This morning was an awesome day for fishing Norfork Lake. I start fishing around 6AM. It was still dark and fog was starting to set in. I was fishing a shallow rocky point in a large cove that had the creek channel swinging in next to the point. I marked fish in 35 feet of water, on the drop off edge of the point. I marked fish both on the bottom and some bigger arcs suspended 10 to 20 feet down. I started casting my 3.5 inch paddle tail swimbait, with no luck. I switched to a Tater Baits Tater Shad in the white trash color pattern. I dropped the bait to the bottom and then cranked up 1/2 turn. I started to just dead stick the bait, and this was the ticket. I would feel a little heaviness and then set the hook. I began to land big 3 pound spotted bass and 3 to 4 pound largemouth bass. I landed one striped bass in the dark on the Tater Shad. I also lost a huge smallie while I was trying to lift the fish into the boat by the jig head. I also lost a keeper walleye while lifting the fish in the boat by the rod. I guess I need to get the net out the next time. LOL. All fish were being released anyway. Today was like I was fishing in the late fall with the deep lite biting fish, and the icy cold morning. So far, I had only been fishing for about 45 minutes. Lots of action. John, one of our guests, showed up at daylight and was cruising over to talk for a while. When he yelled out, here they are! He was only about 60 feet away from me sitting in 80 feet of water. I moved slowly toward him and when I got to 50 feet of water there were big arcs suspended from 30ft all the way to the bottom. I dropped my same Tater Shad and a big fish engulfed the bait on the fall. I looked over at John and he was also fighting a fish. For the next hour we were both landing striped and hybrid bass. I think I ended up with 6 or 7 more fish in the area. These fish were really aggressive. They wanted to chase the bait and they really made the drag sing. What a blast. Somewhere between 8 and 8:30am the lake became flat calm. The stripers disappeared and the bass stopped biting. It was time to head back to the resort anyway. John caught the big striper of the morning weighing in at 12 pounds. The lake continues to warm back up and should be back to where it was a week ago very soon. The fish will move up shallow again. The surface water temp was 54.5 to 55.5 degrees. The lake level is dropping with the equivalent of 2 generators being run with spillway gates open and one generator being run periodically. Current level is 555.36 ft msl. Happy fishing you all!
