I caught this one by accident yesterday. 
The lake level is 553.88 and has dropped 1/2 inch in the last 24-hours. They started up the one operational generator at 8:AM this morning after 6-days of nothing. The White River at Newport is 8.05 feet and dropping. The water color is stained a little green but still has good visibility. The water is warming again and is 47-degrees and that should continue with high ambient temperatures near 70 for the next week with little chance of rain. We are starting to get dry again. I sure would sure like the lake level to be at about 548 going into the spring rains but they refuse to do this for some unknown reason. They like to keep us just one big rain away from being too high but it is run by the government so you cannot expect too much. I do not like it to be higher than 560. The shallower creeks warm faster than the main lake and this is starting to happen now and they are both about the same. It must be ready to happen since the bluegill and crappie have moved in under my dock. This usually happens when the water temperature reaches 50 but they are early. It may do that next week. It got close to that earlier but cooled down again with the very cold nights. They moved in but left again but are back. Wherever you see bluegill, the bass and catfish are not far away. Especially the 3-4 inchers which they like the best and they run in schools about the same size. I have not seen any shad there under the light yet. In the spring I seldom have to leave Blackburns Creek to catch my personal limit of 5-fish. When I first moved here Blackburns was not open all year. They closed from December 1st. until March 15th. The first year it was in the 70's by March 1st so the next year I opened then. Wrong thing to do. It was in the 30's for a high and teens for a low and everything froze up with water squirting everywhere and a lot of plumbing resulted. The next year I opened March 15th. Now we are open all year but not all cabins. I have several full-time employees and want to keep them. If you lay them off in the winter they do not come back and you have to start all over again. If this was not the case I would close again in the winter. We stay very busy through Thanksgiving and then it drops way off. I like to fish in the winter and catch my biggest crappie then. Blackburns still is the home of the $59/day 1-bedroom cabins until Memorial Day and a free stall for your boat at our dock comes with the cabin. We are getting a lot of calls from people who are shopping for lower prices from where they used to stay. They got an increase again this year and do not like it. I start shopping every time I get a price increase on anything. Loyalty is great until they just charge you too much. I work too hard for my money to throw it away so someone else can take a vacation, buy a new boat or a new live scope for fishing. Come on down to Blackburns. We will not charge you too much. We especially welcome Veterans and Police.
