Upper Red- 2/19-20

Went up to Red lake Sunday morning for a two day trip, took a friend, Russ up with me for his second ever trip. This was my first one this year. Met Handyman and his son, Jon, in Kelliher and delivered the two Crappies I recently mounted for him. We used Handyman’s permanate house about 4-5 miles out on the West Wind road. The road condition was very good, not very straight, but very good.Got into the house about 3:30pm Sunday afternoon. The water depth was 13-14 feet at the top of the hole. Unpacked the vehicle,and got to fishing right away. We were using a rather big size tear-top, in glow, and with pink, or red dots. The Crappies seemed to come thru in small groups of fish. We would catch one or two fish very quickly, then have a lull, then in about 20 mins or so, would hit another group of fish as they came thru. Sunday afternoon, from 4:30p to 7:30p we caught 10 Crappies, all fantastic fish. We actually had very few Walleyes show up, which was good. Our best Walleye was just under 18 inches, with about a dozen or so from 12″ to 15″. On Monday morning we started fishing at 7:30am, and fishing staying pretty steady til noon, or so. During the morning we had 18 more Crappies, and an occasional Walleye. Russ was using a small fly or ant looking jig, and was having good success. During the morning when things slowed down, I used a Scenic Tackly Glo-Devil jig with a whole minnow, and did well. I also tried a vert jigging spoon with whole minnow and also got some on that. The fish just didn’t seem to want much movement on the jig, if you saw a fish come in to the bait,and you made much movement, or tried to have the fish follow the bait up, to try and get them to bite it, they would just go away. So for about 2/3 of our fish we had better success with our jigs under a slip bobber. Most of the fish were hitting about 1 foot from the bottom, a couple of times I would lift my jig with my fingers on the line to wake up the minnow to about 2 feet above bottom, have a fish come in, and snap the line out of my fingers. I had a portable house with me, and my auger, but I quess I just got lazy, and figured I could not improve on the successs we were having in Handyman’s house. I never once in two days started the auger. Yep call me lazy.
Overall it was a very good trip, and from other reports I heard around the area, most other houses and groups were having a tough time of it for numbers.
We ended up with 28 Crappies, and actually ONLY ONE measured under 13 inches, and that one was 12 3/4″. All other Crappies went from 13 inches to 14 1/2 inches, of those we had 8 fish that went 14 or over.
It is so fantastic to see Crappies like these coming up thru the ice hole. they just don’t seem like they fit very well, had just a couple come off at the top of the hole, but they can NOT turn around, so scooping them up out of the hole was not a problem.
It really is too bad the couple of remaining year classes of Crappies are getting old, and probably won’t be around much after another 2 or 3 years at the most. Then Upper Red will just be another average or below average Crappie lake, and a pretty descent Walleye and Pike lake.
We left about 3pm or so Monday afternoon. Thanks again, Handyman, for the house. I hope Neal and Leona liked the mounts.
Jack….
will add a few pictures..

This pic is me with one of our first 14’s.
Jack..

This is Russ with our smallest Walleye that POUNDED his jig and minnow combo. IT LOOKS LIKE BAIT, TO ME. But it hit the bait. Was sure cute, and more suredly must feel very vulnerble in such a huge lake.
Jack..

That is awesome. makes me want to go right now. If I was having some luck like that I would be getting lazy too. Nice fish.

This is Russ with one on his 14’s. Am sure he will be back for more.
Jack..

One more pic of two of the 14’s back at the home front, Heck home, I’m ready to go bust them again.
Such GREAT memories of AWESOME CRAPPIES.
Enjoy….
Jack…

Jack – impressive report, nice pics and great looking mounts (other post). I was going to pass on the annual trek to URL but now I’m having second thoughts

You really think the crappie action on URL will fall to average? Heard that 2 years ago but that wasn’t the case last year. Interesting fishery indeed!

Way to go jack

Hey-Have seen that flag before and am ready to go bust some of them papermouth slabs again too. How ’bout some jumbo perch from the north side of Winnie on the way up?

nice report Jack looks like you had some fun up there . Did you hear of any other groups also doing well while you were up there, or did it still sound pretty slow for other people?

Nice report Jack

I had 6 friends go up on Sunday 2/19, they really got into them also. They called at 2:30 when the hit the ice and again at 4:30 when they were playing poker because they had there 6 man limit. The bite is improving, as it always does this time of year. This last cold snap has really added some ice and the late season fishing is shaping up to be terrific.

Very nice report Jack…I am heading up Thursday nite and cannot wait.

Great report Jack.

I’m heading up friday morining for the weekend.

JBongers,
had heard there may be some good reports out of Hilmans, but sounds like the road and conditions there may be at times not always reliable. Spider at West Wind stopped out and said that we had done better than anyone he had seen so far the whole season out on his road. I did talk to a few other houses out there, they had some Walleyes, but were having a tough time of it on the Crappies.
Good luck.
Jack..

Thanks Jack, I was just curious if the bite was isolated or if everyone seemed to be getting them. Sounds like you guys were doing something right. Great Job

Those are some great looking fish Jack.
I’m heading up there late Friday night. Hope we can get into some action like that.
See you on Tuesday.
Jamie

I talked to several locals, and most reported slow activity over the weekend, but there were also some success stories. It is good to see that fishing is what we do and if catchin occurrs all the better. I was remined that there are a lot worse things to be doing than fishing, a migrain headache shut down everything yesterday. We recieved nearly 6″ of fresh fluffy snow yesterday, the wind didn’t move it much but if the wind picks up it could get really interesting on URL. Cuddos out to the resorts for keepin the roads in as good of shape as they do.
Will be up working tonight on the lake, will try and post any new developments should they become available

Hey just got these from my dad, these were caught in January, and the only camera availabe was a disposable one.

this was the 40 crappie and 23 perch day. PS Snowing and blowing like crazy, school closing early, work’s getting out early looks like fishin starting early! We got another 2-3″ and expect up to 8″. drive careful and fish hard.

Frank,
Nice spread of fish you have there. Did the snow ever start blowing around up there. How’s fishing.
more soon.Jack..

Last wednesday we got about 6 inches of new snow, then on friday another couple of inches. It hasn’t really blown it around too bad yet. My parents fished in my house on Friday, and caught 4. they were out on sunday and we met up about noon, out scouting again and found them. we caught 45 total and about 20 of them in 20 minutes, jon got the hot hole and showed us how to fish. Fishing is great and catching seems to be picking up. I was intending on fishing for Northen pike, but the crappie action was hot so i didn’t get time to do the pike thing. Didn’t have a digital camera along in the sled, but will send photo’s when we get the film developed.

Thanks Frank,
You are going to spoil Jon, He sure does catch a lot of fish, Great for him. hope to see the pics soon. How did your parents do after we left that Monday?? They did seem a little cold when they got to the house.
Jack..