Best 2002 fishing experience

[Swill]

Ok everyone let's hear it...what is your best fishing experience or catch from this last year?

I'll get things started with saying I love Red Lake and mr crappie. Last opener my buddies and I went up there and caught a lot of fish. The weather was great...the fish were bitting.. and the beer was cold. Props out to Hudacs' too they do a great job up there year long..

Anyone else want to share

[Guest]

I'm sure I'll remember this year as "The year Mille Lacs went wild" Any time you can catch fish like that is memorable. I'll probably never catch walleyes like that again.

[Bushwacker]

My most memorable was Lake of the Woods this December-153 walleyes myself in 3 1/2 days of fishing. Temps in the low 40's, 15-20 inches of ice, and 3 walleyes over 27" that were photoed and released. That ice fishing trip will be tough to top.

[Wobbler]

I have to agree my best trips were at LOW in 2002 were in March out on one of the reefs I just hammered the walleyes all 16 inches and above in the bucket and was limited out by 9:30 in the morning. My first trip this December at Zipple I had a fun day. When 2 people (Me & Jig O Bit) can throw back 7 fish over 19.5 inches and you have 12 walleyes over 15 inches in the pail with 8, 15 inch Saugers along with them you can't complain. It will be tough to have a full 5 gallon bucket like that this year. Plus they would just shoot off the bottom like missles 3 to 4 feet off the bottom as the jig is falling and just SMACK that rod. That was FUN!

[Guest]

Kenora, Canada. Labor Day weekend.

4 days of Walleye fishing, 2 guys...C&R 600+ Walleyes, 100+ Jumbo Perch

PCG

[cluelessfisherman]

Fishing the L.E.T.S. tourney series! I had a great time, met a lot of great people and caught some of my biggest fish yet. Oh yeah, coming in 2nd place wasn't too bad either!!

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Clueless - -

[Fish On]

my best fishing experiance.... 3yrs back i was in a small town up north staying with my uncle and one of his buddies worked at the fisheries and let us fish the pond with all the breeding eyes and pike it did not matter what you had on the guy told us just use the junk you want to get rid of in your box but pinch the barbs so we did my choice of bait was a half of a plastic worm with a split shot about 6" up i cast out and hook up with about a 9 pound pike quickly get him off and release him throw it out again ohhh a 4# wally and we fished all afternoon catching 40 to 50 walleyes in the 4-6 pound range and tons of pike in the 3-12 pound class a once in a lifetime exeperiance i tell ya thats probly what a fly-in is like i mean these fish had no clue what a lure was!!!

[latz333]

Labor Day weekend on Whitefish. My 3 year old catching his first fish (Sunfish) and saying he wanted to take a picture and put it "back home". Priceless...

Latz

[Renneberg]

This year I went fishing for Lake run Browns on the Brule River and not only ended up catching several in the 20+ range, but found some King salmon. I've caught a lot of big and powerfull fish, but nothing came close to those Kings I found that day. After the second fish broke off, my reel was smoking and my line was melting from being burned through the guides when they made there runs. Just when I thought that I had them beat they would make several more runs upstream.
I hooked 8 of them put only landed one. That one I caught weighted 20 lbs. It was one of the smaller ones I had on that day.
The biggest one had to be 30+ lbs if not more.

[Early Riser]

Too many to narrow it down, but several stand out now. Swill, the day you and I went into Mountain lake for lakers and it got up to 0 after weeks of -20 was a great time. Another Day I recall fondly was catching fresh superior run steelhead in the morning and then ice fishing for walleyes in April (border lake - open until mid-April) while basking in 50 degrees with the kids and Joe. Great memories all with many more to come!

[Early Riser]

Oops! within the last year? I started going back a few! The year of -20 was during the winter of 94-95. And the other trip was April of 1998 and the temp. hit 55 in the afternoon on the 4th. I though I was going to blow up the ski-doo that day hauling that crew into the lake! Swill, I don't think we got out together last year. Let's try Red in Feb. or March. Don't you all think everyday out is a treasure?!

[jwilli7122]

Quetico Provincial Park, August 2002. Phenomenal fishing for walleyes, smallmouths, big pike, plus even got a few lakers (mid-august no less.) Best fish this year in terms of size were my cousin's 39.5 inch pike and my 21 inch smallmouth - But my buddy's 45 inch pike from when we were 15 still holds all-time honors.

All you need is a canoe, a few rods, and a willingness to paddle, portage, and sleep in a tent.

[jwilli7122]

oops, accidental double post, forum leader- please delete

[This message has been edited by jwilli7122 (edited 12-31-2002).]

[jig-em]

2002 was the best fishing year I've ever experienced. First, I went to Lake of the Woods in January and had some gret fishing for four days, second, went to Morson Canada in June (more Walleyes), third, went to Mille Lacs with my son (13 years old) in June also catching, and releasing some great quantities and some very large fish. My son caught several fish over 26"! Then, in July, my son and I went to Lake of the Woods (MN side) and caught many Walleyes over 24"! We're going to start 2003 in the same manner with a trip to Baudette next week! Wishing all forum participants as many happy memories as I've had for the coming year!!! jig-em

[kwkfsh]

July 4th 2002, Cinder river Alaska. It was early afternoon and the fishing had slowed a bit. We decided to eat lunch and as we were eating I was razzing the clients a bit about not catching any fish in the last 1/2 hr or so. I said I would bet $100 that I could catch a King salmon in 3 casts ( in that pool its a sure bet with a #5 chartruese Mepps ). The only taker I could get was $100 to do it in one cast. Well that was a little to rich for my blood and passed. I decided to take a couple of casts anyway just to see. First cast 30lb'er, third cast 25lb'er fifth cast 35lb'er, after 13 casts and 8 King salmon I put the rod down, figuring a streak like that could'nt last. For the rest of the week I had 6 clients who never once doubted me when I told them what to use, where to use it, or how to use it. Ain't life grand sometimes.

[Guest]

fathers day on pleasent lake in hackensack. i caught the walleyes and all my brother could catch were hammerhandle pike. it was a great day.

[This message has been edited by blueyesme2 (edited 12-31-2002).]

[Guest]

Tobin lake in June... We ended up with several pike over 20 lbs., biggest was a giant 26.3lbs. We also ended up with 2 walleyes over 10 lbs. for the week....

[icehousebob]

Early March. Red Lake trip fell through, so headed to northeastern South Dakota to fish perch with my brother-in-law. We pulled up on the edge of a group and each drilled one hole. For over two hours we caught and released pound plus perch. The Vexilar showed that as the lure dropped, the whole bottom seemed to rise six feet to meet it.No jigging involved. Just hang on to the rod. We tried to find a lure that wouldn't catch fish. No luck. We honestly got tired of catching jumbo perch that looked like they'd been feeding on big bass. Went northern fishing just so we could eat a sandwich.

[Cyberfish]

August on red lake, got into the monster pike!
The first one my friend caught was close to 40 inches. by far the biggest he ever got! I went to measure it before we took pictures. it flopped outta my hands and into the lake with no measurement or photos! I was bummed,and he was no happy camper either : :. uggh I felt like a first class heel... well ten minutes later he got a bigger one! 42 inches!
then we got a bunch more 35 to 40 inches!
I have tried to repeat that day twice and got skunked both times. I will be back though.
red lake gators, watch out!

fish Oooon!

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[Lunker]

I'm gonna have to say around grand rapids, MN this spring shortly after bass opener. It was a cold day, and the three of us had to try to get this big bass boat over a beaver dam in low water to get to the lake we wanted to fish. But we were rewarded, we fished for a few hours, and pounded the largemnouths. About a dozen between 2 and five pounds, and a couple nice northerns mixed in. When it was all over, we didn't want to leave, because of the fishing, but also because of the dam awaiting us back at the inlet to the lake! Good times, good times.

[Poutmaster]

Mille Lacs last winter: Two 28+ walleyes within a 1/2 hour. The biggest one at 8 lbs 10oz. Plus some 1.5 lbs perch mixed in between the 2 hogs. Broke my walleye record and perch record within 10 minutes of eacvh other....

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Flag Up!

[the big dipper]

Last summer we (the FAM.- wife, two boys and I) went up to camp and fish at Sioux Narrows Prov. Park. We cruised up to Yellow Girl Bay, (a pretty good haul for the old 40 mariner) and after poking around a bit and not finding the reefs that showed on the map I decided to troll a pass with shad raps in a small bay / point on one side of a little half moon shaped island. Halfway into the short little 30 yard semi-circle run I hooked up what felt like a nice little eater walley, Yup, a 17 incher. Next pass - the same thing. Again and again like clockwork. After about the sixth fish I had to let the kids do the reeling in. For some reason the fish they hooked would fall off halfway to the boat. After about 14 passes and about 14 hookups or boated eater walleyes, we had our 8 fish limit in the box. We cruised back to the campground, and fried up a super deliciouso Coleman stove fish supper.

[kslipsinker]

My best day was just this last Monday. I was catching small crappies in my portable when my flag went up on my tip up. It was running for a while, so I waited. Once I set the hook I knew I was in for a fight. It ran hard a couple of times, but when it finally made a pass close to the hole, I could see this was a very sizable walleye. It filled the hole coming out. I am an avid ice fisherman, and this was a good 9 to 10 pound fish. It was back in quickly, still swimming to fight again.

[Lip RIPPER!]

Last March on LOW we drove 17 miles by snowcat to fish walleyes early in the morning. The bite only lasted until about 8:30 and then in the evening again for about an hour. I've never seen walleyes slam like this before. Anyway, around 9:00 a.m. we quit fishing walleyes and started setting out tipups for northerns. The first hook up I had was 43.5 inches and was a tad over 22 pounds. We caught a few others throughout the day and then went back to fish eyes in the evening. About 4:30 that evening, I hooked onto a 29.5 inch walleye that tipped the scales at 10.4 oz. Definately a day I will never forget!

[This message has been edited by Lip RIPPER! (edited 01-02-2003).]

[slick2526]

I would have to say my best fishing experience was with my good friend Paul Rohweller on October 26th. We started on White Earth lake and Paul hit a couple northerns and one nice 6lber while we were trolling crank baits. We decided we would try Pelican lake for the night bite for walleyes. We tried a few spots, and decided we would try one more, a break in about 27ft of water. i was fish a lindy rig with a right crawler and i believe paul was fishing one with a minnow. Well, i felt a tap, so i set the hook. the fish felt really nice and we got it up to where we were able to see it and it was a nice muskie! it took me about 15mns to get it to the top of the water to be netted. I was only using a 10lb lindy rig i tied myself. We measuerd it to 45ins, and released it. For me not catching anyfish that day. that one sure made up for it.