Outdoors: It's a road trip success story

Jamie and Hannah are long gone. Barcelona or maybe Madrid by now? David has been shipped off to Gunflint for some one-on-one time with Gramma and Grampa. It is mid-morning and the Baker crew still at home have yet to shape the day. It is cold and windy and wet. The grass that should have been cut in the last couple of days will have to wait. I check the radar and the rest of the day doesn’t shake out much better. Hmmm. I notice further north, all looks good. Joseph, Joshua and I come to a quick decision: road trip.

We shove bass and crappie rods into the Suburban, pack a cooler and head out through the drizzle. Richardson’s Shangri-La Resort on Pelican Lake in Orr is our final destination. An hour and 40 minutes straight up Minnesota Highways 33 and 53 from Cloquet, Pelican offers roughly 11,000 acres to explore. I’m especially excited about the variety of quality fish the lake offers. Walleyes, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, pike, crappies and bluegills all grow thick in its fertile water.

This trip, we plan on concentrating our efforts on largemouth bass that cruise the shallow bays this time of year. Special regulations on Pelican state that all largemouth and smallmouth from 14-20 inches must be immediately released. Only one over 20 inches is allowed in possession. This special slot has helped Pelican become a trophy bass destination. Anglers from all over Minnesota and beyond ply the rock piles, weed-beds, stump fields and docks for the chance to go toe-to-toe with a giant.

Sure enough, minutes out of Cook the sky opens and the sun makes its first appearance for the day. We meet up with Jason Richardson at his resort. Richardson, a fellow teacher at Cloquet High School, has been in the resort business his entire life. The resort was built along the shores of a splendid, sandy bay in 1949. Jason, along with his wife, Audra, and their children Rosie, Sophie, and Willie are all part of the generations of Richardsons that help keep the resort running smoothly.

We chit-chat for a short while. Jason fills me in on some fishing intel. Smallmouth bass have been biting well, and his guests have been catching chunky walleyes in the evening. We decide to rendezvous a couple of hours before dark and sneak a walleye trip in before nightfall.

It takes a little longer than I hoped to tangle with our first largemouth, but its stocky build reminds me of why we make the drive. We work in and out of two distinct bays. Everything looks fishy. Rocky points, fallen trees, stumps, reeds and lily pads await our offerings. It doesn’t take us long to figure out that our largemouth trip is quickly becoming a smallmouth trip. Smallmouth bass with massive shoulders and attitudes crush our swimbaits and whacky-rigged Senkos. Each bass we battle attracts a school of other fish as it regurgitates the latest minnow or crawfish it has consumed.

We enjoy bass after bass, cast after cast. Big and small and brown and green. The afternoon flies by.

The crappie rods never make an appearance.

We motor back to the Richardson’s dock. We take a quick respite and re-tie our rods with Lindy Rigs. We hope a steady parade of leeches will bring a few walleyes topside. We bounce across the expanse to a nearby shoreline. Between two rocky points, separated by the length of a football field, we find a sandy section of bottom that proves productive. As the sun makes its nightly descent, the water comes alive with shades of pink and purple. On cue, the walleyes begin hitting the net.

Plump walleyes, a boatload of friends and family, and one amazing sunset cap one heck of a road trip.

Bret Baker is a lifetime resident of Cloquet. He is a proud husband, father, educator and outdoorsman. Bret began guiding fishing trips when he was 16 years old. Today, in his 40s, his passion is to introduce people to the tremendous outdoor adventures available in our region.