Other areas that are excellent producers are Dyer, Lick and Long creeks, located upstream near Dover. The multitude of coves and pockets holding bream are found all the way to the Cheatham Dam tailwaters. There are several excellent places near Clarksville where the Cumberland River winds through the edge of town.

Some anglers will employ the use of light spinner or spin-cast tackle to fish this lake. However, another way that works very well because of the large amount of shallow water with woody cover is to fish with a long, light fiberglass pole. Usually, the length of line is just shorter than the pole, with a length of 10 to 12 feet considered ideal.

By raising the pole and swinging the line in, you can effectively and quietly work thick brush and wood cover over 20 feet from the boat. When you hit a hotspot, quietly drop an anchor and you can sit in one spot and snatch big bream off the bed until the action slows.

Even when the bream are not on the bed, you can effectively cover plenty of territory using this method. It works well anytime during May or June. Sometime in the summer, the fish will retreat to deeper water and you may have to employ other techniques to catch them.

No Tennessee bream fishing roundup would be complete with noting Reelfoot Lake as a prime place to fish. It is usually noted in any bream fishing guide to Tennessee and it deserves to be there.

This fertile lake is teeming with big bream. Some of the best fishing of the entire year will occur during the spring, with a prime time being in May and June. However, unlike some lakes where hot weather fishing can get tough, the action stays excellent at Reelfoot. The water color, combined with the abundance of woody and weedy cover, provides ideal conditions for the fish even in hot weather. Thus, if you fish tight to cover, you can catch limits of huge bream all summer long at Reelfoot.

At Reelfoot Lake, it can be easy to become confused about where to fish -- it all looks so inviting for bream. There are cypress trees, lily pads in small and huge clusters, grassy shorelines, and logs and stumps scattered everywhere. If it all looks perfect for bream, that’s because it basically is. The bream grow large and fat here and are found in big numbers.

However, you do need to focus on some specifics to enjoy consistent success. It would be too easy to be caught up in all the good-looking cover and fish randomly. I have personally made this mistake, and while you can certainly catch fish this way, you won’t be tapping into the lake’s full potential. If you fish smart, you’ll catch more fish, larger fish and catch them much quicker.

The key is to focus on specific fish-holding areas. For example, in a group of cypress trees, you may have water that’s a fairly consistent depth, but there will be areas that are a bit shallower or slightly deeper. These are the places Reelfoot bream will target.