Florida Slabfest at Lake Monroe

I mentioned to my wife Sharon about the scheduled Florida Slabfest near Disney World the same day as the ½ Marathon at Disney World, and that’s all it took. We were off to the races.

It wasn’t a hard sell. The warm weather, the Disney ½ marathon, the Crappie.com Slabfest and being able to visit Sharon’s folks all on the same trip, made it a no-brainer.

The prior year we kind of did the same thing. We attended the Florida Slabfest held at Sante Fe Lake, and Sharon ran the ½ Marathon too. That is where we first met the Florida Crappie.com group. I have a sneaky suspicion they planned this year’s event around the Disney ½ marathon as well, but we’ll never know. If they did, it worked. We had fun last year, and this year would likely be even better. We were planning on it.

On the Friday before the Slabfest, we took care of the race registration, went to packet pickup, and decided to go check out the event location at Lake Monroe Park. It was not that far out of Orlando and an easy drive.

We arrived, but saw no crappie.com decals on any of the trucks in the lot. I was hoping there would be some pre-fishing going on. Hmm, was this the right place? I took the below picture, posted it on crappie.com, and received verification that we were indeed at the right place.

We met a nice guy at the pier who was originally from Long Island New York. He told us he absolutely loved the area, and asked if we had visited Blue Springs to see the Manatee. We said huh! Well, he told us that because of the recent cold weather the manatee were all at the spring staying warm, and were easy to see.
We drove to Blue Springs, paid our $6 to get in, and wondered if we would really see any Manatee. We’ve been to Manatee viewing stations before and never seen any in the wild. But this was our first time at Blue Springs State Park http://www.floridastateparks.org/bluespring/default.cfm.

This is the dock scene where everyone is viewing the Manatee. Seems like such a small area, and small river.


Yeah baby, did we see Manatee! They were everywhere including under the dock we were standing on.




Saturday morning my wife got up at 3:30 AM to run the ½ marathon. Although the prior year I drove her, this year I got lazy and chose not to sit in traffic with her.

Sharon ran the event, fell on her knees and hands, also slightly hitting her nose on the asphalt. Luckily it was right before the medic tent. This was her first fall ever, and she’s ran a lot of miles. According to her Nike GPS Tracking system, she ran almost 900 miles in 2011 alone.

She's a tough girl, she continued and finished the race, even turning in a respectable time considering the stop at the medic's tent.



The pro's getting ready for the weigh in (huntinslabs and flycaster).



The weigh in. Speckanator making sure all his fish are counted.



Some nice Crappie down here. The fish had a beautiful green tint to them that did not come through in the pictures.



My wife especially liked this shirt. Specster, she's talking bout you, you know!


Here are the results of the mornings fishing as posted by huntinslabs on the FL Forum:
If I recall correctly
EdinFl with big fish @2lb3.9oz
Crappiegirl with Female Big fish @1lb9oz
Aaron(Specdetectors son) with youth big fish @1lb3oz
Stu and Chris with 5 fish @11lb6oz

Or perhaps it was what Flycaster later posted: Stu's weight was 7 Lb 7.6 oz.
which may make a little more sense. In any case they won Heaviest 5 fish.

EDinFL caught the bigfish: it is 2lbs 3.9oz


Crappiegirl1 - wins Big Fish Female



Stu and Chris, wins heaviest 5 fish winners



Aaron wins Youth Big Fish



I could not believe it. I was the recipient of an honorary FL Slabfest Plaque. My very first, I am looking at it on the wall right now as I write this. Thank you so much for all those that worked so hard to make this all possible. I know there were so many that brought food, provided donations, or helped organize, that I'm certain to leave many out, but let's put out a big thanks to at least a few: Huntinslabs, Flycaster, CrappieGirl1, Speckanator.... (I'm sure the list goes on), you guys/girl throw a heck of a party. And to others that helped cook, helped clean up, helped eat, caught fish or contributed in any way. A big thanks goes out to all of you, without wonderful members like you all, there'd be no Crappie.com.



Speckanators wife wins a raffle prize.


This is what these events are all about. A bunch of crappie fishermen and women, getting together, trading stories, and just plain having a good time. Oh, did I mention, eating too much. Man they got some tasty crappie down there.



CrappieGirl1 brought the crappie cake! I hear it was good, I had already eaten as much as my stomach could hold when it was being passed around.



Here's the group photo. We took it a little late. In actuality, there probably were twice this many people that attended.



Too funny, Chuck Auten was at the same park the event was taking place. He did not come specifically to attend the event, and it was kinda a coincidence that he was even here. Boy he sure gets around. Good to see you again Chuck. Nice job on those Crappie.

My wife Sharon on the left with her "I DID IT" shirt from the 1/2 Marathon.



The next day we toured the Lakeridge Winery in Clermont, FL. We had a great time, even if the guy next to us didn't! lol


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