Exploring with Bro: Northwoods fishing guide Brian ‘Bro’ Brosdahl gets a change of scenery. Brian Brosdahl wanted to cross the road but first he needed to figure out how to reach the other side. That’s not as easy as it sounds when you’re in a boat, and the road is one of the many flooded routes in the Devils Lake basin that now are more conducive to walleyes than wheels.
The flooded road was barely a foot deep, but deeper water beckoned on the other side, and as every angler knows, fishing is always better on the other side.
Brosdahl had to get there.
It took some doing and a few encounters of hull scraping against gravel, but Brosdahl finally found an opening in the cattails with water deep enough to accommodate his 21-foot Ranger fishing boat, a walleye machine with a 300-horse Evinrude outboard, a remote-controlled trolling motor and enough gadgets to equip a small spaceship.
Such is a day in the life of a professional walleye angler preparing for a big-money tournament.
Brosdahl was testing the waters of Pelican Lake on this blustery Monday preparing for the inaugural championship on the Cabela’s National Walleye Tour circuit. Judging by the dozens of pickup-boat trailer rigs parked at the Pelican Lake access, most of the other 80 walleye pros and co-anglers who qualified for the tournament had the same idea.
The NWT tournament, which paired each of the 82 pros with a different amateur co-angler each day, began Thursday and wrapped up Saturday on Devils Lake and connected waters.
Final results weren’t available Friday afternoon when this story went to press.
“This is really cool, and since I’m in a tournament, I have to go,” Brosdahl, 46, said, looking back at the cattails that clearly outlined what once was the edge of the road. “I crossed the road and went to a space in the cattails barely big enough for my boat to go through.”
Now it was time to catch some fish.
Just call him ‘Bro’
Known for his red beard and gift for gab, “Bro,” as everyone calls him, is one of the most recognizable anglers in the Midwest fishing industry.
Brosdahl grew up in Brooklyn Center, Minn., where he caught the fishing bug at an early age. In high school, he and a buddy on weekends would steer the car north, pick a lake on the map, and see what they could catch.
It hasn’t always been easy, Brosdahl says, but he managed to turn that passion into a career. These days, Brosdahl and his wife, Heather, live in tiny Max, Minn., in northern Itasca County, where he operates Bro’s Guide Service and travels the northern U.S. throughout the winter giving seminars promoting products on behalf of several fishing manufacturers.
Brosdahl also fishes the occasional tournament, and that’s what brought him to Devils Lake last week. Tournaments, he says, are “like a vacation with a little bit of stress,” an opportunity to “get off the cow path” and venture away from the northern Minnesota lakes he fishes as a guide.
Even better when the destination offers the kind of fishing for which Devils Lake is known.
“I’d never fish these lakes” if it wasn’t for tournaments, Brosdahl said. “It’s a way to schedule myself to fish lakes I’d love to fish. A lot of the places I’ve done tournaments I really like.
“I’m excited to see what makes this lake tick.” Read on….