10 years ago today...

[Polar Bear]

Shock and Awe Crappies.

Exactly 10 years ago today,3-19-03,the first night of the bombing of Baghdad.

Drove 3.5 miles out from Rogers resort, drilled our holes with nobody within a mile and caught crappies like crazy under a full moon. Had some trouble getting back to shore because the defense dept. turned off the GPS satellites that day! Didn't worry too much about getting lost because there was 4 feet of ice evereywhere and we could see shore lights.

I've caught thousands of fish in my life but never had as much fun as reeling in those 14 inch slab crappies. We knew it couldn't last, but for several years it was magic.

[Iceboy]

Makes me miss my old Fishtrap II...

[side_laker]

The good old days. Those were some fun trips

[Biggerfish]

And the limit was ? back then

[mrklean]

Makes me sad i only got to fish it once on the decline of the crappie boom

[ozzie]

awesome photo!! I wish we weren't always so wasted and would have taken more photos of the Good'ol days!!!

[cookie129]

either 10 or 15 sure was a hoot

[BLACKJACK]

Makes me miss my old Fishtrap II...

I noticed that too - I still have mine....

[Biggerfish]

either 10 or 15 sure was a hoot

Changed from 15 to 10 in may of 2003.

Man I bet you ended up with 12 pound of fillet's from those 14" pigs.

Great photo and possibly a once in a lifetime experence...

[bturck]

Having read this site back then and hearing the stories and escapdes that took place its a miracle anyone can remember those days...... Seriously those must have been some great fishing experiances....

[cookie129]

I would not hesitate to say hundreds of fishermen had the best fishing of there life time, I had one cabin and one house and would get 10 to 20 calls a day looking for lodging.

[Polar Bear]

The limit then was 15 fish. There are exactly 30 in that pile.

[gurkster]

Fun times for sure - thanks for the post!! Has it really been 10 years, I am getting old.

[BartmanMN]

Great photo. I can only dream of a day like that.

[shaky legs2]

It brings back so many memories. Thanks for the post and pic. It was something that I will probably never experience again in my lifetime. From 98 to 07 the destination for thousands was URL.

[magnum mike]

You never had to worry about getting lost at night. There was a string of cars second to none starting around 9:00 every night headed for the barn. We flew over one night and the lake looked like a suburb of the metro and the string of trucks heading home looked like I35 northbound on Friday during deer season.

[JBMasterAngler]

I will never forgive myself for missing that boom

Flash forward 10 years, I drove past URL on the 19th on my way home from LOTW, and there wasn't any trace of people out there.

[OLE77]

should have drove by there ten years ago.

[shaky legs2]

Are you cookie's uncle Pete Olson? If so, I thank you for putting us on a hot bite on the Hillman Road. I want to say it was 2002 or 03.

[cookie129]

I do not think cusin pete does any typing on here.

[Stringerless!]

I am in the same boat as JB. Never went up there. Heard stories but told myself " Why would I drive 3-4 hours for crappies ??" Now I see why !! Thanks for sharing.

[fishuhalik]

Ah memories! I got my drivers license in 2000, & from 2000-2003 we spent almost every weekend up there from mid Feb to ice out. I bet I could count on my fingers the times we didn't limit out. Still there was one night that stood above the rest. It was last call, had to put on chest waders & slosh it out to good ice, then we walked a couple miles. There was 4 of us, & as soon as we had our holes drilled they were on fire so we started culling. It was about 60 out so we filled a big otter sled with water & kept nothing under 14.5". Out of all the fish we caught over the years out there we never broke 15.5", but that day we had at least a dozen that were between 15" & 15.5". We stayed til about 4 am and caught fish hand over fist all night. We didn't have plastics back then so we resorted to using strips of our white shirts for bait but the fish didn't care. We lost track on how many fish we caught but it was WELL north of 500 fish, probably closer to 600. And they were all those big, beautiful fish. My biggest regret is not mounting any of those fish. What a stringer that night would have been, with 60 fish over 14.5"!!! Glad we could enjoy it as much as we did.

[kelly-p]

Quote:

Flash forward 10 years, I drove past URL on the 19th on my way home from LOTW, and there wasn't any trace of people out there.

I think that when this snow drops things will change. There seem to be a lot of crappies out there and when this snow melts and goes down through the ice AND lets more light down there the crappies and perch could really go on a good bite.