"Old Bartlett"

Ya, I remember takein 2-3 hrs to get to the lake, and that was from 40th st and Shea, and horseshoe had water with fish in it. And the last stop was always the old General store on the corner of Pima and Pinical Peak, then it was a old wooden bldg that sold bait,ammo,gas, and just a few goodies, that was all. Cool old store. I hate what they did to it, it was like a Az. landmark.The dirt road started at the turnoff from Carefree hywy.

That dirt road going back into Bartlett was a mother on trailers! That boat trailer would take a beating! Nice pics of the fish!!

RookieBoy said:

That dirt road going back into Bartlett was a mother on trailers! That boat trailer would take a beating! Nice pics of the fish!!

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My dad broke an axel out there on our trailer one April. Let me guess that boat's an old Crestliner, right?

I think it was a starcraft if I remember right. Don't remember. Had an inboard/ outboard with a small outboard for fishing. The outboard was noisy and we always caught fish. It sucked being the guy running the outboard. My father use to make me tighten the bolts on the trailer and boat after a trip to bartlett or horseshoe. Those wash boards were bad. Moving side to side was kind of fun. I remember that place used to be loaded with jack rabbits. It was hard not to hit one on the way to the lake in the morning.

i remember a teeth jarring ride or two in my 3/4 short bed chevy 4x. use to a place to go to get away from the hordes. now it's TOO EASY to get there.

boy I remember the days we had a 3/4 chevy duelly and a cab over camper when I would ride up front we would get there and all the doors would be open and the dishes would be everywhere my dad would say a few choice words and the swear that we were never comming back then go out an wack on em, which would make us come back the next weekend that was the cool thing about that old a..hole

I picked up enough trailer parts to build a new boat trailer, I remember driving up early one morning and a Ford PU was upside down in the middle of the road, lights were on, tools scattered everywhere and no one around. Just enough room to get the truck and trailer around. Later that day we heard they had been drinking and lost it, then walked to Bartlett and met up with their buddies and sacked out.

i remember i drove my 77 toyota corolla and by the time i get to the lake all my hubcaps were all gone.

badaz4570 said:

I picked up enough trailer parts to build a new boat trailer, I remember driving up early one morning and a Ford PU was upside down in the middle of the road, lights were on, tools scattered everywhere and no one around. Just enough room to get the truck and trailer around. Later that day we heard they had been drinking and lost it, then walked to Bartlett and met up with their buddies and sacked out.

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Where were our cameras? : Jerk-it

I remember my dad cussing that road to Bartlett, there was always something that broke or was loose after that drive, this was the early to mid 80's. Horseshoe wasn't any better, but the fishing was. My first buzzbait fish was a 3lb smallie on a chartreuse buzzbait thrown in the timber on the west side of the lake. I used to do good on red bloodline tx-rigged worms at Bartlett and Pleasant. Back then you could safely fish from a 12ft aluminum boat, those were fun days.

My first real post, however couldn't miss when talking about Bartlett. I remember my dad taking me up there catfishing, in the early 1950's. We could drive onto the dam and would sit there during monsoon season. After the major rain the lake would almost instantly start to fill up. That is when dad said let's go and we would catch some awesome channel cats. I definitely miss those times. It took us most of the day to get there.

check out the archives at a public library

I remember going up after dad would get out of work on a fri. One time a monsoon storm hit on our way up. As we were coming down the hill the dirt road was covered w/ taratulas that must have been flooded out. I was scared the whole night thinkin they were going to get in out tent.

Also remember fishin out of dads 12ft aluminum one day. We kept drifting over the point by rattlesnake, picking up fish every time. Dad hauls in a good 4 or 5 lmb. As he's putting it on the stringer I remember asking him if he should use more than 1 stringer hook. "No it'll be just fine". He puts the stringer in the water and bam! Pulls it up and the hook is straightened out. I have never heard him cuss like that!!!! Too many memories!!!!

never had a camera back then other than an old polaroid 60sec instamatec. Yes remember that road well (loved it) kept the 5 lake lice in the valley out, but you had to dodge mufflers, trailer fenders, exhaust pipes, hubcaps, laying on the road so you didn't puncture a tire, launched off dirt (often had to tow stuck vehicles out before you could launch) but if you got bored with bartlett you fished horseshoe lake with 20MPH speed limit no sking and tons of quality fish or you headed up to rosy and took the two lane road up there from scottsdale and hit dirt right after pumpkin center over to the lake after you drove over the dam and watched people with big old motorhomes scrape and tear up there rig on the rock cliffs going in and out and you could launch off the old single lane ramps put in by the conservation corp back during the depression of the 30's, or head out the 2 lane road from Phx. to canyon and apache.

Hell back then even pleasant was fun!!!!

A lot of people don't know it, but Bartlett is the largest multiple arch dam in the world.
(Or it used to be. The encyclopedia I got the info from was pretty old.)

Great Post. Mid 1970's-1980's I remember getting car sick in the no=a/c dodge dart with a cartopper on top because I was too small to see out the windows and got bounced around on the washboard roller-coaster. Dad would pull over, I would barf, and off we would go.

We'd fish with plastic worms from Yellowfront, K-Mart, or Fred Ward's Pro shop. 12ft Starcraft with a 1950something Johnson Seahorse. No electric motor, just oars.

We'd stop on the way home in Carefree to buy ice cream sandwiches. Great times, and boy did we catch fish. Huge stringers of crappie too.

Thanks for bringing back the memories.

In the 70's my kids and myself would go to Bartlett in our old wooden Elgin and fish all day and half the night. We always stopped at Circle-K so the kids could get a pickled sausage. Anyone remember the hardware store on the south side that carried fishing tackle and waterdogs?

I remember fishing out of a 12' aluminum in high school and not having to worry about getting killed. We used oars to get from spot to spot to save the battery for the trolling motor. Try that next weekend and you have a 50/50 chance of getting killed/loosing your boat!! We even took the ol-12 out on Plez back in the day and had no worries! Times have changed and the d-bag population has exploded amongst all boaters in Maricopa County. Wish I had the energy to get some pics scanned I have a few.