The 37th Bass Cat Boat Owners Invitational Tournament finished up their 2-day bass tournament yesterday. The winner came in with a 2-day bag total of 29.85 pounds of fish. The big bass for day one was 5.78 pounds and day two was 5.10 pounds. Congratulations to all the participants. Thank you, Bass Cat Boats, for holding your tournament on Norfork Lake. We enjoy having the Basscatters that make Hummingbird Hideaway Resort their tournament home.
Well, I was able to get out on the lake this morning, but not for long. Thunder and heavy rain chased me back to the dock way earlier than I wanted. I haven’t been on the lake since last Thursday. Hopefully I am able to get out fishing tomorrow morning. I did have time to try and find a few fish. I was looking for bait on shallow shorelines and main lake points. I also was going back into coves that had the strong wind blowing in. One of these coves, almost to the back in 20 feet of water, I found some big schools of bait. And yes, fish were on the bait. A little surface activity, but mainly the fish were 10 to 15 feet down. I landed one nice striper and missed another, then the thunder got a lot closer to me. It was time to head back to the resort. The Misch group staying with us, fished last week. The bite started slow for them, then they finally started getting into some nice fish. One day they found some great striped bass topwater. It was the first time they had experienced such powerful explosions, and it really impressed them. They all had a great time. A couple of other guests, Mike and Marcus, have been crappie fishing for the past week. They caught and released quite a few fish. They trolled flicker minnows as well as dropping live crappie minnows into the brush piles. Both were working equally as well.
The surface water temp was around 66 degrees this morning in the main lake. The lake level is slowly rising with the recent rains and sits at 554.15 ft msl.
Enjoy Norfork Lake in the Arkansas Ozarks!
