Recent Reelfoot trip

[Haris122]

Past weekend, I went down for a weekend trip to Reelfoot with a few buddies of mine that had been there before. The hope was to get into some good fall crappie fishing down there, but unfortunately for the life of us, we could not find any of them or any sunfish for that matter. The two things the lakes are most well-known for, we did not even get a single tiny fish of, haha. We got there Friday late morning and fished from then on until end of Saturday at the Upper Blue Basin, and then for the last day we gave the western-most portion of the main lake a shot. We didn't hit buzzard slough or any of the other spots further in-between unfortunately. There wasn't much catching going on, but what was caught was generally decent sized. We started the trip off by having a nice fish break me off. I was throwing a pink jig a fellow member here made (Jungle Jim), when I thought I got snagged, then a bit into trying to drag my snag in, I realized it was an actual fish. Anyways a bit into the fight, the line broke and with it my first good fish of the trip escaped. Afterwards it was a very slow Friday. My one buddy lost a little white bass by the boat, fishing with minnows, and that was as far as I remember all the bites we had until Friday evening. Half an hour before we had to bring the boat in for the day, that same buddy caught a 8 lbs channel cat on shrimp, near a little channel leading to another portion of the lakes. That was all for that day. We tried fishing from the bank that night some, but in the end nothing seemed to bite, so we got ready for the next morning. Next morning for a while there was again no action, but same buddy then caught a 14" Largemouth on a little twister tail as we we're throwing stuff towards the bank. Then a while later, just before we're about to try on the other side of the lake I make a last cast with a little crankbait and hook into a nice gar. It took me for a bit of a ride, and even got the line stuck on the propeller for a bit, before that got cleared, but we eventually netted him. I wound up with what I believe to be my first spotted gar. It was a nice fish. I would estimate it to be probably 4 lbs. We let it go and kept going, and eventually started throwing stuff towards a bank with tall grass. There I tossed another jig JungleJim made and hooked into a nice Bowfin. Once we brought him in, I kept throwing the jig some more, and then hooked into an even bigger Bowfin. We brought him in, and I would guess this one was probably about 4 if not 5 lbs as well. This made it 2 different species now, that I had never caught before. Next few hours went by with no further luck, until we hit the same spot that the big cat was caught at. We fished there the last few hours of the day and the same buddy that caught the big cat, ended up catching a decent sized Bullhead. Right before we were about to head back, I noticed I had something on too, and got an even bigger Bullhead on shrimp as well. Never having caught a Bullhead before regardless of species, this made it 3 new species for me. All good sized for their species I would say. The last day we hit up the main lake, and same buddy caught a Drum early on. Then middle of day, I caught an even bigger Drum as well. That was all the fish we caught. Unfortunately my other buddy had no luck this trip. I've been on that end before. On the way back to "dock" though, we had a 10 lbs asian carp jump into the boat right at his feet. We took a picture with it as well, but then just tossed it back. It wasn't as action filled a trip as I hoped it to be, but in the end it did get us some good sized fish out of it. And what I found odd, is that nothing seemed to touch minnows that they threw. Weather wise worked nicely too. It wasn't too hot, cold, or windy, though it was a bit too sunny for my taste.