Checking out the fall foliage on a beautiful day. Wish you were here. 
Debbie and Julie must not have been working at the dock all of the time. 
The lake level is 553.24 and has dropped 3/4 inch in the last 24-hours with a little more generation but not much. The White River at Newport is at 3.30 feet and is about as low as it can get. Wade fishermen like it but it is hard to launch a boat. It is very dry and the wind is picking up blowing off a lot of dry leaves. We took an extended boat ride yesterday to check out the fall foliage and in general there was a little bit more color than the day before with most of it being near the shore on east facing banks. There was more red and off-colored yellow with not much on the higher hillsides. It was a beautiful day and not much boat traffic even though it was a holliday for the banks and government officials. They need more time off. Debbie, Amy and Julie finished staining the dock floor and it looks great. It has 18-stalls with wide walkways on both sides of the stalls and electric plug-ins everywhere and stalls of various sizes. The roof gutters keep runoff from getting into your boat and has two fish cleaning stations with running water and plenty of lighting and under water lights for night fishing. We feed the fish and turtles so there is plenty for the children to do. It also has seating and rod holders for fishing, an infra-red security system, brush piles and storage lockers. Only Blackburn's customers are allowed on the dock. There are lots of fish under there. We went diving in the afternoon and the surface water temperature was 75+ degrees and the lake looked clear from the surface but not so good a few feet down. It is clearing from the top down and slowly. I though it would clear faster but it is not. It was good enought to get a few nice crappie. The larger ones were in 27-ft. of brush right in it and the smaller ones were schooled and in shallower water on top of the brush. They are roaming and spooky. The larger ones are from 12-14 inches and the smaller ones 10-11. There are several schools of small crappie in the three inch range shallow and I hear of people using them for bait but why kill the future when there are so many other bait fish out there? Some just live for today and only care about the meat. It may not be illegal but it is not good practice. Let them grow. Fishing overall is just fair and that is because the water has been slow to cool. There are a lot of bait fish in Blackburns Creek but mostly bass on them. The White Bass and Hybrids will move in but not today with the strong south wind coming. This will happen when the wind goes back to the north and the water cools below 70-degrees. We will get enought north wind this winter so I do not want to hurry it. I do not hunt red meat fish anyway except when nothing else is biting. My preference is Walleye, Crappie, Kentucky Bass, large bluegill and flathead catfish and release black bass. Blackburns is the home of the $59/day 1-bedroom cabins and a free stall comes with the cabin for your boat. Cannot beat that anywhere. Why pay more? If you make multiple trips to Norfork you should add up how much more you are paying over time if you are not staying at Blackburns.
