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Nov-April Office is closed, leave a message at 970-881-2175 and we'll return your call within a week
Winter Ice fishing is open on Ramona and Apache from Dec until March, safe ice permitting

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Ice Fishing on Ramona Ice Fishing - is open on Ramona and Apache from early-December to mid-March, safe ice permitting. By safe ice we mean, greater than 4 inches thick. As always, we strongly encourage our fishermen to be careful, especially around the edges of the lakes, where the ice can be much thinner. We strongly encourage you to wear cleats, especially on glaze ice. Finally, it is always good to fish with a buddy or around others, especially on Apache because the ice is not visible from nearby traffic. Further ice fishing safety tips.

Ice fishing is open to fishing members who either buy an individual ice fishing season pass for $90 or a single day ice fishing pass for $25. Members can host guests with our usual daily escorted adult or child guest pass. We do not permit unescorted guests on the lakes during ice fishing. Since the office is closed during the winter, you must contact us more than a week in advance to purchase passes. Please leave a message with the office at 970-881-2175 or send your request by mail to PO Box 527. As for rules, the summer rules all apply, including possession limits (3 fish per lake for adults) and not keeping walleye at Apache under 17". If you are catching perch, keep as many as you like, but please do not return the perch to the lake. Finally, please wear your ice fishing badge or daily pass and member badge in a way that is visible to the patrolmen and other members. Also, place your name and mobile phone number on the dashboard of your car so that when the patrolmen check, they know who you are. Have fun this winter!

We're surveying the ice fishing members this winter to better understand lake preference, fish (including type) caught, and whether anyone is catching perch. Of course, we've left room for general inputs too. By the end of the season, please fill this ice fishing survey out and return it to the office.

Water Status - We topped off the lower lakes this fall and all the lakes are in good shape for the winter.

Fishing Wrap-up - This fall we stocked Letitia, Snake, Ramona, and Apache; and added trophies to Hiawatha and Erie. Last April and June we stocked all the lakes with at least 10% of each load being trophy sized. We added a few more Donaldson's to Shagwa and stocked some very expensive brown trout in Erie, Apache, and Nokomis in May. As for dealing with the explosion of perch at Nokomis, we're attacking them with a similar approach that we used at Apache about 12 years ago. One, it's open season on perch, if you catch any - keep or throw them away, do not return perch to the lake. Second, stocking additional large predatory trout. To that end, we stocked 250 pounds of expensive trophy sized browns, brooks, rainbows, and tiger trout in Nokomis in early May. Overall, many anglers commented on how good fishing was this year!

Fall Projects - We completed a number of small maintenance projects this fall - work at the upper Mitchell headgate and Elkhorn headgate, cleaned out the toe drains at all the lakes, cleaned out the culvert east of Apache, and removed willows off the Hiawatha dam.

Boat Cleanup - We removed 4 boats from the lakes at the end of last fall's fishing season. Only one of the boats was properly stickered. If you forgot to remove your boat, you can arrange with the office for a time to come to our boat yard and identify it and bail it out for $200 + $5 boat registration. We want to thank everyone who removed their boats last year, this was the fewest boats we've ever had to deal with at the end of the year.