John Bornhop with a pretty good one caught on Blackburns new brush piles.
The lake level is 553.34 and dropping slowly with just a minimum flow from the dam. The White River at Newport is 2.54 feet and very low. Not much water is being released anywhere. The surface water temperature was 58-degrees at dark last evening and the water was fairly clear but not as clear as normal for this time of year. I could see my lure down about 5-feet. It is a beautiful day today with about 1/2 inch of rain coming tomorrow with nice for the next week after that. We need the rain badly. The lake overall is in good condition and at a good level for fishing but fishing is just fair at best. It just has not turned on in November like it usually does. A few crappie and bluegill are being caught on brush piles in 18-15 feet of water and some bass are near the bank in the late evening. Some red meat fish are being caught in open water on spoons but not a lot. The after dark bite for stripers in the full moon did not happen again this year. Some people wanted the weather to get cold. Some wanted the wind to blow. We have had both of those and they did not help much. I do not want either. The wind is not my friend. I am catching a few fish everyday but nothing to brag about. More fish of different species are in open water on shad with the absence of the big stripers and it is changing everything. The lack of flow into and out of the lake is not helping things either. The fish are there because I saw them a couple of weeks ago Scuba Diving. The fish that I am catching are absent of any food in them when cleaning and they are getting skinny. Spoon brush, around brush and look for active fish in open water on shad and also drop a spoon are your best bets unless you want big bluegill. They are shallow around brush and biting small crappie minnows. A few walleye are bitng soft plastics just at sunset on shadowy banks but not many.