Norfork lake giant crappie.
Brian Deardoff with 2 of 20 caught yesterday
Caught last night.
Tom Kelly with some good ones.
Fishing had slowed dramatically after the cold weather and snow but is picking up now. Surface water temperature is 56 degrees on the main lake and 58 back in the creeks in shallow water. We have had big variations in ambient temperatures and the water has been slow to warm up. We need some nights to have low temperatures near 60 to really get things going. Our normal high is 62. The lake level continues to drop slowly with generation occurring for several hours a day and it is now at 545.27 and it is clearing a bit but is a good color for fishing. There is a lot of pollen in the water on wind blown banks. It is brown indicating juniper which comes out early. Bink reports catching good fish on the bank in the evening and after dark. Walleye before dark on stick baits and soft plastics and stripers and hybrids after dark. Walleye are showing up more and more everyday. Crappie fishing was fair and then the water cooled and they came back to the brush and it got good again. Now very few brush piles are holding fish where they were thick on them last week. It is their transition period between the males moving shallow in the creeks to make a nest and the big females in open water on shad. Many shallow brush piles in the Pigeon Creek area are exposed with the lower than normal water level. Be carefull when going around Robinson Island and Cranfield Island and do not try to cut through. There are a few bass coming up at sunrise but not too many. A few are also surfacing back in the creeks in the evening but are small. The big ones are being caught on south facing main lake channels with steep banks on grubs and crank baits. Some stripers are on the banks at night but most are in open water and hard to find and if you do hard to find feeding. Top water fish are on their way and one of the first places to find them is Panther Creek. Blackburns has many good brush piles but few are holding fish now. They will after the spawn. What we do not need now is a fast change in water level to hurt the spawn. Keep it right where it is for now. When the main lake hits 60 degrees things will really break open. Right now you have to work for the fish but you can catch them if you are persistent. Get back to the basics and use only clear light line and take off all of the hardware. Smallmouth bass fishing is getting good. Blackburns Resort and Boat Rental has one bedroom cabins for $53/day and your first boat stall is free. 1-800-635-0526