The secret is out that Cook County has a lot of snow, and the snowmobilers have been arriving from all parts of the state to ride the trails. Ice anglers have also been flooding into the area to partake in the 2019 trout season that opened last weekend.
Unfortunately, my role was to stay at the lodge and take care of the record number of customers that visited our restaurant, while many others were out enjoying the snow-covered trails or soaking a minnow on their favorite trout lake. I saw photos of Birch Lake from opening day, and it looked like a village of ice tents had gathered along the shoreline. Some reported good fishing while others thought they should have moved further away from the crowd, but that is fishing.
The deep snow on the lake did not seem to be a problem for most of the anglers I talked to, and many said it was easy to drill holes and prepare their sites to fish. The early risers did better on Birch Lake than the snoozers, which is very common for that lake, with reports of nice catches of both lake trout and rainbow trout.
I would like to get up there and fish before the next snowfall covers the evidence of successful holes left behind from the opening weekend.
Busy winters are nothing new to our area, but when conditions allow us to have more snow than our competing locations it becomes insanely busy. It has taken us until Wednesday each week to fully recover from the weekends. Restocking the coolers, preparing food, and turning over the lodge rooms is quite a task to accomplish in a couple of days, but we have a great staff this winter and hope the business continues to thrive.
Cory Christianson has worked as a fishing guide on the Gunflint Trail since 2000. If you have any fishing or wildlife reports or stories to share, send an email to: christiansoncory@hotmail.com. You can also visit Cory’s website at Gunflintfishingguide.com.
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