making a comeback with many in the 10-inch range. A few nice ones are being caught but not a lot. Big bluegill are in high numbers and are excellent eating and fun to catch. We are fortunate to have so many species of game fish in Norfork and sometheing is almost always biting if you are willing to be versatile. Catch a few, keep a few and release a few and do not fish in deep water. There are some big fish there but also many smaller ones and they all die when brought up. Venting does not work. They may be able to go down but they die anyway. Big stringers of dead fish are not impressive to most people except for meat hunters.