Caught fishing with Bink's Guide Service yesterday. 
The lake level is 553.19 and has risen 1/2 inch in the last 24-hours with both generators running about 4-hours. The White River at Newport is 11.46 feet and dropping indicating not much water is being let out anywhere. Even if they think it is going to rain they quit or slow way down generation. The surface water temperature is 47-degrees and the water clarity is good and you can see your lure down about 6-feet. The lake overall is in good condition and we will see what the rain does to the lake. We could get quite a bit and it is just a matter of where on how much the lake will rise. Crappie fishing is not the best and I cannot get anything to bite a spoon. I switched to the 3-inch green grub and parked the boat in deep water and cast to the shore and allowed the grub to sink towards the boat and started catching black bass. I talked to some trollers and they were catching some Stripers in the 5-6 pound range trolling umbrellas through shad and said it was either feast or famine. They trolled for miles catching nothing and then hit schools of feeding fish for a few minutes and they were gone. Not much skill in that but they got some meat. We are sure getting a lot of guides on Norfork and they are outnumbering the fishermen. I hope they make it and wish them well. Competion is good. The stripers keep geting smaller and smaller and people keep killing them but that is what happens when you fish in deep water. Soon we will be like Texoma where the fish are small but a least they reproduce in the Red River and do not in Norfork. When I lived out west they were called sea bass and were considered trash fish and you could go on a shallow reef off shore and catch them as fast as you could put a hair jig in the water and nobody wanted them. Crappie fishing is as tough as I have seen it in years and I am working for everything I get but I will keep you informed of any changes. It will get better. It has to but there are a lot of bait fish out there and more and more crappie are in open water on shad with the absence of the big stripers. same goes for walleye. White Bass and walleye are going way up river to spawn and are being seen several more miles upstream than before with the absence of the Dawt Mill Dam. Things are a changin here on Norfork. The ice is gone and the weather has been warm but windy. It is hard to get out of the wind and fish where I want to but am just glad to be out. Blackburns keeps with it's policy of continued improvement and will do so for as long as we can without raising prices. Shop, compare and then give Debbie a call at 870-492-5115 for a reservation. You will like it here and we will not charge you too much. Your first boat stall is still free here and we have no duplex cabins and all have big covered porches.
