ALONG THE GUNFLINT TRAIL, Minn. _ Neal Peaslee of Normanna Township came walking across the ice of Clearwater Lake northwest of Grand Marais wearing most of a skunk atop his head. It was the furry part of the skunk, and it probably felt good. The temperature hovered around 7 degrees.
Peaslee and friend Larry Sandretsky of Two Harbors, along with their next-generation contingent of boys, were up for the annual trout opener Jan. 14 on lakes outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Already, they had taken a half-dozen lake trout, the largest about a 17-incher.
They weren't alone on this opener. Perhaps a couple dozen anglers, some in pop-up fishing shelters and some fishing out in the open, had staked out territories across the frozen lake. About a mile of Clearwater is outside the Boundary Waters, and another four miles stretches eastward into the wilderness.
All of the anglers were fishing with the 360-foot palisades on the far side of the lake as a backdrop.
"It's beautiful _ the vistas," Sandretsky said.
It would be hard to imagine a place more stunning to stand on the ice and jig a Swedish Pimple and a chunk of cisco in hopes that a hungry trout would come by. The sun was bathing the lake in warm light. The wind was negligible. Standing atop a foot of ice, lifting and dropping the tip of a lake-trout rod, was not a hardship.
From the public landing, it was about a two-minute snowmobile or four-wheeler ride to where Sandretsky and Peaslee and clan were fishing. They catch lake trout in a wide range of sizes on these trips.
"You get a lot of 2's and 3's (2- and 3-pounders), an occasional 5 to 8," Peaslee said. "And there are some big ones in here if you put in your time."
He knows. He just got one of those big ones back from the taxidermist. He caught the 40-incher last summer on a downrigger. It weighed 28 pounds.
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