10 minute read
Fishing surge
Boats are out in force on Gull Lake during the 2021 Minnesota walleye and northern pike fishing opener. TOP: An angler casts a line on Gull Lake near Bar Harbor in Lake Shore this spring.
Photos by Nancy Vogt
Anglers skyrocket during pandemic
BY DAN DETERMAN
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a decrease in a number of things - from travel to home loan costs to available toilet paper - but one aspect of life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes that actually increased in the past year was lake activity, particularly fishing.
In 2020, the number of new anglers in Minnesota increased by 43% from the previous year. The number of reactivated anglers - those who had purchased licenses in the past but not in 2019 - increased by 32%.
Jenifer Wical, strategic business analyst in the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Division, said the pandemic and the shelter-in-place orders associated with it were very much the reasons for this increase.
“People didn’t have the same schedules they had before,” Wical said. “They were working from home so they had more flexibility. Kids didn’t have sports going on so they had more time to actually have staycations - going to their cabin or whatever it was.”
Wical said a number of the new anglers were 16-year-olds purchasing licenses for the first time, but a deluge of people with newly flexible schedules took advantage of their time to hit the lakes.
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Jenifer Wical, DNR Fish and Wildlife Division
“We’ve done many studies that say time is the biggest hurdle people have in why they don’t recreate - kids’ schedules and work schedules and the like,” Wical said. “We just all were kind of blessed with this pause in our life. As much as COVID hasn’t been a great thing, it did allow us to slow down and spend more time with family.”
Despite travel nearly screeching to a halt during the pandemic, non-resident license purchases decreased by just 1%. According to the DNR, this actually is not too surprising, as many residents of surrounding states have cabins in Minnesota and still used the pandemic as an excuse to enjoy the outdoors.
Though her main focus with the DNR is fish and wildlife, Wical said it was evident throughout the entire department that water activity in general increased substantially over the past year in Minnesota.
“Park usage went up in 2020, and parks have plenty of water trails or lakes,” she said. “Overall, across the agency, we are seeing increases in participation.”
That increase in participation, however, created a few challenges for the DNR, as they were also somewhat at the mercy of the pandemic.
“We were all working from home too,” Wical said. “We had a small staff that were manning the state parks, for instance, and so we had this huge increase of users in the state parks and then we didn’t have the staff to manage … It’s a tough problem to have.”
Though the state and the nation have made tremendous strides in halting the effects of the pandemic and many have been able to return to work, the DNR anticipates yet another summer of increased water activity - expecting many to still have time for fishing and many more to make time for it.
“Trout stamp sales are up, even from last year,” Wical said. “That’s an indicator that folks are still going out. As of April 14, we were up almost 15% from last year. I have to caution that that can level out throughout the season - we have had a really nice spring and the season is just opening - but it is an indicator that, potentially, things are still looking very positive … Everyone should just get out and fish.”
DAN DETERMAN is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes Echo Journal weekly newspaper in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may be reached at 218-855-5879 or dan.determan@pineandlakes.com.
PONTO LAKE CONT...
The Omaha Lakouting north shore on Ponto Lake today. TOP: When the Omaha Lakouting Club chose Ponto Lake in 1923, the wives of the group made their husbands choose Ponto for its cleanliness, a quality that persists today. RIGHT: The Lakouting Club has long enjoyed lake themed pastimes, including water skiing and sailing.
Submitted photos
“We’re extremely pleased with the cooperation we’ve had with Cass County in stating our problems and being very cooperative and coming up with creative solutions,” Heinisch said. “The major problem is we have a lot of trees close to the road. And if you put a ditch along the road that will cut the roots, then we’ll lose a lot of trees. We’re fortunate. We have been able to design the road in a fashion that the water will be drained into our backwoods and will not have to have much in the way of drainage ditches along the road that will divert the water away without affecting our trees.”
A CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP
Up until 1946, the club owned the property on the north shore of Ponto Lake and had lots platted and leased to stockholders. That changed in August of that year.
Taxes had been a thorn in the group’s side from the moment the first lot was developed. Each year there were concerns that the way taxes were divvied up among properties was unfair. To that end, it was likely inevitable that the property would become private.
The minutes of the club’s August meeting read:
“”It was moved by Stockholder Jack Matthews, seconded by Stockholder Frank Seeley, that part of Government Lot Nine as is now platted be resurveyed and subdivided into 12 separate lots, and that deeds be issued by the corporation to each member or stockholder, conveying the lot now under lease and on which the lessee’s cottage or cabin is now located: that deeds also be issued to members who have not erected buildings, the location of which is now indicated by the original plat of record, and on which a lease is now held.”
The leaseholders now became the owners of the properties and the club’s purpose was forever changed. To this day the lakefront properties and the backwoods lot operate under different names.
“There’s two different associations that we have within our group,” Hooper said. “But the Omaha Lakouting Club is kind of a conservationist group. We have a 100-acre plot of woods that’s across the street from our entry gate. So we’ve got one part of our association that’s more in charge of making sure your dog is not leaving a mess on the path and the other side is about conserving forests.”
For a while the Omaha Lakouting Club hadn’t reaffirmed its position as a nonprofit, and there was a window of time where the registration as one had lapsed. In 1978, the group agreed to revive the Omaha Lakeouting Club charter as a nonprofit corporation.
The official nonprofit corporation, the Omaha Lakouting Club, today is in charge of preserving and managing the backwoods, and the property owners on the lake are officially the North Shore Association.
LOOKING BACK
The original Lakouting Club accomplished much of what it had intended with its formation and many of the values it started with persist today.
Members today remember the old families and the old houses, though only one original cabin remains.
“There’s only one cabin that has a tie to the original group,” Hooper said. “That’s the Musselman family.”
Like that first drive, it’s still a long trek to get to Ponto Lake. Hooper remembers how long it took when she was young.
“That’s a good 10-hour drive,” Hooper said. “And it’s like a rite of endurance to get to the lake. But once we were there, we would stay for four to six to eight weeks of summer. It was just heavenly. I think we’re in the third or fourth generation in our family.”
They also remember roughing it, and the people who made the place special. One of Wilson’s first memories is the hand pump in the kitchen and getting a bath in a wash tub on the counter from that hand pump.
“The pace of life hasn’t changed, you know, that’s slowing down,” Hooper said. “And we’ve been reluctant to get modern conveniences, like there are no dishwashers. That’s the kids’ job.”
“It’s a place where you can wear your old clothes and your day can start after a second cup of coffee and all is right with the world,” Wilson said.
When it was founded, the original group agreed to have an annual meeting on July 2 at the property. That is still a time when many property owners gather, and on July 4 now there is a picnic where the families watch fireworks fired by area neighbors.
Everyone is still creating new memories together. It was on the north shore that Hooper’s father built Putt, a wooden rowboat.
“My dad built this little wooden rowboat and he had this vision that he would take the whole family for a ride in the rowboat, because it was pretty big in the basement,” Hooper said. “And by the time they got it up the steps - well, they felt like maybe one parent then. By the time they put it in the lake it’s like, ‘Well, this one’s for kids’.”
Putt would be loaded down with kids wearing orange life jackets, piloting around the lake with a 3-horsepower motor. Hooper’s own children got to use Putt, but now everyone seems to have kayaks. Many members have fishing boats and sailboats.
“So it was a place where we worked hard to maintain it,” Wilson said. “And then we got to play there as well.”
“I love listening in the middle of night to the music of the loons,” Heinisch said. “I am 76 years old and bought a new pair of water skis for the summer. For myself, I have a sailboat and what you do on the lake is to sail and to take grandchildren out and have them experience the interrelationship of a boat that becomes alive with the wind.”
The community feeling created by the charter members remains even today, 99 years after the founding members first portaged to the undeveloped lot.
“I’m 52 years old,” Hooper said. “And I have neighbors at the lake that are kids that I grew up with. There’s always a pack of kids running up and down the path. And the kids that I ran with are now parents, and our parents are still there, too. And our grandparents. It’s just those multi-generational connections, I think that it’s really important.”
“As we get older, we understand the importance of relationships in keeping us healthy,” Wilson said. “And so, we look forward to freshening and nourishing those relationships with these families that we’ve known for a long time. To me that’s very important.”
TRAVIS GRIMLER is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes Echo Journal weekly newspaper in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may be reached at 218-855-5853 or travis.grimler@pineandlakes.com.
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