ha if somebody is on a bite they should be quiet or they will all be gone again….. that being said i do know there are some crappies still pout there and there are a few of my buddies that have been getting on them after ice out the last few years but they have a spot on spot that they have been going to the last few years and they have never had that spot produce for more than a few days then there gone.
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I saw a Due North Outdoors episode the other day where they hinted at a crappie bite on upper red. Today I saw a picture of a 19 inch crappie from upper red that was caught a few days ago. Anyone have info? Pm me if you don’t want share.
Doesn’t exist anymore. One of the MN DNR’s greatest screw ups in MN history. Sure they were there before and are still there now, but in small numbers. Not like the 1999-2000 heydays.
Like Drew said, there are small schools still there but those that know of them DO NOT share that info.
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I saw a Due North Outdoors episode the other day where they hinted at a crappie bite on upper red. Today I saw a picture of a 19 inch crappie from upper red that was caught a few days ago. Anyone have info? Pm me if you don’t want share.
Doesn’t exist anymore. One of the MN DNR’s greatest screw ups in MN history. Sure they were there before and are still there now, but in small numbers. Not like the 1999-2000 heydays.
Like Drew said, there are small schools still there but those that know of them DO NOT share that info.
Not sure how the DNR could prevent the crappies from getting older, but I do agree that they’ve always been there. In speaking with Outdoors Authority earlier in the season, they said that the total catch was 23 crappies, over the course of the entire ice season of 2012-2013, for all of their clients.
Staying on them in a 48,000 acre lake with little structure that they relate to? Even more challenging!
Joel
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Not sure how the DNR could prevent the crappies from getting older, but I do agree that they’ve always been there. In speaking with Outdoors Authority earlier in the season, they said that the total catch was 23 crappies, over the course of the entire ice season of 2012-2013, for all of their clients.
Staying on them in a 48,000 acre lake with little structure that they relate to? Even more challenging!
Joel
Joel, the MN DNR blatantly promoted people to go up the URL and fill there buckets with those slabs. They wanted that population to crash and were more than vocal about it just so they could put the walleye back and make another (one of many thousands) walleye lake.
I was younger and dumber then and bought into it just like many others. I contributed as I was lucky enough to be living up here during the 1998-2000 slab boom. I remember one night around 9 PM I stepped out of my sleeper to go to the bathroom. We were 4 miles off shore. There was solid tail lights from my house to shore and solid headlights from my house to about 8 miles out. It was insane to see.
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Not sure how the DNR could prevent the crappies from getting older, but I do agree that they’ve always been there. In speaking with Outdoors Authority earlier in the season, they said that the total catch was 23 crappies, over the course of the entire ice season of 2012-2013, for all of their clients.
Staying on them in a 48,000 acre lake with little structure that they relate to? Even more challenging!
Joel
Joel, the MN DNR blatantly promoted people to go up the URL and fill there buckets with those slabs. They wanted that population to crash and were more than vocal about it just so they could put the walleye back and make another (one of many thousands) walleye lake.
I was younger and dumber then and bought into it just like many others. I contributed as I was lucky enough to be living up here during the 1998-2000 slab boom. I remember one night around 9 PM I stepped out of my sleeper to go to the bathroom. We were 4 miles off shore. There was solid tail lights from my house to shore and solid headlights from my house to about 8 miles out. It was insane to see.
Hey Wade – I fished the boom too, read the articles in the conservation volunteer, even kept up with the fisheries manager and guides in the area at the time. I think their take would be different, but to each their own.
I too remember the 2-3 hour exodus from the lake on a Saturday night, trying to get food for another 3 hours (if you could get in the door at Westwinds), and the wild-west type atmosphere it brought to the area. The combination of a massively successful spawn (no wind for weeks) and an un-filled mid-level predator niche will likely not be seen the likes of again. It was a special time, and those were special fish.
Joel
URL was a walleye factory for 100 yrs. A perfect storm of conditions allowed for an unprecedented year class. According to a fisheries guy I visited with, without any intervention, the URL crappie population would have reverted back to where it always was and is now. The exploitation simply put the population into people’s hands and generated a butt load of money. It may have sped up the transformation back to a walleye lake, but it sure didn’t cause it, it would have happened no matter what. The lake is a wind blown shallow pond with miles of sand and gravel shores……..walleye factory. There is no changing that.
“Hey Wade – I fished the boom too, read the articles in the conservation volunteer, even kept up with the fisheries manager and guides in the area at the time. I think their take would be different, but to each their own.”
Joel you are correct.IMHO I have read several articles about the crappie heydays on Red Lake. If I recall the walleyes had been decimated to a point of an entire lake crash for the population of walleyes which led into a two year perfect storm for crappie spawning. In all the articles they stated that it will probably never ever happen again. If you recall catching the crappies back then you never caught a small fish say under 11″, hence the two years of unbelievable reproduction. Now if its never, in all probability, ever going to happen again why not harvest the resource before they all die of old age? Also, I never saw any DNR personal strong arm anyone into going fishing on URL. LOL
PS: I do not work for the DNR and in a lot/most of cases I am not on their side but to blame this on DNR seems far fetched and a very long stretch. IMHO
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Hey Wade – I fished the boom too, read the articles in the conservation volunteer, even kept up with the fisheries manager and guides in the area at the time. I think their take would be different, but to each their own.
I too remember the 2-3 hour exodus from the lake on a Saturday night, trying to get food for another 3 hours (if you could get in the door at Westwinds), and the wild-west type atmosphere it brought to the area. The combination of a massively successful spawn (no wind for weeks) and an un-filled mid-level predator niche will likely not be seen the likes of again. It was a special time, and those were special fish.
Joel
I hear ya Joel. Like you I kept up with all the literature and discussions. I just strongly felt (and still do) they should have done everything they could have to make that an exceptional MN crappie fishery.
You are right, that was a perfect storm of a special year class(s) of fish.
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PS: I do not work for the DNR and in a lot/most of cases I am not on their side but to blame this on DNR seems far fetched and a very long stretch. IMHO
The MN DNR put the walleye back so the Red Lake tribe could net again. Not the only reason, but a strong one.
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PS: I do not work for the DNR and in a lot/most of cases I am not on their side but to blame this on DNR seems far fetched and a very long stretch. IMHO
The MN DNR put the walleye back so the Red Lake tribe could net again. Not the only reason, but a strong one.
The Red Lake tribe doesn’t have $10.00 to their name. So this was done with MN money. Someone was certainly pushing something.
Not trying to make this an ugly conversation. Just a conversation.
I agree just a conversation.
If I recall the Red Lake tribe has 3 casinos and a butt load of money from the Feds so only $10 to their name?
And I am sure the DNR was getting pressure from all over the state to re-populate the lake with walleyes and that was way before the crappie bus hit the road. Like posted above Red Lake is the perfect walleye lake. I heard a biologist remark that no other lake in MN can even come close to the ability of Red Lake for production walleyes.
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I agree just a conversation.
If I recall the Red Lake tribe has 3 casinos and a butt load of money from the Feds so only $10 to their name?
And I am sure the DNR was getting pressure from all over the state to re-populate the lake with walleyes and that was way before the crappie bus hit the road. Like posted above Red Lake is the perfect walleye lake. I heard a biologist remark that no other lake in MN can even come close to the ability of Red Lake for production walleyes.
Yeah, I stand corrected. After researching a bit more. They get $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 in federal funding every year. Although if you have ever been to the town of Red Lake, I don’t know where that money gets spent.
Their tax free casinos are currently failing to show much if any profit (according to Wikipedia).
Perhaps I just REALLY miss those slabs.
Your not the only one missing the slabs of the past. We have many other great walleye lakes but I am sure I will never see crappie fishing like that again in my life time.
And yes I have been to all the towns in the Red Lake tribe and where does all that money go? Your guess is as good as mine 
My brother in law forwarded a picture off of facebook of a young man,maybe 12 yrs. old, holding a HUGE crappie. I can’t confirm the lake of course, but a huge crappie none the less. It does look like the inside of a permanant fish house. 
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My brother in law forwarded a picture off of facebook of a young man,maybe 12 yrs. old, holding a HUGE crappie. I can’t confirm the lake of course, but a huge crappie none the less. It does look like the inside of a permanant fish house.
That’s the pic I saw. I was up there for the boom too. My experience has been that crappies are cyclical and big water grows big crappies. They always seem to be there but not necessarily in the numbers we want. I was hoping to hear this was a up year for them.
Well, too late for the crappie boom I did catch a 14″ slab while fishing walleyes last weekend. Just one fish but wow, it was awesome!
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