 BILLY
BLAKELY AND REELFOOT LAKE
Casting and Retrieving
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: When we have 10 lily pads that you can work
jigs through, we cast and retrieve Spike-It jigs on
corks. We use our 6-1/2 foot B’n’M poles,
small bobbers and Spike-It jigs. We’ll cast our
baits out, let the corks stand up, pop them and then
let the corks sit still. By popping the corks, we get
the crappie's attention. When they see those jigs under
the corks, they will come and attack the jigs. Often
the crappie will take the jigs when we pop the corks.
Most of the time  they
take the jigs after we pop the corks, and the jigs will
sit still in the water. This technique will also work
around shallow-water trees, especially those in just
2 feet of water where most people won’t fish.
They think the water is too shallow, and the crappie
won’t feed in that little bit of water. Some days
when the crappie are spawning, they’ll be in water
so shallow that their dorsal fins will be out of the
shallow water. I’ve learned that if you want to
catch big crappie, fish the places that no one else
is fishing and the water depths where no one else is
looking for crappie.
If I fish in shallow water and I have to make a long
cast, I may even use a 7-foot B’n’M pole,
which will allow me to cast a bit further. Once again,
I use 8-pound test Mossy Oak Fishing Line. Because of
the line’s small diameter, it casts a long way
but is strong enough to pull a 2-pound crappie to the
boat from 20- to 30-yards away. On dark days, I use
dark-colored Spike-It jigs. On bright days, I use light-colored
Spike-It jigs. On dark I days I like black- and purple-colored
jigs. On bright days, I like pink-and-chartreuse jigs.
I don’t  know
why the crappie like the pink-and-chartreuse jigs because
they don’t look like any kind of baitfish they
would normally eat. All I know is that color works on
this lake. If you can’t find a pink-and-chartreuse-colored
jig, buy a pink jig and dip the tail in chartreuse Spike-It’s
Jig-N-Dip. Then you’ll have the color you need.
April is the best month for catching crappie at Reelfoot
Lake. You can catch them with so many different tactics
during that time of the year. In April, you can catch
crappie trolling with a spider rig, casting around the
trees or moving in to the shallow-water grass, pads
and fish for the crappie. Our crappie usually spawn
out by mid-May, and then they move out to deep water.
If you fish in the daytime through the summer, you’ll
usually catch a lot of small crappie. If you fish at
night in the summertime, you can catch the  bigger
crappie by fishing deep. We fish with a slow-moving
boat around underwater stumps and logs using minnows
and drop fishing. If you want to fish jigs instead of
fishing with minnows, use dark-colored Spike-It jigs.
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: Bet on the Bluegills
|
