Scuba Steve with his best ones yesterday.
The lake level is 553.17 and is the same as it was at this time yesterday with two hours of running one generator and two of running two. The surface water tmeperature was 48-degrees when I came in last evening at dark and the clarity had improved and I could see my lure down over 6-feet. The creeks change almost every day with the wind direction but were also clear in the North facing ones and were crystal clear near the shore. They were green the day before. The big moon is helping the large bluegill fishing and they are biting much better and are the best eating fish in the lake and do not need to be stocked. Trollers are catching a few hybrids and white bass but working hard for them. White bass reproduce naturally but stripers and hybrids do not in Norfork and are put and take like the trout in the rivers. Put em in, take em out. They are the only fish that are stocked in Norfork with the walleye rearing pond being out of order. (I wish they would get it fixed) Now that we are in February and they have not drawn the lake down for the winter and are still over 553, and they have had ample time to do so, we are at the mercy of the spring rains. They could let the White river at Newport go to 21-feet until April 14th but refuse to do so. It is now 12.68 feet and dropping quickly and preparing for the significant rains that are coming starting tomorrow and lasting to Thursday. We could get three inches or more and depending on where it hits, we could see a significant rise in water level. They always seem to quit generating when it rains in order to maximize the effects and let the lake rise as much as they can. We start having problens with lake access at 560 and I was hoping not to have this problem until at least May but that is what happens when you allow government to run things. We do not need three inches of rain in the Norfork River Basin almost as much as we do not need any more ice. At least it is almost gone and most of the frost is out of the ground and some of it will sink in. If the ground was frozen it would all run off. This warm weather before the rain is a good thing. Bass fishing is picking up a bit but several are still in open water on shad while some Kentucky bass are on brush with some crappie. Crappie are in small schools and roaming and fishing for them is about as tough as it gets unless you just get into a larger school of smaller ones, which I am not interested in. I prefer a few 13-15 inchers compared to a lot of 10-inchers. I do not keep many anyway. I cleaned and made repairs to all of my Purple Martin houses out yesterday and am ready for the scouts to come. We have seven of them now with four at the dock and I am really anxious to hear and see them again. i saw four sets of bluebirds yesterday and I like them almost as much. Blackburns is an Arkansas State bird sanctuary and I spend more money on bird feed than people feed. A 40-pound bag of black oil sunflower seeds is now almost $35 with tax (Baxter County is now over 10% and is almost like a socialist county) and if the governemnt should subsidize anything it should be bird seed. Us poor people can hardly afford to feed them anymore and that is not good but I will figure something out and It will not include raising prices on anything here at Blackburns again this year. We continue to be the best value in the Ozarks and have the lowest prices on both cabins and boat rentals and continue our policy of continued improvement with out raising prices. I will do it as long as I can. I was going to buy a $2,500 live scope for my boat but decided to put in new windows in cabins 12 and 14 instead. My Hummingbird 4-ID that I bought in 1982 still finds brush piles pretty good and that is all I need. I put them in myself anyway and pretty much know where they are. They do not move around as much as the shad and I do not fish for red meat fish much unless I go with Bink. He know where they are.
