Fishing Has No Boundaries returns to Bemidji after storm hiatus
Fishing Has No Boundaries brought anglers with disabilities back to Lake Bemidji after last year’s storm shut the outing down.
Fishing Has No Boundaries brought anglers with disabilities back to the Lake Bemidji waterfront on Saturday, ending a two-year hiatus that followed last year’s storm cancellation. The Paul Bunyan Chapter’s 32nd annual Bemidji outing was staged near the Paul Bunyan and Babe statues and the Bemidji Chamber of Commerce building, restoring a day of fishing and connection that many participants had lost.
The Bemidji event, first held in 1991, is part of a larger mission from Fishing Has No Boundaries to provide recreational fishing opportunities for anglers with disabilities regardless of age, race, gender or disability. For people who normally cannot fish, the outing offers a rare chance to get onto Lake Bemidji and take part in a local tradition that has become woven into the city’s summer calendar.
That access mattered more after the June 2025 storm that forced the cancellation. Gov. Tim Walz declared a peacetime emergency in Beltrami County after severe weather caused widespread damage and long-term power outages, and state and local officials described the recovery as a long one. Weather reports said the Bemidji area was hit by hurricane-force winds and a microburst with gusts estimated up to 120 miles per hour, damage that made the return of this year’s event feel like more than a simple rescheduling.
By Saturday, the focus was back on the people the event is built to serve. Hugs, fist bumps and fishing stories filled the waterfront as participants cast lines from Lake Bemidji, a small but meaningful restoration for families living with disabilities in Bemidji and across Beltrami County. The outing gave local volunteers and organizers a chance to reopen a door that the storm had shut, and to put disabled anglers back on the water where the chapter has been bringing them since 1991.
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