 BILLY
BLAKELY AND REELFOOT LAKE
Flat-Topping 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:
A technique we use to catch crappie here on Reelfoot
Lake is fishing the flat tops, which is what we call
lily pads. When you’re fishing lily pads, you
really have to sneak up on the crappie, especially when
the water’s clear. We’ll ease up to the
lily pads and fish with a 12-foot B’n’M
pole, 8-pound-test Mossy Oak Fishing Line and a 1/4-ounce
Spike-It jighead. You want to drop that jig in the holes
created by the lily pads. The crappie are laying right
under the lily pads in the shade to ambush the minnows
coming through the pads. You have to swim your jigs
right under the pads to catch the crappie. I like that
1/4-ounce Spike-It jigs because I want it to go straight
down in the hole between the lily pads. On a 12-foot
pole, you need a heavier jig so you can control it better.
I fish with a 12-foot B’n’M pole since once
that crappie takes the jig, I need the power in the
pole to jack the crappie out of cover. You have to remember
that two or three crappie may be around the same hole.
So, the quicker you can get that crappie out of the
hole without disturbing it, the better your chances
are for catching the crappie that are in that same hole.
 Although
our average crappie weighs 3/4- to 2-1/2- pounds, I
saw a fella last year catch a 3-1/2-pound crappie out
of those lily pads. Before, I have caught as many as
20 crappie from the same hole in the lilies. The crappie
are very easy to find using this technique. You just
go from one patch of lily pads to the next patch of
lily pads until you find the fish. Once you find them,
you can often limit out on one patch of lilies. You
may pull up to one patch of lilies, get a bite, miss
the crappie and not catch anymore out of that patch;
then you may move to another patch of lilies and catch
30 or 40 crappie. The real secret to catching the crappie
when they’re in the lilies is to eliminate certain
patches until you find where the crappie are holding.
When I’m fishing pads like this, my favorite colors
are red and chartreuse jigs. I like the brighter colors
for fishing pads and the darker colors for fishing trees.
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: Casting and Retrieving
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