Unlimited Fishing

On Pelican Lake in Wright co. Winter kill is expected so anglers are encouraged to keep everything they catch. I guess the lake is near Albertville MN.

Its a shame that they are going to return that lake to a duck wetlands. It is a great fishing lake, and will do nothing to help return ducks to the Minnesota flyway. Yet another bad decision from our great DNR dept.

I’ve heard that the lake isn’t as good as it was a few years ago before the word got out. The problem is the lake is suffering a winter kill without a draw down.

My question is was it originally a wetland? Is there a dam or barrier that raised the water levels?

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Its a shame that they are going to return that lake to a duck wetlands. It is a great fishing lake, and will do nothing to help return ducks to the Minnesota flyway. Yet another bad decision from our great DNR dept.

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That area is prime breeding grounds for many species of waterfowl that will use the new wetlands. Teal, woodies, mallards, ringneck, bluebill, redhead, and of course the loon.

More safe breeding grounds is always a plus

On that topic, anyone else see that the USFW is allowing MN, ND, SD, and IA the chance to have a teal season this year? Numbers are so good in the breeding states (us) due to habitat restoration (like this lake) that they are allowing us a teal only season to manage the population. Up to the states to decide if they want to do it or not.

Don’t know what “bringing ducks to the Minnesota flyway” means, no such thing as a Minnesota flyway. Central and Mississippi are the two in our area, and their numbers are increasing every year due to projects like this one.

I’m pretty sure that is a waterfowl production area which is federal money so blaming the dnr would be wrong. This area was originally flooded for the ducks and the great fishing was a fortunate side affect. Last I heard they were going to draw it down for a year or so then re flood it so maybe we will get lucky again and the fish will come back too. The dnr has been taking advantage of the situation and netting and relocating some of the huge fish that were in the lake for the last couple of years, so instead of shaking your finger at the dnr maybe you should give them a pat on the back.

Could be worse. The DNR could be driving a snowmobiles down the lake and shooting all the fish jumping out of the holes and attacking them.

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That area is prime breeding grounds for many species of waterfowl that will use the new wetlands. Teal, woodies, mallards, ringneck, bluebill, redhead, and of course the loon.

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What? Too far S for loons, too warm for blue bills. The area is full of pot holes to support breeding. Fact is that MN is not a flyway and there is way more feed to the west.
Making more “wetlands” is not the issue. It is already a wetland with plenty of habitat.

Minnesota Flyway was a Typo. Mississippi flyway is what I wanted to type. The duck #’s using the Mississippi Flyway ( At least the portion that goes thru most of Minnesota is at or near historic lows as to # of ducks that use it. This has more to due with Drought conditions in the late 80’s and thru the 90’s. most duck shifted the flyway to the west and found great conditions there and the shift back east just has not happened. This area was once a wetlands and was changed at the DNR’s request to a lake. There is plenty of prime breeding area’s all around the area. One more such as this will not make a difference in the grand picture. I just find it funny that the DNR once used money to change this area into a lake and now wants to spend more money to return it to what it once was.

Mark you and I were responding at the same time. Glad someone else see’s it the same way as I see it.

Check the USFW for breeding #’s. 2012 and 2013 were near record numbers for certain MN breeding species in the Miss flyway.

Draining of a lake is to promote new habitat growth. Many marshland species of vegetation need dry or semi-dry land to take off. It is done every year around here. They drain it, then flood in the fall. While the lake is drained (not completely), it provides excellent habitat for breeding ducks.

There are loons that breed in southern MN (stearns county), I have seen them with my own two eyes. I have also seen bluebills breeding in IOWA and southern Wisc.

The location of the lake is in a prime spot for breeding, which is why the USFW is working on it.

DNR or Federal – Both Taxpayer money. In my opinion poor use of it. Better use of the money would have been to install a aeration unit in the lake to prevent winter kill. There are more than enough wetlands in the area already. My understanding is that they are not going to allow the lake to return to the current Depths after the drawdown. If there is frequent winter kills now it will be worse down the road and will not support game fish in the future

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DNR or Federal – Both Taxpayer money. In my opinion poor use of it. Better use of the money would have been to install a aeration unit in the lake to prevent winter kill. There are more than enough wetlands in the area already. My understanding is that they are not going to allow the lake to return to the current Depths after the drawdown. If there is frequent winter kills now it will be worse down the road and will not support game fish in the future

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No, the money will be from federal duck stamp sales and donations from conservation groups, as well as DNR waterfowl stamp sales if requested. That money COULDN’T even be used to put an aerator in it. No tax money involved on waterfowl habitat restoration projects.

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Check the USFW for breeding #’s. 2012 and 2013 were near record numbers for certain MN breeding species in the Miss flyway.

Draining of a lake is to promote new habitat growth. Many marshland species of vegetation need dry or semi-dry land to take off. It is done every year around here. They drain it, then flood in the fall. While the lake is drained (not completely), it provides excellent habitat for breeding ducks.

There are loons that breed in southern MN (stearns county), I have seen them with my own two eyes. I have also seen bluebills breeding in IOWA and southern Wisc.

The location of the lake is in a prime spot for breeding, which is why the USFW is working on it.

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Record #’s ?????? Maybe in some parts of the Miss. Flyway but not in most parts of Minnesota. And not on Mallards for sure. Minnesota’s breeding #’s are a drop in the bucket compaired to those in the Dakota’s

Dakotas are central flyway.

Minnesota nor the dakotas can even compare to the western flyway for pintails. Different flyways breed different ducks. We shoot the same ducks you guys do in MN, and we have had banner years the last two.. right in coordination with the increase in breeding #’s. Before that, the previous 10 years were absolute crap.

See Pug… its that darned-nabbed DNR at it again.

I guess somebody has memorized the entire Encyclopedia Britannica collection… Simply seems to know everything.

If there are record numbers of ducks in the mississippi flyway, they certainly aren’t flying through Wisconsin. When I started hunting ducks in the late 70s, you could shoot 10 mallards a day and had no problem doing it if you so desired. In the last 10 years, it has turned to mostly ducks that bread locally and once those locals are gone, you will be lucky to find 10 ducks for the rest of the season.

I wouldn’t mind seeing an early teal season though as the first night or two below freezing seems to push out a lot of the locals and that always seems to happen the week before season opens in southern Wisconsin.

Haha oh Mark… Quite the opposite actually. I literally know nothing, well aside from what the OP put up, about this area and specific lake/wetland. Merely proving a point I made on a different thread about finger pointing at the DNR….. My apologies to the OP, wasn’t trying to start something or say that the DNR is right or wrong in this case.

He was talking about me.

Mallard numbers are down, but we don’t shoot many mallards anyways. Right now there are mallards everywhere here. They came through around christmas time, well after the MN/WI season (and ours) closed. I don’t think it has to do with less breeding opportunities, but just the fact that there are so many parks and places where the ducks can stay in northern MN/WI and southern Canada until the absolute hard freeze.

The last two years have been banner years for woodies and teal. Both years we shot teal into Dec. with over 60% of our ducks killed being teal. Skies were full of teal from Sept through mid Nov. In late Oct we had so many woodies and teal that two of us killed 4 woodies, 1 pintail, and 7 teal in the first 12 minutes of shooting time one day.

That is one reason I said some ducks, as mallards are surely not up in count… but being the most attractive ducks to hunters it seems if guys don’t kill a bunch of mallards then it was a bad season. I was following the eastern MN, western WI guys reports through last season and it seemed you guys had some real difficulties SEEING birds. Shame. I think all of your local bred birds flew right down to us early, then the Canadian birds didn’t move until after the season.

How did your waterfowl banquets go last weekend Kevin?

Lots of people showed up and lots of money was spent. End result means lots of money to allocate to local habitat restoration and preservation.

U won’t catch anything angling for them. Only way is to cut a big hole and spear/net the fish as they come up.

They lakes water level came up because of a few wet years and substantial tiling in the watershed. And the outlet had basically grown closed with trees, grass, etc over the years thus slowing the flow to a trickle.
The only reason fish survived in here is because of the mild winters. This is just restoring the natural order. Has nothing to do with the coming DNR drawdown. I saw pictures and heard from a few people today that took many large northerns out.

I thought that what you have in your freezer counts towards possesion limit. If you took a hundred sunnies and fileted them and put them in your freezer, wouldn’t you be in violation of possesion limit – regardless if it was promiscuous fishing or not?

Package them with the date and location they were taken and you will be ok.

-J.

What prevents someone two years from now from running up to Mille Lacs, catching 100 walleyes and packaging them with 03/07/14 Pelican Lake open fishing then?

By the way – just curious….

Same thing that prevents them now from going to mille lacs, catching 6 walleyes and packaging them as another lake. Not much.

But then again has this been a huge issue?

So sad to see such a great fishery being ruined for a few ducks. Anyone who was lucky enough to experience it over the last 7-10 years know what I’m talking about. Quite a few trophy pike, 10″ gills and occasionally you could get some decent crappies with consistency. All for what? So a handful of ducks that don’t live here any longer can breed? I don’t get it. Minnesota is NOT a duck hunting destination and creating more “breeding habitat” in the metro is absurd.

That lake has generated more revenue for the local economy than those ducks will in 15 years.

And do ducks avoid lakes just because of their depth?

Was the fishing in the lake that good the last couple years? I heard that like most lakes the word got out and it started to decline?

I haven’t fished it the last two winters, but my contacts say you can still find good fish, but not as regular as we once did. My best day ever, I sat out there and hand over fist for 4 hours. I had more fish 8+ inches than under. Kept 10 nice 8 inchers for eating. The rest were released. I had a several fish over 10 that afternoon. One of those epic days you don’t forget.

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So sad to see such a great fishery being ruined for a few ducks. Anyone who was lucky enough to experience it over the last 7-10 years know what I’m talking about. Quite a few trophy pike, 10″ gills and occasionally you could get some decent crappies with consistency. All for what? So a handful of ducks that don’t live here any longer can breed? I don’t get it. Minnesota is NOT a duck hunting destination and creating more “breeding habitat” in the metro is absurd.

That lake has generated more revenue for the local economy than those ducks will in 15 years.

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I couldn’t agree more, I have a ton of great memories out there. It was a hell of a good time while it lasted.