EB, Cricket, and Slab S, EB sorry to hear of the health problem. Walking up to 1/3 mile to where we fish remind me of my limitations. I didn't know you stopped ice fishing, but would like to get together for some warm weather fishing sometime. We have not fished for a while due to work and family heath issues, but the last Sat we went the ice talked the whole day. It almost isn't fun when it happens and did not know it was actually getting better (ice). Cricket, I took the boys to the refuge lakes in '95 and our beloved president Clinton closed the government while we were there and we settled to fish the dead sea(Merrit Res) and only caught a few 6'' perch. It was a fun trip though. Slab Slicer, Trust me.... EB catches some better than decent crappies. He has access to an excellent fishery, speaking from personal exp. fishing there. My boys help me post pics for one of the reasons we joined this site... to see some pics of fish, esp. crappie. We learned some great tips here and are building some crappie condos for the spring. Feel free to pm me if you need help with crappies, they are different creatures esp the big ones! CKH