Garnet Burch caught ahd released several nice fish this week. 
The lake level is 553.73 and rising slowly and is almost to the top of the power pool. Bull Shoals is 7-feet below their power pool. I do not know why they are keeping Norfork so high but it might be that the generators are inoperable or they are working on the dam itself. If it was the generators they could either open the flood or sluice gates. The White River at Newport is 2.50 feet and remains very low. The water clarity is also not so good and I could see my lure down only about 4-feet yesterday in the sunshine. It should be more clear this time of year but there is not much clean water coming in from the river. The surface water temperature was just over 50-degrees and came up just a little for some reason. I fished a Blackburns brush pile hard for about an hour and caught one bass and a couple of smaller crappie and moved to another one. There were several fish on both but they would not bite until just at sunset. I caught fish until it was too dark to see. I saw no other boats out there except for one of my rental boats. They were bass fishing and caught a few. I can catch as many fish from 5-6PM as I can catch in the whole day. It is like a a switch is turned on but is still not good and is much slower than it should be. Striper fishermen are going three or four days without catching anything and then finally find a school of feeding fish and then it is all over again but putting on a lot of miles to do that. It is like nothing is hungry. I know it is winter and the cold blooded fish slow way down and do not feed as often but I usually catch more than this. Your best bet is to downsize your lure and slow down your presentation. The fish that I am catching are near the bottom on brush from 18-28 feet of water. This is when I like to use the 1/8th ounce Bink's Spoon with 4-lb. test clear line and drop it right on their heads to get a reaction strike, On this date last year the level was 553.75 and the surface water temperature was 52-degrees and I could see my lure down about 3-feet. The only difference was that the White River at Newport was 17-feet and rising but I was catching fish almost at will. Not now. We are to get some light snow tomorrow and rain on Monday with snow again on Tuesday. We have several good fishermen coming in tomorrow and we will see what they do. They work hard at it. Come on down and join the fun. It is better than laying on the sofa. Sunday looks to be very nice and sunny. Blackburns is open all year and has the best prices in the Ozarks and a free stall for your boat comes with the cabin at our dock. All cabins are individual with no duplexes and all have big covered porches with ample parking. You can launch at our dock, put your boat in a stall, park your trailer and be done with it until you leave. We have two fish cleaning stations and a good infra-red security system and different sized boat stalls to fit your boat not one size fits all.
