Billy Blakely Catches All Kinds of Fish at Blue Bank
Resort on Tennessee's Reelfoot Lake
The Crappie King at Reelfoot
 Editor’s
Note: Billy Blakely, the manager and the head guide
of Blue Bank Resort on Reelfoot Lake near Tiptonville,
Tennessee, says Reelfoot’s fishing in the late
spring and all summer is as hot as a recently-shot pistol.
The first week in May, while at Bluebank, my fishing
friend and I saw good limits of crappie, bluegills,
catfish and lunker largemouth being brought in every
day, even on the days when the rain was pouring down.
This week we’ll show and tell you what’s
being caugh t
at Reelfoot, and how anglers and guides are catching
them.
Question: What’s crappie fishing up here at Reelfoot
like in late May and June, Billy?
Blakely: Crappie are spawning right now in May on Reelfoot.
We’re catching most of our crappie by trolling
(spider-rigging). By spider-rigging, we can find underwater
logs to fish that we don’t know about as we fish
logs that we do know their locations. When one of our
trolling poles hits a log, we lower our front anchor
and back anchor and fish by that underwater log. We’ve
found that if the crappie are bedding beside those logs,
we can jack these crappie out from under the logs without
spooking ‘em, if we’ll use the long B ‘n’
M Poles. Last week, in one day, Jackie Wayne Van Cleave
(one of our guides) had a party out that brought in
two limits of crappie - 60 fish - that weighed from
3/4- to 2-3/4-pounds. They were trolling with minnows
on double-hook rigs and using 10-pound-test line. They
caught those fish in 4 hours. What’s important
to remember here is they caught far more than 60 crappie
and only kept the 60-biggest ones. The way we spider-rig
is we put two fishermen in the front of the boat, and
then generally both fishermen can get their limit of
30-fish each in 6 hours.
Question: What other tactics are you using right now
to catch crappie?
Blakely: We pitch jigs around trees from now throughout
the rest of the summer and th e
fall. We use a long B ‘n’ M pole with a
spinning reel to let out as much line as we need. We
use a 1/16-ounce jig and drop the jig around the cypress
trees standing in the water. Then we use our trolling
motor to swim the jigs all the way around the trees.
When I pull in to a tree line to fish for crappie, I
look for the tree with the biggest trunk in the water.
The trees with the biggest bottoms provide more shade
for the crappie to hide in and a bigger root system,
and these trees produce more bugs and more minnows than
smaller trees do. Over the years, I’ve learned
that the bigger bottom trees produce more crappie than
t he
other trees do.
Question: What pound test line are you using when you’re
crappie fishing around the trees?
Blakely: I use 6-pound test.
Question: Besides crappie, what other fish will you
catch when you’re jigging around trees?
Blakely: We’ll catch bluegills, catfish, white
bass and widemouths as well as drum. The biggest problem
we have is with the catfish. When you catch a 4- or
a 5-pound catfish on a 6-pound-test line and a limber
B ‘n’ M pole, you’ve got a fight on
your hands. That catfish will tear-up tackle and give
you the thrill of a lifetime. Our cats will run from
2 pounds up to about 16 pounds, and every day we crappie
fish around the trees, you can bet somebody’s
gonna tie into a catfish.
For further information about Blue Bank Resort, you
can call (877) 258-3226 or (731) 253-8976 or visit www.bluebankresort.com.
Until May 31st, Blue Bank has a special where you can
fish (includes boat, motor, gas, bait and ice) for 4
days and stay either 3 or 4 nights for $169/person,
with the cost $209 per person after that time. To learn
more about B ‘n’ M Poles, visit www.bnmpoles.com
Tomorrow: Catfish in the Sunshine
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