Happy New Year To All! May 2015 bring many heavy limits!
Winter fishing on Norfork Lake continues to be good. As you can tell by my photos I enjoy striper fishing. The bite for striped bass has been strong. I fished today and ended up landing 2 limits of stripers and hybrids. The fish are in or close to deep water channels and they are suspended anywhere form 30 - 60 feet down. I did not see any huge schools of fish, but instead found small clusters of 2 - 10 fish swimming together. They are feeding on small 2 - 4 inch thread fin shad, so large baits are not needed at this time. Later in the day they seemed to move out of the channels to nearby deep flats. At around 2:30PM I started finding fish on the bottom in 60 feet of water. Yes, these fish are roaming so the main thing you need to look for is bait. Find bait and you will typically find the fish. It is a large area, but start looking from the 62 bridge down toward the 101 boat dock and over toward Walker Hollow. I have been using live shiners as well as vertical jigging with a spoon. When jigging with a spoon,
you do not need to move the bait very fast, small light twitches have been working for me.
Largemouth bass fishing is also good. I have been finding these fish in 2 different areas. 1) along deep water bluff lines in 45 - 52 feet of water. The fish are on the bottom and if you can find a point along the bluff line it will be the best spot. 2) suspended in deep water down 30 - 50 feet feeding on shad. I have been catching nice largemouth out in 70- 80 feet of water in the same areas where I am fishing for stripers. I caught 4 keeper largemouth today. Slow down your presentation, with the cold water the fish are moving slower.
White bass are roaming and chasing shad. Three days ago I found large schools of big whites and smaller hybrids in 45 - 50 feet of water on the bottom in a large flat area. I have also been catching some really big whites while striper fishing. They are usually buried within streams of bait 60 feet down.
I haven't been crappie fishing lately, but I have been given good reports that they are on deep brush piles. You will find the fish 20 - 40 feet down over sunken brush. Look for the fish up higher on the brush at sunrise and sunset, down deeper during the middle of the day.
Norfork Lake surface water temperature today was 47 degrees. The water level is still rising slowly with minimal power generation and currently sits at 550.76. The backs of creeks are still a little brown from the resent rain, but the main lake is clear. Lake condition is overall excellent.
Happy fishing and see you on the lake.
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