The bite at Reelfoot this past weekend was rough. We pulled in twenty one gills and crappie on Friday which was much better than most people at the cleaning stations. We would have had at least 40 but we threw back anything that was not worth messing with. Saturday was even tougher as we ended up with nine between the two of us. Nobody was catching them. Back at Samburg, most people had cats caught on crickets. In fact, three crappie were caught in the last hour, just before we drove back in.

We had a few factors working against us. Just before we came in to town a bad storm had hit which lasted two days. After that a high pressure system rolled in which cleared away all of the clouds by Saturday morning. To top it off, we found out they had been draining water from the lake through the spillways to bring it closer to pool. Some said as much as three to four feet.

Even though the bite was slow we had a great time. Two purchases were made however that turned our Saturday around. One was an 11 foot jigging pole I picked up for $22 at Walton’s gas station. This made jigging around stumps without a bobber much easier. The other was a $9.99 tape-playing AM/FM radio. It is a little know fact, but sleeping crappie are easily sent into a frenzy by the sounds of modern country music. Who knew.

Check out the photos of the trip. Also a few updates have been made to the awards section. Check out Smallest Catch and the two new awards Biggest Redear and Biggest Drizzum.

The bite at Reelfoot was tough this past weekend. A cold front came in on Friday morning to start us off which kept most of the crappie in deeper waters. Everyone we talked to was catching them by drifting in the deeper parts of the lake, mostly spider-rigging; and they were catching them. Piles of crappie were stacked on top of each other in the fish dressing room. As one fisherman said, “Buddy, this cooler ain’t got ice in it.” I looked, it sure didn’t. It was filled to the lid with black and white specks.

We decided to take a different approach and fish the gills in calmer waters. Pitching around tree stumps and avoiding overhead branches is most of the fun of Reelfoot anyway. However, to quote Tim Huffman, “there is nothing more exciting than a tug on the line.” This quote and many others we refer to comes from the Grizzly Fishing video and can be purchased at the Grizzly Jig Co. website.

There were definitely some LAB award winning bluegills caught on the cypress stumps, but one in particular was enormous. A 1.1 lb redear caught by Gill Slayer. However, the judges are still out as to whether a redear can be considered a bluegill and thus win the award for biggest bluegill.

The days were cold, rainy and windy but we kept at it and found the gills holding close to cypress stumps. Almost all of them were caught on meal worm tipped “Killer” Grizzly Jigs. It wasn’t until the clouds broke on Saturday afternoon that I busted out “Norman’s Rainbow” and took a few more in all tight lining with a 9.6 pole and a Pflueger automatic fly reel.

Leaving on Sunday was of course beautiful and in the 70’s. We made it home in record time and before noon which gave me just enough time to do eight hours of yard work. Ah it’s good to be home.