Pelican Lake – Wright County

Anyone of the this area know if they attempted to drain this lake out again?

Yes the lake is still in the temporary drawdown stage and probably will go lower than it is now. Hunters are using the old south access as the North one is unusable. In a few years it will be brought back up to about where it was last year. That is per Fred the project manager.

Its kinda cool, the old islands are exposed in the middle again. Be curious if there are any lower units out on them from people during the fishing boom that were unfamiliar with the lake. I always heard rumors a few were lost out there.

was on it for the first time last year during ice season. i will be going back again this winter……..on more then 1 occasion!!!!!!

http://www.startribune.com/ducks-returning-to-pelican-lake-as-habitat-improves/498367891/

I read that story about how the duck hunting has gotten better out there now (and the fishing has suffered). I’d rather see it be a duck magnet, so kudos to the DNR for restoring it.

It’s all BS, it is not the duck magnet they claim it is. I have talked with several guys, last fall many came in with no birds shot. Some guys never even saw a single duck. Unless they are calling cormorants? ducks.

Its a shame what they did to the lake. It was a incredible lake for Bass and Panfish. There are far better areas to try and return to prime Duck slews. Unless there is a Major shift to the current duck flyways, Duck #’s are never going to return to what they once were here in central and eastern Minnesota

Look at it this way-its in Wright county.Someday soon when lakeshore owners get their way (even tho not many reside on it)you will have to go thru an offsite inspection likely no where near the lake to get access to it anyways.Wonder if it has milfoil,zeebs or starry yet?

It does have Milfoil.
The Bass and gills winter killed winter of 2013-2014, that was before the draw down. Pike survived and some crappies did. Pike got hit pretty hard the last two winters though. The lake was packed again winter of 2018, not so much this past winter.

The project isn’t over yet, so tough to judge how it is working. I’m sure it is hard to find spots to hide in right now with the low water. At some point they will bring it back up some.

We as fisherman expect the DNR to do a lot for us(from all the bitching I hear about them) and so do hunters. They get a lot less done for them cause it is not that simple. Glad they are trying to get a lake that was Designated in the late 70’s as a Wildlife Management lake back on track and improved for Waterfowl.

So if you designed a machine that could produce silver but something happened, and all you got was gold, you would destroy the machine and start over? Draining that lake was a incredible waste of resources both natural and financial.

Huh? It severely froze out in winter of 2013/2014 before any water was released, water was pretty high that Fall. I will say DNR got lucky there, but the lake showed it is a winter kill lake at times.

Yes, and if left for fishing, the surviving fish would have boomed like every other winter kill lake.

SpoonbillSlayer wrote:

We as fisherman expect the DNR to do a lot for us(from all the bitching I hear about them) and so do hunters. They get a lot less done for them cause it is not that simple. Glad they are trying to get a lake that was Designated in the late 70’s as a Wildlife Management lake back on track and improved for Waterfowl.

Agreed.

Sucks loosing a good panfish/bass lake, but mn is blessed with way more fishing lakes than good waterfowl lakes.

It benefits migrating waterfowl in the spring, and the restoration project isn’t a one sided for hunting alone. Have driven by it a lot in the spring and seen a lot of waterfowl using it.

The lake is prone to winter kill but when it rebounds, it’s an incredible fishery. Personal opinion, the drain down was a serious waste of funds that could have been used elsewhere. The mid 90’s, unreal fishing, late 90’s freeze killed it out. The early-mid 2000’s rebound, some of the best fishing the state had to offer for a handful of years. It didn’t have the consistent size of Red’s crappies (though plenty of 14″-15″ fish were caught, a small few upwards of 18″) but certainly equaled the numbers. Fishing the 119 ditch after ice out was a blast catching crappies and having bass and pike blow up the banks chasing them around. Unless it is brought back up to a respectable level after the drain we will never get to relive that.