 BILLY
BLAKELY AND REELFOOT LAKE
Stumping for Reelfoot Crappie
EDITOR’S NOTE: Billy Blakely has fished at Reelfoot
Lake most of his life and has guided at Blue Bank Resort
on the lake near Tiptonville, Tennessee, for the past
23 years. Today Blakely will share with us a little-known
crappie-fishing secret used at Reelfoot .
Blakely: As the weather begins to warm up in the spring,
more anglers will come to Reelfoot Lake to catch the
crappie moving  in
to the shallow water. We catch these stump crappie,
as I call them, by using a 10-foot B’n’M
pole, 8-pound-test Mossy Oak Fishing Line and Spike-It
jigs. The color of jig we use depends on the clarity
of the water, the brightness of the day and the mood
of the fish. The secret to catching crappie here on
Reelfoot is to find the trees along the shore with the
biggest bases. We fish around many of the cypress trees
growing in the lake, and I’ve always found that
the trees with the biggest bases on any shoreline usually
will have the most crappie around them. If you go to
the big trees first on the shoreline and catch two or
three crappie around those big-based trees, then you
know the crappie are on that tree line. You can fish
the bases of all those trees and catch a good amount
of crappie. If you don’t catch any crappie around
the biggest-based tree on the shoreline, then move to
another area, and fish the biggest tree trunks you can
find there in the water until you start catching crappie.
By targeting the biggest trees on the shoreline, you
can locate more crappie quicker and determine on which
shoreline the most crappie are spawning.  When
I start looking for crappie, I use a 1/4-ounce jighead
with a Spike-It trailer. I like that heavier jighead
because I can fish it quickly around the big-based trees
until I find the crappie. Once I catch a crappie, I
take that 1/4-ounce jig off and start fishing with a
1/8- or 1/16-ounce Spike-It jig. Generally I catch more
crappie using the smaller jigs. My 1/4-ounce jigs are
my search jigs to pinpoint the crappie, and then I use
the smaller Spike-It jigs to catch the crappie I find.
Most of the time, when the crappie are holding under
trees, we catch them in 2 to 4 feet of water. The crappie
start moving under the trees about the second week in
April each year and remain under them for three to four
weeks. You can wear them out tight-lining a Spike-It
jig. Last year, in 1 hour and 10 minutes, my party and
I caught 87 crappie that weighed from 3/4-pound- to
2-1/2-pounds each. The second week of April until the
second week of May is prime time for crappie fishing
at Reelfoot Lake. If you’re planning to come,
you better book a trip early because all the marinas
and lodges on Reelfoot Lake will fill up early.
To catch crappie at Blue Bank  Resort,
contact Billy Blakely at 1-877-BLUE-BANK (1-877-258-3226),
or visit www.bluebank.com.
On a package trip, you can fish for four days, stay
four nights at Blue Bank Resort and including the cost
of boat, motor, bait, gas and ice spend $209 per person.
If you prefer to fish on your own, Billy Blakely and
the other guides will tell you where to go and how to
catch them. A guide charges $200 per day for two people.
Tomorrow: Flat-Topping Crappie
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