Norfork Lake Fishing Report

I've had a lot of fun the last two mornings fishing in Arkansas on Norfork Lake. Bass fishing has been fantastic early in the morning. The Kentucky bass (spotted) and largemouth bass are hitting top water baits with a vengeance. The striped bass and hybrid bass are also coming to the surface, but not with the frequency that I saw last Wednesday. I think the slight cold front and the 1 inch of rain turned them off a little. The warmer night time temperatures should make them take off again. Friday morning I fished the Cranfield area and caught over 20 Kentucky bass with 6 keeper size. I released all fish. I even caught a double header on a spook, a fish on each treble hook. This morning I sent several of our guests to my Cranfield fishing spot and though I haven't heard a final report, I do know that they caught a 9 pound hybrid on the first cast. (Cell phones are great on the lake) I decided to venture to other areas of the lake this morning to see if I could find more stripers. I failed, but I did catch smallmouth, largemouth and Kentucky's. I first headed to the Diamond Bay area, then went to Panther Creek. I caught fish, but could not find stripers coming up. The weather pattern seems to be stabilizing so hopefully this will help the fish get energized.

I need to apologize to the crappie fisher people. I've been having so much fun striper and black bass fishing that I haven't even thought about going out for crappie. I'll see what I can do about that so I can give you a detailed report. They should be on brush piles in 20 - 30 ft of water, some will be suspended and others in the brush.

I have been baiting up my trotline again and doing well. This morning I caught three nice channels and yesterday a really nice flathead. I am using large shiners and crawdads. The fish are feeding heavily on crawdad, because when I was cleaning one of the hybrid bass on Wednesday it was full of crawdads and shad. So for the bass fishermen that use plastics go with the crawdad colors and shapes (greens, brown, orange.)

The Norfork Lake level is at 562.29 and rising slowly. Two generators are being run about 6 hours per day. The main lake is clear with the creeks and coves still stained from the rain last Wednesday. The lake temp has dropped a little ranging from the upper 60's to the low 70's in the morning then rising during the day. The current weather report is for just gorgeous warm weather.

Happy fishing and see you on the lake.