The bite continues to be good for most species in the lake,
especially striped bass, largemouth bass and crappie. It really surprised me
that after the lake temperature dropped about 3 degrees it didn’t affect the
feeding habits of the fish. What the drop in water temperature did was to make
the bait move to other areas of the lake, but not necessarily far away from
where they were. The fish will follow the bait.
Striped bass fishing continues to be strong. Yes, you will need
to do some searching, but if you find some bait, I just about guarantee you
will find striped bass nearby. The best areas to find these fish have been back
in major creeks, deep flats and today I found them in the old river channel in
the main lake area. In the creeks they have been on or very close to the banks
first thing in the morning. After the sun gets over the tree line, they seem to
concentrate more in the creek channel. Their depth will depend on the depth of
the bait. The deeper flats have
started to hold more bait in the 40 to 50 foot
range. The fish again relate to the depth of the bait. I have found that the
stripers seem to be on the flats late morning. The bait that I found today was
in the old river channel which, in this area, was roughly 70 feet deep. The
bait was 20 to 40 deep and varied. The fish were at the same depths. The
striped bass that I found today were in large schools that appeared to be feeding.
My bait of choice for the shallower fish, say from the shoreline out to 30 feet
down, has been casting a Kastmaster blade style bait. I do replace the hook
with a feathered treble hook. I think that gives it a closer resemblance to a
injured live shad especially if you work it in a twitching motion. I reel back
to the boat very slowly letting it sink more as it is being retrieved. For
deeper fish, I have been vertical jigging with a spoon or a small 3-inch
plastic jig with a 3/8 ounce jig head.
Crappie fishing has also continued to be very good. Of
course,
crappie as most species go through a feeding cycle. If you find them and
they are not feeding, you will need to wait them out until they get energetic
again or move to the next brush pile. Small spoons or small crappie jigs and of
course live minnows are all working very well. The best brush has been in 20 to
25 feet of water and the fish will be on the tops to buried within the brush.
You will just need to keep working different depth until you find that magic
area.
I have not done a lot of bass fish lately, but they do
appear to be going shallow. Crank bait,
wiggle warts, soft plastics, and a-rigs have all produced some nice fish. As
the water temperature continues to rise back in the creeks the fish head back
to the warmer water. Today I fished a brush pile to see if crappie were there.
No crappie, but the brush pile was inhabited by some nice size largemouth bass.
They loved my Tater Baits Electric Monkey crappie jig. The bass were buried
inside of the brush
towards the bottom. I can’t believe I could pull these
beasts out of the brush with 4-pound test.
Norfork Lake surface water temperature is rising very slowly
after the 3 degree drop from last weekends storms. The lake temperature was 48
- 52 degree this morning. The lake level has been stable with a slight drop
with intermittent power generation and currently sits at 554.05 feet msl. The
lake is clear to stained depending on where you are at in the lake. If our
current forecast holds true, we have another deep freeze arriving Friday
afternoon. I guess I will be out seeing where the bait moved to next Sunday.
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Happy Fishing and enjoy Norfork Lake.
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