History of Washington Lakes.com

[spindog]

As WL.com approaches the 10,000 member mark there must have been some big changes and improvements along the way. Wouldn't it be cool to see a timeline of the growth and changes of the site that occured over these past 12 or so years!

[Anonymous]

As WL.com approaches the 10,000 member mark there must have been some big changes and improvements along the way. Wouldn't it be cool to see a timeline of the growth and changes of the site that occured over these past 12 or so years!

There's something called "way back" which archives old web sites. It's not flawless because files get lost or not archived and so the old pages will have missing images. However, here is a link for us. It certainly does bring back memories. The original coding was done by myself, using Microsoft Frontpage, HTML> I would have to update the report pages manually by copy/paste. I remember the year we had 700 reports I thought was a big deal, now 700 in a month is not uncommon.

Aaron's arrival three years ago was like a booster rocket going off, shooting us into orbit. Over 5,000 reports last year. Click on 2006 to see the first upgrade he designed.

WashingtonLakes.com Archived Web Pages back to 1999

[The Quadfather]

That "Wayback" link is pretty cool. It is funny that I recognize the old site, and funny to look and find a few of the same names that still post here, but looking reports from say 2000.

[Marc Martyn]

Yes, it has been a fun journey.

I remember being frustrated trying to find more information on area lakes. After looking through the bookstores, I thought I would try that new invention called the internet. I did a simple Google search and way down on the list of hits was a site called www.washingtonlakes. Wow! A site made for the lakes of Washington state. Pay day!

After browsing through the site some, I realized that the east side of the state needed some more information. This guy that owned the site, Mike Carey, was over on the west side. I thought that I might contact him and ask if he would like more information on the east side lakes. Thinking that he might just blow me off, I got on my email and sent him a note offering to take pictures of some of the area lake and add to some of the lake descriptions. He sent me back an email all excited that I found the site and he would appreciate all the help he could get compiling information on the state lakes. He told me that he didn't get to the east side very often and wanted more information and photos. So, my involvement with WL.com began. That was in 2002.

I had just purchased a 2 megapixel camera and started taking pictures of some of the lakes I fished at. I remember uploading and sending the pictures on my dial-up connection which took about 10 minutes to send 3 pictures. I got a reply back from Mike thanking me for the pictures, but asked me to follow the directions on how to send pictures to him. Apparently I didn't read the instructions on how to email pictures to him. The following is taken from the archives of the Photo Gallery for 2002.

Try to have your photo compressed for the web and in a jpeg format before you submit it. This really helps for those of us with slow dial up connections.

Thanks!

Mike

The memberships and reports continued to grow each year. Then Aaron joined in and the site skyrocketed with his knowledge of websites. Many new features were added and is now the top hit on Google for fishing in Washington.

I have met several great people on the site and have enjoyed contributing. I look forward to many more years on this site.

[Mike Carey]

yup, there's Marc's history. He has been a huge help over the years - thank you Marc! There have been so many people over the years that have helped to grow the site. If you're an "old timer" share your "Way Back" stories, I'd love to hear them and be reminded of these Blasts From The Past!

[tnj8222]

yup, there's Marc's history. He has been a huge help over the years - thank you Marc! There have been so many people over the years that have helped to grow the site. If you're an "old timer" share your "Way Back" stories, I'd love to hear them and be reminded of these Blasts From The Past!

ha i rememeber when i only came here to see if there was new reports on the lake i wanted to fish. now i check in daily. its my #1 forum now.