I would like to welcome all the Bass Cat Boat owners/anglers, co-anglers and families to the Mountain Home, AR area. Thank you, Bass Cat Boats for once again hosting your owner’s invitational bass tournament on Norfork Lake. 2024 marks the 37th Owner’s Invitational Tournament. Welcome back to all the basscatters who have chosen to stay at Hummingbird Hideaway Resort once again.
I did not fish yesterday, but today I made up for it. I had a great time. The bite started just as it was starting to get light. It was a beautiful morning, and the fish were active. The Kahlenbeck’s had a great morning as well, with John landing a nice 17-pound striped bass. What a great photo with the sunrise in the background. John was using a 4-inch white swim bait. We were both fishing on the shallow side of the lake. The pea gravel shoreline had a lot of buck brush in the water and there were schools of bait roaming up and down the shore. I found a small cut where the bait decided to hang out for 1.5 hours. There was a bit of topwater action, and the fish were from the shoreline out to 20 feet of water, where I was sitting. It was not nonstop action. About every third cast I either had a striped bass, hybrid bass, white bass or a spotted bass. I landed 3 hybrids/stripers, around 10 monster whites, and a couple spots. I should have had 4 more big fish, but they all came unhooked before I could net them. Each fish I landed were barely hooked in the side of the mouth. I think the hook was being ripping out of their mouths from the sheer power of the battle. None of these fish wanted to come to the boat and they were fighting as hard as they could. All the fish I hooked were caught by casting out a 1/2 ounce chrome Kastmaster with a feather trailer. I was sitting in roughly 20 feet of water casting up in 5 feet of water or less. I started reeling as soon as the bait hit the water with a twitch, pause and reel method of retrieval. They would hit the bait on the pause every time. Yesterday, Kahlenbeck’s had a great time with topwater action for whites, stripers and hybrids.
The surface water temperature is on a slow rise and was very near 66 degrees in the main lake. The lake level is being held fairly stable and sits a t 553.64 ft msl.
Enjoy Norfork Lake in the Arkansas Ozarks!
