Norfork Lake Fishing Report

I have been going through fishing withdrawal, but finally today I was able to get out on Norfork Lake for a great day of fishing. I fished with one of my striper guide friends, Robert Lee, of Lee's Lite Line and we had a fantastic day of fishing. We were on the lake at 3AM in order to net live shad. We ended up getting about 50 nice size thread fin shad and then left for the Robinson Point area around 4:30AM. We were fishing the flats outside of the island. At around 5:15AM the fish started to hit non-stop for about an hour. We ended up catching hybrid bass and stripers in 25 - 35feet of water. The fish were on the bottom and feeding heavily. The bites were coming so quickly that we ended up missing as many fish as we caught. We left this area and headed to several points around Bidwell Point. We were marking plenty of fish, but found no takers. Our last stop was back in the Bennetts area. We fished a point at around 35feet of water and were catching nice size Kentucky bass. I caught a nice 5 pound walleye. Robert wanted some Kentuckys for dinner this evening for his fish tacos. We had fried walleye at our house. mmm good!

Vertical jigging would have worked well today. The fish were schooling and in a feeding frenzy. There was very little topwater action today. I think most fish will be caught in the 25 - 40 foot range from this point until the cool fall weather starts.

I will be back to my normal fishing schedule next week so hopefully the fish will react the same to artificial baits as they did today on live bait.

The Norfork Lake level is currently at 558.4 and falling. Two generators are running most of the day. The Norfork Lake water temperature is in the mid to upper 80's. Water is clear.

Well I'm am off to bed, it has been a long but very productive day. See you on the lake and happy fishing.