Reelfoot Lake

One of the very first places I ever read about, that sounded like great duck shooting, was Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee. I looked at pictures in my Dad's very first hunting book and it seemed to be a true duck hunter's paradise. For 45 years or so, I thought about it and even tried to schedule a hunt there about 10 years ago. Finally made it over there this past season.

What a disappointment. From what was once a great duck hunting destination, a sad, commercialized industry has formed. The entire lake is controlled by guides. According to the guide that took us out, he "owns" his blind location for the rest of his life. He told us that several years ago there was so much hunting pressure, that the Wildlife Commission stepped in and put a halt to any future blind locations. Guides seem to own mostly all the blinds and have erected monster blinds that will hold 8-10 hunters. Along the route to the blind we used, we only saw one blind that appeared to belong to an individual hunter. The big commercial blinds all had out huge decoy spreads. Put out before the season and left all season long. I guess that there are enough migrating birds that each day a few fresh birds see the decoys and respond. But most birds flew high over head and seemed to move from one of the three refuges to the other.

Besides the fact that the once famous Reelfoot Lake has become just a money-maker to the few blind owners, we also made a poor choice in our guide service. We were not told anything like the real truth about the hunting. Black Jack Pocket Hunting Club was a major disapointment.

Any duck hunter knows that the weather can be all the difference between a great hunt and a total bust. We had good duck hunting weather. We saw a lot of ducks. But seeing them at a distance and getting them to decoy were miles apart. We only killed a couple ducks that came into what I would consider "shooting range". Everything else we killed was skybusting. We had a good bunch of hunters in the blind and didn't send a single cripple away from the blind. We either killed them or missed them clean.

The trip was expensive, the drive was long, and the results were not what we hoped for or expected. Am I sorry I went? No. Dreamed about it for too many years. Would I ever go back? No! Certainly wouldn't recommend it to any other sportsman.

Damn shame.