Fishing on Norfork Lake today was exciting and a lot of fun. The rain has finally stopped and the sun is shining. We're getting back to our typical great spring fishing season. The twin lakes area has received 14 or 15 inches of rain over the last week or so, bringing the lake to the top of the flood pool. Some may think this is a bad thing, but think again. Fishing on Norfork Lake is starting to explode. Just this morning I took a couple from the Tinley Park, IL area out fishing and we had great fun with smallmouth bass. The largest was about 20 inches. We ended up catching over 30 fish in a two - three hour period, 14 were keeper size. We missed as many as we caught. We started fishing right after day break and that was definitely the best bite. As the sun rose the bite slowed, but they did still bite. My Tinley Park guests headed out this afternoon to try their hand at striper fishing. They were using large shiners as bait and landed this nice 11 pound striped bass. Pictured is Brian's first Norfork Lake striped bass. He is really really excited! Brian caught his striper with a large shiner with a small split shot on 6 pound test line. The fish hit the bait about 10 ft down. Striper guides have been doing very well on the striped bass. Tom Reynolds of STR Outfitters has caught over 40 fish for his guests over the last 5 days. The photo is some our guests after a trip with Tom. Robert Lee of Lee's Lite Line has been pulling in many quality fish for our guests. A friend set some trot lines for catfish last weekend and caught over 15 nice size catfish. A few crappie are being caught over deeper brush piles in 25 - 30 feet of water, but watch for these fish to move into the trees along the sides of the lake very soon. They may be tricky to get to, but when you get to them you will be rewarded for the effort. I have had many reports of top water action for black bass, white bass, striped and hybrid bass. This will only increase with the upcoming warm dry weather. It is becoming a very exciting time!
A second benefit of the high water is that it is going to be great for the spawn of all lake species, insuring great fishing for the future. I can definitely see the quality and quantity of all Norfork Lake fish species just growing by leaps and bounds. The numbers and sizes of largemouth and smallmouth bass that I have been catching this spring is exceeding all previous fishing seasons thanks to the high water we had in 2008 and 2009. I'm hearing the same thing from the crappie guides.
To find water with the best clarity look back in creeks in the Robinson area and on down to the dam or around the 101 area. The best bite will be in this off colored water to clear water. The main lake from Cranfield to Robinson is still muddy. Some of the creeks are starting to clear to a greenish off color (great fishing clarity). With the upcoming week of nice warm weather I expect the muddy areas to start clearing.
The Norfork Lake level is falling about 9 - 10 inches per day. The fall in the water level is due to the spillways being opened releasing high volumes of water into the North Fork River. The lake level is currently at 579.78 feet above sea level. The surface water temperature this morning was 60 degrees which is a drop of about 5 degrees from a week ago.
Happy fishing and see you on the lake.
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