Norfork Lake Fishing Report

What a great striped bass bite this morning on Norfork Lake. I headed out to catch shad at 4AM and on my first throw I caught enough for me to fish. I love it when one throw works. I have had mornings that what seemed like 100 throws didn't catch enough. I was fishing alone so I just headed straight out to the same spot I had fished last week for several days. What a change a few days can make in fishing. I set out two down poles to about 40feet and one free swimmer with a large split shot. It wasn't more than 5 minutes before one of my down poles started to sing. I was fighting this fish when the second down pole took off. What a dilemma :-) I decided to land the first fish and as I was reaching for the second I noticed it was under the boat next to the trolling motor. That was all she wrote, the line was cut off by the trolling motor. The third rod that had the free swimmer ended up getting wrapped around my big motor. What I'm willing to go though for a fish :-) The main reason for all the mess up with the poles was that the wind was blowing about 15 miles an hour. It's hard to control the boat in wind when you fight a fish. After the first fiasco I decided to just fish with 2 down rods. This made it much easier. I motored back to my point and set out the two down poles and again it wasn't more than 5 minutes before both poles started  singing. I grabbed one and set the hook and the fish came off, but the second rod was was still going strong. I set that hook and landed the fish. I ended up landing 5 striped bass and missed 4 others. I kept my limit of 3 for the freezer and released the others. I did all of this in the first 2 hours of fishing, what a great morning!!! The stripers I caught this morning were 25 - 50 feet down in 40 - 60 feet of water biting on thread fin shad.

This morning was quite different than a few days last week. I fished 4 mornings last week and did not boat a striper. I fished with my brother-in-law and daughter 2 of the days and we did fair on black bass and white bass, but we could not bring a striper to the boat. One day we did break off two stripers and missed several other short bites. I also had two trips last week with a couple of our guests. Again I could not buy a striped bass bite. We caught some nice smallmouth bass and white bass, but could not find a striper.

The black bass are still in the bushes on main lake points. The white bass are also in the same areas. We caught some nice whites and smallmouth's on 1/4 - 3/8 oz. rooster tails, Rogues, flukes and spooks. These fish are in 10 - 25 feet of water and are starting to go deeper.

Catfish are biting well on trotlines. I caught 4 nice channels the other day with live shiners.

Panfish are also biting well on nightcrawlers, worms, and crickets. They are in the bushes on the bottom. Some really nice red ears and pumpkin seeds are being brought into our dock for cleaning. Many are also being caught off of our dock.

The Norfork Lake level is falling 1 - 3 inches per day and currently sits at 575.49. The surface water temperature is stable at around 82 degrees. The water is somewhat stained, but clearing every day.

Happy fishing and see you on the lake.