Pelican Lake On Blast (But for the right reasons)

I’m pretty careful about putting a body of water on full social media blast, especially a lake without any tighter management regulations in place. My reasoning isn’t to protect anything for myself, but more out of respect for the local anglers who fish the lake every day and is a deep part of their lives. So this post is going to seem a bit off, but there’s a good reasoning that I’ll get to.

During the 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s Pelican lake was the go to destination for trophy perch in Manitoba and an amazing walleye fishery. Fishermen traveled far and wide for a chance to test her waters, it was nothing to see 200 to 300 trucks on the lake during late March. Fertile and shallow, the lake was full of forage for these fish, and those fish were plentiful and grew fast. But, the shallow fertile waters was a double edged sword. The same factor in the lakes high productions was also part of it’s cyclic downfall. Pelican lake would periodically suffer massive winterkills. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary for a eutrophic body of water. See this link to better understand the different fertility classifications of lakes.  Lake Trophic States

To put things simply, the lakes fertility also created prime conditions for instability in the system. It was boom or bust and a sustained healthy fish population was nonexistent. The booms were amazing for the local communities as anglers rushed to the lake. But, everything good that came with the boom disappeared when the bust would hit after a winterkill. I grew up fishing this lake, I watched it cycle back and forth for two and half decades. Then the death blow came in 2004. A winter kill like no other, the lake went from being full of fish to not holding any.  This is where a concerned local group decided to take it upon themselves to find a way to help some fish through the winter, and later on maybe help the lake stabilize with the hopes of creating a healthier ecosystem and cleaner water.

Thus, The Healthy Lake Committee was created. Their primary objective was and is promoting water stewardship and fish habitat maintenance, and implementing projects to improve water quality and overall health of Pelican Lake. This was going to be accomplished through aeration. The initial aeration project was installed near Terry Fox Park in Ninnette, Manitoba. This aeration showed promising results, and right around then I did an episode of Blue Collar Outdoors on the lake and groups commitment to expanding aeration in the lake. Watch the episode here.  BCO-Pelican Lake Recovery Story

The fishing was amazing, as the episode showed. Since then I hadn’t really fished the lake. But I kept my eyes and ears open, and never saw or heard any bad news on a large scale winterkill. The word on social media was that fishing was tough. But conversations with local anglers and those in the know gave me the intel that the lake was full of fish, and deep down inside I knew those fish were growing in numbers and size.

Now, skip ahead to the most recent couple of weeks. I had been trying to plan a full weekend out on a body of water for multi species. I was torn between Lake Of The Prairies or Lake Manitoba, and reports of a good walleye and perch bite at Pelican lake had me even more confused. A quick scouting trip to pelican lake the week before convinced me. No fish were caught but I heard enough banter from the locals on the lake about some large walleye up to 29 inches and trophy perch getting caught to convince me to make Pelican my destination.

I arrived at the lake early the afternoon on march 22^nd and immediately started icing beautiful eater sized walleyes at a good pace. Then towards the evening I set the hook into something solid, the classic constant pull to the bottom that a larger then average walleye gives during battle. After a few moments the water in the fishing hole started to bob, then a large open mouth came up.

This was a beaut of a fish, a classic walleye in appearance that breaks the monotony of seeing the cookie cutter green giants of Lake Winnipeg. Grip and grins were done, then she was released to go do her thing this coming spring.

I was joined by a good friend right after, and we had a blast that evening and the next morning popping walleyes with a really nice pike added in. Unfortunately the walleye bite slowed down over Saturday due to an approaching low pressure system. But some pike keeping us occupied throughout the afternoon. Then right at sunset my jawjacker sprung, but missed the fish. I quickly popped a fresh live minnow onto the jig and sent it back down, where I was met with resistance on the lift off the bottom. Setting the hook I quickly realized this wasn’t a walleye or pike, and started asking the fish gods for a 13 inch perch. Well, they partially listened. It was a perch alright, that came in at 12.5 inches. A dandy fatty of a fish that shows the potential of perch in Pelican Lake, and one that got released after some pictures.

Sunday morning was slow outside of one nice pike, and camp was packed up and we headed off the

lake at lunch. I considered the trip a success despite the tough bite later in the trip. Then I got to thinking on how much this lake had changed in the 35 years or so I fished it. It had gone from a boom or bust for eater sized fish, to a body of water that carries multiple year classes of healthy fish, and is now producing trophy fish. These fish don’t get that size overnight, they need time to grow, and I feel the recent stability of lake is the main reason behind this change.

So, I come full circle here. The Healthy Lake Committee has done what they set out to do, and we as anglers are reaping the rewards. Unfortunately there’s costs associated with the continuation of this amazing project. Thus, I feel it’s up to us, the angling community to do our part. How do we do this? Simple, you can support The Healthy Lake Committee by attending their fishing derby that they hold every year in early march. This is the primary reason for this post. Not to put the lake on full blast, but to ensure the readers out there understand why Pelican Lake has returned to a viable and amazing fishery, and hopefully do their part to ensure The Healthy Lake Committee can continue to do their amazing work. The lake and subsequently local communities will thrive if everyone does their part.  In my humble opinion is that if the lake continues to improve it will become one of the great walleye and perch lakes in North America, right up there with Last Mountain in Saskatchewan.  Keep up the good work!!!  Here's a link to The Healthy Lake Committee's FaceBook page  Health Lake Committee FaceBook