The lake level is 553.31 and has dropped 1-1/2 inches in the last 24-hours. They quit generating last night about 9PM and just stared again this morning. The White River at Newport is 20.98 and dropping. The surface water temperature was 49 yesterday afternoon and the lake is stained green. We worked on boats yesterday getting them ready for rental this week and then went out fishing for a while and caught a few but not a lot. Bass fishing was the best followed by crappie, hybrids, small stripers and some white bass. I see the same trollers out there everyday seeing how many small stripers they can kill. People ask almost everyday if stripers are good to eat. The answer is almost all fish coming out of Norfork's clean waters are good to eat. My opinion is in this order: Walleye, crappie, Kentucky Bass, Flathead Catfish are by far the best, followed by channel cat and then temperate bass. (stripers, hybrid stripers and white bass). You only have to cut the red meat out of all of the termperate bass or they are very strong. Blue cat are ok but not my favorite. Others eat carp and gar but I do not. I do not kill very many fish anyway especially smallmouth and big largemouth. With the price of fishing equipment and gas it is not economical to go fishing to get meat anyway. I promote catch and release but have no problem with people staying in the legal limits. The weather may be a little rainy this week but the temperatures are to be spring-like. Several people are here on spring break and others buying or looking for real estate continue to keep coming and more than I have ever seen. The 5PM traffic in town is more like a city than a small town and things are changing faster than anyone could have imagined. I used to know almost everyone in town and now I can go to Walmart and see a hundred people and not know any of them. The same is with the fishing pressure. With the increasing number of fishermen and better electronics the fish in the lake will get harder and harder to maintain. Even novices can catch fish now and there are about as many guides as there are fishermen. I just do not want us to end up being like Lake Texoma where the stripers are small even though they spawn there. All of ours are planted.
