The "Official" URL Slabfest II Topic

[hanson]

Alrighty guys... here's the scoop!

URL Slabfest II

When: Saturday, February 24th, 2007

Where: The bar at Hillman's (Tall Tales)

Time: Meet up between 11am-noon (the bar opens at 11am)

We will meet up at Hillman's between 11am & noon. The "convoy" will leave promptly at noon and head out of Hillman's Rd to crappie country! Remember to pay your access fee at Hillman's (fee is $8), and pick up any other necessary items.

The plan will be to fish, hang out, cook some grub, and socialize until dark, or when the fish quit biting. Everyone is welcome to stop in at Hillman's again coming off the ice and have a pizza and some beverage.

Jeff Borchardt (Borch) and I will be up there this weekend doing some more scouting. Last weekend's scouting did not go so well, so we eliminated some water.

Slabfest is going to be a fun gathering! URL rookies, newbies, kids, and experts alike are encouraged to attend.

Feel free to post any questions or suggestions.

Please sign up in the Roll Call topic so I know who'll be showing up.

[Borch]

Make sure to bring 2-way radios along if you have them. We'll run channel 7 with 0 security code. If you're late, early or get turned around it could come in handy. Cell phone coverage is very poor for many providers in the URL area.

[deja vu]

Quote:

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Make sure to bring 2-way radios along if you have them. We'll run channel 7 with 0 security code. If you're late, early or get turned around it could come in handy. Cell phone coverage is very poor for many providers in the URL area.

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Good advice, Borch.

My cellphone doesn't work at URL, and I've been looking for a single adjustable 2 way radio unit that is powerful enough to reach across URL (say 15 miles?) if I every got into trouble.

Any advice or recommendations?

[Powerstroke]

marine band. Thats what the resorts use and its about the only reliable thing that will reach those distances.

[Borch]

LIke Powerstroke mentioned marine band will give you better distance depending on how it's set up. They are all line of sight technology so to a certain level the lack of a good antenae limits both of them without a 6+ft antenae.

I use the 5 mile motorolas for the most part. There isn't a lot of electrical interferance up there so they work pretty well. If I were in a jam I feel pretty confident that I'd be able to get some assistance with one of these as I listen to many talking through out the day.

[hanson]

Kid's Contest for Free Crappie Mount!

I've finally got the details ironed out and I'm happy to say that a fellow FM'er, TRM, is willing to donate a Crappie Mount to the Slabfest!

Tyson Mann, or TRM as he's known online, runs Nature Scenes Taxidermy out of East Bethel, MN.

The winner of the mount will be awarded by Me! And I am not eligible.

I decided immediately that this contest will be for the kids only, so hopefully one of the kids in attendance sticks a big one!

If there is a relatively close tie for largest crappie, I'll throw names in a hat for a random drawing.

Here is a picture of some of TRM's work. They look nice to me!

Thank you Tyson (TRM)!

[CatManLee]

That's awsome! Can I win the mount? My wife says I act like a kid all the time!

Really though, this would be a great prize for a kid to win, I wish I had a youngster to bring with....It's nice that this guy wants to do this, these take alot of work and time.

Hopefuly some kids set the hook on some nice fish this weekend. There's nothing like watching kids have fun catching fish.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Wow, can you say, Not so good weather for staying mobile?... YIkes.. with 8 million MPH winds, I did very little to leavy my house. I moved 4 times throughout the day.. and did a little hole hopping. I think if we were able to hole hop more, we could have caught a lot more fish.. I hope everybody still had a great time! I know I did.

I forgott to plug in my radio so I had a dead battery by the time we hit the water. I would have liked to have met more of you.

Here are a few picts I took during the day.

Here is Kevin(Sheephead slayer) with an awesome crappie that measured well over 14"... Notice the look on his face.. you try and get someone to smile in 30 MPH winds and whiteout conditions!

Here is Cheffrey and a pair of Slabs that he caught in about a 30 second peroid of time, the larger of the 2 went 14 3/4"... yowzers!!! Awesome fish bud!

I would say the walleye were the most aggresive, I caught bigger fish than this one, but it was kind of fun getting a picture in an Otter Cabin..LOL so this is me.. what a dork.

Ok, and yes, even I can get lucky. Probably the biggest crappie of my life? I took a quick measurement snapped the pict and put her back down the hole.

I do believe my dad and I will be back again next year.. BRING IT ON!

[End of the Line]

Thanks Surface Tension and Paul W. for the info so we could find you guys on the ice. My group had a great time! Caught walleyes, a few Crappies, and some perch for the weekend. The weather was great inside the house and so was my company and guests. Nice to see many of you again as well! Hope to continue the fun.

[harvey lee]

Thanks to Chris, and everyone else who help put on this event. The weather was not the best but the fishing was ok and the company was as always, GREAT.

ST, Thanks for the update on my equipment as it has never run so well.

I will be attending next year for sure.

Paul W., Our cabin was the best and thanks for getting this all lined up. You are always on the ball.

Cheffery, the prime rib was to die for. I hope you can make it next year except I will need to do a little work this week just to trim off a few pounds gained from all the fantastic food.

[TTfromBlaine]

NO doubt a great time cant wait until next year. weather yea I still had snow IN the back of my blazer when I got home .Harvey Lee I owe ya a bait puck that bluegill adventure kinda got canceled It dont get a whole lot better than that. If I had known there was no work today I would be hangin with Cranker and the gang on Millacs.

ICE DOG 1out

[Eric Wettschreck]

What a blast!!!!!

Hangin with the fellers at the cabin was definately an adventure. Paul thanks for setting that up. I gained aboot 25 pounds.

Cant wait for next time.

[Surface Tension]

Great time for sure. Thanks Hanson for fishing areas and for hosting this event. Paul thanks for the cabin.

I've got a few pics to share.

OH, LINDE R HOLM(Cheffery) with an eye.

TTformblain

Happy Hooker

Was nice to meet more FMers and a pleasure to spend the weekend with old and new friends.

Thanks Guys!

[Tom Linderholm]

Whoo Hoo! That was a blast for sure, Paul thanks for setting up the accomadations.

Sorry I woke you so early!

Hanson, thanks for the lead out to the fishing grounds, if it weren't for you we would still be trying to find our way over that ridge.

It was great to put some faces with names as usual and even better to shoot the wind. I will certainly be looking forward to another trip to Red.

Dietz! Send me that text.

[Borch]

We had a great time! Stayed at Tall Tails way too late Saturday night.

I wish I could have seen Frogtosser's pike he couldn't get up the hole! That sounded like a bute. We hit the lake again Sunday and promptly buried the truck in an old snowdrift/rough ice hidden by the new snow. An hour and a half later we were out with the some help from Stan & John from the forums here.

Thanks guys!

We caught a couple more that afternoon before we made the trip home.

As always the company made the trip!

[Eric Wettschreck]

Who can forget...."BE-BOO-BE-BOO-BE-BOO!!!!!!

[Bob/Mn]

Thanks Chris for the great time and guide service. I would have been SOL getting off the lake with a locked up GPS. :-(

It was nice meeting and talking with the FM group. I had lots of fun catching and releasing the slot fish.

I hope it happens again next year.

[harvey lee]

Eric, thats Dietz's alarm clock.

[CatManLee]

Well, I was up there but didn't get to meet many of you. I stopped in to Tall Tales and talked to Chris and a couple of you guys. (sorry I didn't introduce myself...but I was the good looking one who stopped in and took off right away) I couldn't make radio contact with anyone out on the ice...Maybe it's because I dropped my radio in the minnow bucket??

Oh well, besides the weather, it was fun. We didn't catch very many fish, Actually it was down right slow with only about 30 fish total caught for the entire weekend (Fri-Sun). We ended up taking home 4 nice Crappies and 2 slot Walleye (16.5"). We could have had our other two Eye's, but released them since they were caught early Friday. It wasn't the best weekend I've had up there, but atleast I killed the "Crappie Skunk" and caught my first Crappies of the year, so I'm glad we moved the sleeper to the north side of the lake for that anyways.

Now I need to get back up there and try to get my ice house out of the snow!!! It wasn't too bad driving across the lake with my truck Sunday morning when we left, but trying to pull the ice house would have been a different story I think...I would have been shoveling ALOT!

That's my report and I'm sticking to it!

[deerwoody]

It was a fun weekend had by all!!

[Note from admin: Edited. please read forum policy before posting again. Thank you.]

[frogtosser]

What a crazy day, we ended up with 6 crappies and about 30 walleyes for saturday and sunday morning. The pike I had on was a chunk, the body covered the hole, I just could not get the head turned up the thickest ice I have fished on. It was nice to meet some more FMers and to get out is always a good time. Thanks Hanson for your help and tips.

Can't wait to go back.

[iffwalleyes]

It was a fun weekend for sure even with the weather. Hanson and I had to move his shack sunday morning. There was a cold weather crack about 10 yards from his front door and with the snow load on the ice when I came out sunday morning there was about 6" of slush and water in front of the door . A quick drag to dryer ice and we hit the road after finding one of the drifts that Borch mentioned we were back on track it was nice to have two truck so we weren't there for an 1.5 at least. Thanks again to Chris for you travels and fishing to try and get us onto some fish. It did pay off and I think it would have been much better had the weather not been so much of a factor. It takes alot to pull one of these things together and it is very appreciated.

[croixeyes]

Nice catch!!!!!!! I notice that the bottle in front of the fish is missing quite a bit of volume,is that why everyone is kneeling

[cookie129]

Wheres minimites truck?

[minimite]

that picture was taken at about 9:30 saturday morning after we had a school move through after sunrise. after pullin that many slabs out in an hour and half of fishing, i couldn't resist pullin out the "fun" bottle! man did that decision make for a long day that i don't really remember to much about hey dwoody, that's to bad the picture of my truck is just a little red x in your reply

[minimite]

iv'e got the same picks and will email them to you and kelley as soon as i get picture cd burned. you'll have a good laugh when see how buried that thing was. i can't believe we got it shoveled out

[Sutty]

Cheetah and I had to bail saturday night he had to work and I had my daughters B-day party on sunday to get back to. But it was nice meeting a couple of ya anyway. We packed up pretty quick to keep looking for the crappies since we had fished friday night/saturday morning right where we had all first set up first on saturday afternoon. It was pretty funny actually to pack up and come in just to be led back out to where we were fishing...Ended up catching lots of eye's but no crappies. I still have yet to catch one this year. I am going to try and make it up one more time in March

[B.P.]

minimite what do you mean shoveled out i think my gmc pulled that thing out

[jkjkoda]

Had a great time this last weekend thanks to all how had a hand in putting this event together whens the next one???? Did not get many put learn a lot next time we will hit the mother load.