Norfork Lake Fishing Report by Lou of Hummingbird Hideaway Resort 870-492-5113

Norfork Lake fishing has been really good over the last week for most species of fish. I have mainly been targeting striped bass, hybrid bass and white bass and have had a blast. The striped bass are on their fall feed before the cold winter months.

I have found large schools of fish in a feeding frenzy. The best bite for the last couple of days has started a little after sunrise and has lasted until late morning. This time of year, however, they tend to feed all day 😊 (No Joke) My third method has been to cast out a ½ ounce silver Kastmaster blade bait. I do modify this bait by adding a white feather/hair jig trailer to the hook. I actual buy treble hooks with the feather/hair tied on. Gamakatsu makes a nice one. I use size 4 on the ½ ounce blade bait. I have been counting down about 8 to 10 seconds after I cast out the Kastmaster, then I start to retrieve the bait with slight jerk and stop motion to get the bait acting like a wounded minnow. Trolling is another great method of fishing at this time. Swimbaits, A-rigs, crankbaits are all producing some nice fish. Keep the bait 15 to 25 feet down. The last bit of info is that nature is currently providing a natural fish finder. Migratory seagulls are here and if you see these birds flying in a certain area and dive bombing the water, go fish under the birds, there typically will be feeding fish under them. This happens annually in the fall and winter months and can be very helpful.
long especially on cloudy days with a little bit of wind. A

great example was last Saturday (12/8). I had a hard time finding feeding fish early, but at about noon the fish started to go crazy and the bite lasted all afternoon. The old belief that if you find bait there will be fish feeding at some point is really holding true at this time. Best locations for me have been the large flats in the mid-lake area, such as, Cranfield area, Mallard Point, 101 bridge, 101 Boat Dock area. There are others, but these are the ones I have been concentrating on. I am finding stripers in 35 to 50 feet of water with the fish at all depths. The bigger stripers and hybrids seem to be suspended up high in the water column, from 10 to 25 feet down. On the bottom I have found whites, but I have still found large schools on the bottom of the bigger fish. I have been fishing three different methods. I have used live minnows, such as threadfin/gizzard shad and bigger shiners. I set the live bait at 15 and 23 feet down, but I think it would also work to cast out the bait with a split shot and move around slowly. The second method has been vertical jigging with a spoon. Use a ½ to 1 ounce spoon. Drop your spoon to the bottom and jig it up and down off of the bottom. Be a little crazy with the spoon by using hard fast pulls and also very slowly moving the spoon. I have caught several nice stripers when my spooning rod was put in the rod holder

while I was answering the phone. The rod would just get buried. Keep an eye on your fish finder while you are jigging your bait on the bottom. When you start to mark fish up high reel your bait up and hold on. I have caught the bigger fish while reeling up and sometimes they hit it just before I take the bait out of the water. Have your drag set loose or your line will break off or you’ll get your rod pulled out of your hands.

Don’t forget to follow Hummingbird Hideaway Resort on Facebook and definitely press the like button for our page. I have frequent posts giving some great fishing information for that day.

Norfork Lake level is dropping very quickly at this time. The Corps of Engineers currently has the flood gates opened to bring the lake back to normal pool. The lake is currently dropping 6 or so inches per day and currently sits at 555.12 feet MSL. The surface water temperature has remained fairly stable over the last week and is in the 53 to 54 degree range. The lake is stained and will stay this way until the water level stabilizes.

Happy fishing and see you on the lake.

Norfork Lake Fishing Report by Lou of Hummingbird Hideaway Resort 870-492-5113

I hope all had a great Thanksgiving. Linda and I hosted Linda’s side of the family at the resort and we had a great time and ate way too much. One of our meals during the week was a Norfork Lake Crappie fish fry and boy was it good.

Norfork Lake fishing has had some ups and downs this fall with all the changing
 weather patterns. This was especially true last week when I fished with family members every day except when the weather was too rainy or too windy. We caught some fish, but it was definitely a difficult fishing week. The last frontal system past through us yesterday morning (12/3), so the lake had a day to stabilize and today was a fantastic fishing and catching day. I began doing a lot of graphing. I started out on the 101 Bridge flat and found a lot of bait out in 70+ feet of water, but very few fish. I headed back to the  I was in 30 – 40 feet of water and was vertical jigging a spoon. After spooning up my first hybrid I decided to set out 2 down lines with live thread fin shad. I set one at 23 feet and the other was at 30 feet. It did not take long until the live bait was getting hit. To show how good the bite was, at one point I had my spoon on the bottom and saw that I missed a bite on a live bait. I set my spooning rod in a rod holder and started to reel in the live bait rod. I heard a rattling and saw my spooning rod double over. I landed a nice 10 pound hybrid. The stripers and hybrid have been very mobile, so you need to keep looking at the different flats on the lake, once you find the bait start looking around for feeding fish, if none move to the next

flat. The fish will be somewhere feeding. I often go back to the same flat where I had found bait and fish at a later time and many times the fish have gotten energized.

Cranfield Island flat and graphed, but saw little. I then headed back to the Pigeon Creek area and again found lots of bait and also found more fish, but the fish were scattered and did not appear to be feeding. I checked out a few other areas with little success until about 9:30AM. Once again on a large flat, I found streams of bait 20 feet thick with schools of fish on top of the bait. They did not appear to be feeding but within 15 minutes the bait began to scatter and more and more fish appeared in a feeding frenzy which lasted for the next 2 hours.

When you find the feeding frenzy of fish all species may be in the same area. Today I landed walleye and crappie on the spoon. Other days largemouth bass have been plentiful. With all the scattered fish I am marking, it might be a great time to troll. Keep your bait at 20 – 30 feet and stay in 40 to 70 feet of water. If you can stay on the bait, you will catch some nice fish. Umbrella rigs, A-rigs, swim baits or deep diving crank bait are good baits to troll with.

In general, crappie are still hanging in the brush on the tops of the brush. They will be anywhere from 8 – 25 feet down on brush in 40 feet or less. Don’t hesitate to check out some very shallow brush on these sunny days, the crappie may move up.

Bass fishing has basically stayed the same as my last report. Early and late in the day look up in 10 to 20 feet of water. Work a jig or worm slowly along the bottom.  As you know I like to find the deep bass. They will be in 25 – 40 feet of water on underwater drop offs or rock piles and will also be chasing the bait fish along with all the other species of fish.

Norfork Lake level is falling rapidly and currently sits at 558.96 feet MSL, The Corp of Eng. has

opened the flood gates to bring the lake level back to normal pool. The lake will be dropping about 5 to 6 inches per day for the next week or so, based on Corp. of Engineers communications. (Typically, with the lake level falling, the bait and fish tend to move out of the creeks to the main lake or at least to the mouths of the creeks.) The lake is somewhat stained and will stay this way until the water level stabilizes. The surface lake temperature this morning was 53.5 to 54.5 degrees.

Happy fishing and see you on the lake.