Interesting info

[Random guy]

I had a little chat with fishery boys and learned a few things.

One is a presence is being made by 8-9" crappies in the test nets. This goes along with the smaller fish we started to see late last winter after everybody forget to come back to Red Lake. Not as strong of a year class as the current 14" crappie but a nice population on the way up.

The pike numbers last winter blew my mind, if you came to Upper Red Lake and did not catch a trophy class pike or at least hook into one you must have forgot to use hooks. Another interesting thing about pike is they are running 91% realese rate. Many of these fish could have been kept. Good job on Catch Photo release guys.

Hooking mortality stayed down around 2.2%. I'm the first one to whine about hooking mortality so I was glad to hear that.

The average Joe spends 31.9 hours on Red in the sleeper house/wheel house per trip...thats dedicated.

A very small showing by the bluegills in the test nets. This is new to Upper Red, maybe we will see a few caught this winter. I know I'm going to go looking for a few.

Can't wait to get back on the ice and start chasing down the crappies and complaining about the walleyes...love that I can complain about catching to many walleyes.

I gathered a whole stack of info from the DNR, they definetly have their eye on Upper Red. Some of the info I was handed came from DNR boys surveying the lake but most of it came from the nice gal you guys get to talk to when going through a creel survey. So next time think about how you are doing your part to help out the lake. Without anglers stopping and giving the info a lot of head scratching woukld be going on.

[Team Otter]

I like the sounds of the information. Good read. Thanks for sharing JP.

[DunceenKen]

A big thumbs up on this one John, only you could pry this much information from the DNR, keep up the good work and save a good spot for me, it has been a while since I last caught a limit of Red Lake crappies.

[woodman]

Just read the Northome Record last night and Jon you are famous once again. With a pic and you in it about the DNR report on Red Lake. Thanks for the update as always!

[Borch]

Thanks for the info Jonny.

Glad to hear that those smaller crappies we caught the last few winters were not an isolated situation.

The crappie beat goes on.

[Scott M]

Good information. I wish more guides and resorters took this approach with the DNR. You won't agree with everything they do but you have to understand they are managing the lake with everyone in mind. Things at URL are looking really positive and they need the same cooperative spirit into the future. 3-4 years and those 8-9 inch crappies will be into those really large and trophy size classes.

[Pikester]

Did they mention anything about ice?

[RedLakeFallsMN]

very interesting about the bluegill being in there. ive never even heard them mentioned in the 24 years ive been going there.

[toddb]

We caught an 8"er (bluegill) this spring. First one in several years of fishing URL.

[harvey lee]

I need to catch me one of those BIG snot rockets through the ice.