NORFORK LAKE FISHING REPORT

From the beginning of last week to the end we saw a steady improvement in the weather and the fishing. The best bite early in the week was the Fout’s area, but everybody started fishing the area and the bite slowed down.
With the warm weather the last couple of days, the stripers started biting all over the lake. Stripers have been caught in the Twin Coves area, Buzzard Roost area and the Big Creek arm. The best method has been with either shiners or shad with just a split shot or no weight far back of the boat. Saturday I started seeing stripers feeding on the surface, and we caught and broke off stripers on big 7-inch gizzard shad using planner boards. This tells me the stripers are starting to feed, and we should see a big uptick in action once the big rains are over this week. Start looking for top-water action early and late afternoons off the points and bays halfway up the creeks and beyond. You will start seeing stripers feeding around Cranfield Island, Cow Point, Bennett’s, Brushy Creek and Big Creek just east of Hand Cove Resort.
Once the water starts to reach the 60-degree mark, Norfork Lake will turn on fire.
The walleye have spawned up near Udall and are in their post-spawn mode, which turns the bite off until they recover from the spawn. The bite should improve in the next week with the warm weather. Everything will bite better with warmer weather.
The best place to find fish is Bennett’s Bayou and the Twin Coves area. Up past Cranfield there is lots of bait in the area, much more than Big Creek, which could bode well for Big Creek since the predators may be more interested in whatever you present. But as always, as we say, find the bait and you will find the fish.