The lake level is 556.45 and has risen 5-inches in the last 24-hours and 3-1/2 feet since Tuesday. They generated both generators 5-hours yesterday and the White River at Newport is over the flood stage of 26-feet and is now 26.6 feet. More significant rain is scheduled for next Tuesday. The water in the creeks is clearing up a little and some of the brown is dropping out. The water clarity was not as good in the Cranfield area with about 3-feet of visibility but was still 5-6 feet in the main lake channel near Blackburns. Blackburns brush pile crew spent most of the day cutting cedar trees from my property and hauling them to the boat ramp and freshening up several of our best ones. We are now almost finished with habitat improvement for this year and have one more to go off the dock. We will show you where they are when you get here. I wish more people would do the same but several seem to just take advantage of other people's work. Blackburns has some good ones and like to help our customers catch fish and not just troll around the lake. All of the cabins here that we keep open all year are full now but we will have openings on Monday. Come on down and we will not charge you too much.The fishermen here caught a few fish yesterday but not a lot. The surface water temperature was 45-degrees and several of the people we talked to had a hard time but caught some white bass. We do not count them but they are OK if you cannot catch anything else. They were on the bottom in about 55-feet of water and are ready to spawn. Use the 3-inch grub with a 1/4 ounce lead head and touch bottom straight down. There are reports of walleye being caught way up river in Missouri that are also ready. We have had four winter events here so far this year but it has gone by fairly quickly and I will have to start opening up cabins in a couple of weeks depending on the weather forecast. I opened up too early in 1999 and got burned. People are getting anxious to come to Norfork and get out on the lake and I do not blame them. No price increases on anything at Blackburns again this year. We want our customers to have an affordable vacation.
