Caught fishing with Bink's Guide Service by Rich Arellano from Morris, Illinois. Nice fellow and welcome here at Blackburns. 
The lake level is 571.63 and has dropped 2-1/2 inches in the last 24-hours with about 18-hours of running both generators. The White River at Newport is 14.19 ft. and steady. Norfork is 59% full and the four lake system is 58%. Bull Shoals is still 71% full and Table Rock is nearly normal and all are dropping with the hot dry weather and no rain. There was a top-water bite for stripers and bass for a few minutes yesterday early and some nice ones were caught. This does not happen everyday. There are a lot of bass and bluegill at about 20-ft. in the buckbrush. The thermocline is just short of 20-ft where the water starts to get cold. The surface water temperature is in the low 80's and is perfect for boating and swimming. Scuba Diving conditions are very good. Fish in the early morning, scuba dive all day and fish again in the evening. Sounds like a pretty good plan for me. The money you save by staying and renting a boat at Blackburns should pay for the extra gas prices unless you just want to drag overweight children around all day on a chaise lounge. That just costs a lot of money. A whole lot of money. If you want to do that you can stay here and rent a boat from a marina. It is just too bad things have to be that way. Two years ago when people went out and bought every boat they could get their hands on and gas prices were $1.71/gal can not afford to go very far now and those payments just keep coming in let alone paying for dock space to keep them. They are a lot of fun though but not when you have to make a choice between fill you car up with fuel, buy groceries or pay the electric bill. Hopefully you do not have to do that. We will keep our prices as low as possible for our many repeat customers for as long as we can and continue to be the best value in the Ozarks but rapidly increasing prices on everything is getting old. Very old. The lake has dropped about 1-1/2 foot since it's high and most of the floating wood has stuck to the bank and is much better than it was a week ago and the lake is in general excellent condition. Come on down to Blackburns. We will not charge you too much and a free boat stall comes with your cabin for more than one night stays.
