March 3-5 Fishing Report

[BLACKJACK]

My brother and I rented a house from KellyP March 3 and 4, for two days we ended up with 13 crappies, 1 five pound northern, and 20+ rough fish (walleyes). The breakdown on crappies was three Fri night, three Sat morning, six Sat night, and one Sunday morning. My brother the old fashioned jig stick guy with no Vex didn't do very well, only caught one crappie all weekend. I caught most of them using my Vex and a pink/white Glow Devil. Also caught a couple on my bobber pole and one on the rattle reel. We had a 50 yard circuit with about 12 holes that we kept making the rounds on, especially between 5-8 PM. Had one hole that the minute I put the Vex in, saw fish, went down and caught one, went down and caught another one, missed one, then they were gone. Otherwise the fishing was spotty, one here and there. Also lost a couple at the hole, got wet arms trying to grab them. Overall a fun weekend.

On a side note, had a pair of binocs along to watch the antic of the other fishermen. Good sport. Watched three pickups, one pulling a trailer, come trail blazing by at about 150 yards, they did good until they stopped, then the trailer puller was stuck. Watched nine guys pile out, a couple of them real heavyweights, my brother nicknamed them the 'Bemidji wrestling team', they started shoveling and yanking with a tow rope and got the guy out and them proceeded to set up 5 portables. We made a mental note to watch their exit thru the deep snow. In the meantime, there was another group that had a fishhouse set up as a base camp, then they had two portables set up about 150 yards away and were using a 4 wheeler to tool back and forth between base camp and the two outpost portables. Problem was, the Bemidji wrestling team had crossed his beaten down path so next time he came tooling along, he got stuck. Him and a companion spent 40 minutes shoveling and pushing to get himself out - and this was happening between 5-6 PM, prime crappie fishing time!! You could see the steam coming off this young guys head, no hat on, when he got out he promptly drove over to where the bemidji wrestling team was camped out and we could see him going from house to house - (Contact US Regarding This Word) them out, we speculated. Prety bold and stupid we thought. Then things settle down until 8 PM when the wrestling team packed up and left. Instead of following their track out, they went right by the two outpost fishhouses where the guy on the four wheeler was!! Of course the trailer puller got stuck, they had to get the tow strap out and drag him 60 yards, in the meantime the 4 wheeler was out buzzing around like a knat... Intereresting theater!!! You had to be there to see it and understand the spectacle. Amazing what people will do for a few crappies!!!

[kelly-p]

I forgot to tell you but the 2 guys with the wheeler were Stan7600's nephews. Stan was holding down the fort. I think the "Bemidji Wrestling Team" was some of the guys from the FishinMn slab fest that fished there the week before. That entire area is now flooded and slush. I tried to get the plow through it yesterday and had to give up.

[BLACKJACK]

I noticed that flooding when I walked out to get my Fishtrap on Sunday morning. Good luck!!

Stan, if you read this, tell us what all the controversy was about! Tell us that your nephew wasn't dumb enough to go out and challenge 9 guys and that my guess is wrong!!!

[Stan7600]

The young guy on the 4-wheeler was related to 2 of the "wrestling team". He didn't know that until he stopped there before he got stuck. So he had a couple of beverages with them, then got stuck, finally we got him out, and he went back to tell them about the slush. Of course they had watched the whole thing. Meantime the other one in our group dumped his minnow bucket and had no bait while the 4-wheeler was stuck. We're thinking maybe we need a shock collar for the driver of the 4-wheeler, to keep him out of trouble. Anyway, no controversy at all, just lots of laughs. He knew his cousins were on the lake but didn't know where. We caught a few crappies and had a great time. There was almost 2 feet of slush in that spot and those vehicles didn' miss it by much on their way out. Stan C.

[BLACKJACK]

Stan, how did you end up doing over there? How about the two portables off to the NW, how did they do?

[Stan7600]

We didn't do great but our expectations are less now than the previous 5 years. One of our party was on his first trip to Red and he caught some so that worked out good. The portables did better until the last night when the wheeled house had 4 crappies come through in the middle of the night. Maybe the fish are moving South? We were there for 3 days and nights so a lot of time put in. One of the guys had a crappie in his pail, dumped it over and the fish got away; that's pretty harsh when they're that hard to come by. We also caught some keeper perch and some walleyes. Some walleyes as small as 5". We left Mon. AM and the slush was getting bad so we were glad we had brought the portables in the night before. Stan C.