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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 will open on Ramona and Apache from mid-Dec until March, safe ice permitting

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Ice Fishing at Apache Ice Fishing - is open on Apache but not on Ramona due to unsafe ice. We expect Ramona to open before Christmas. As we always say - safe ice permitting. By safe ice we mean, greater than 4 inches thick and uniformly frozen across the lake (no large areas of open water). As always, we strongly encourage our fishermen to be careful, especially around the edges of the lakes, where the ice can be much thinner. Also, 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. See CPW's web page for further ice fishing safety tips and ice fishing techniques and information.

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!

Water Status - We've done our usual winter preparation this fall by drawing down Hiawatha to fill Letitia, Snake, and Ramona. There's a small amount of water still coming in that we're running into Shagwa until things freeze up.

Fishing Wrap-up - we had a great finish to our fishing season. For more information about 2024, read this report. We stocked fish in Letitia, Snake, Ramona, and Apache in later Sept. And this fall's great weather enabled fishing through October. Many commented on how nice the fishing was this fall!

Pelican Pelicans - as many have observed we've been getting more pelicans on the lakes who indiscriminately eat (gulp down) some very expensive fish. We've asked the Federal Migratory Bird office what we can do about this, and they said as long as they're not actively breeding / raising young, we can chase them away. By that they mean, harass but not harm. We're looking into ways we might to that next year with minimum impact to our anglers.

2024 Fall Projects - our main project this fall has been refurbishing the dam at Shagwa. This involved building a clay mix cut-off wall on the down-slope side of the dam. We also moving the outlet to the NE corner. Together these will help reduce seep that naturally occurs through the dam and better direct it downstream. We also completed several small maintenance projects this fall - work at the upper Mitchell headgate and Elkhorn headgate, cleaning out the toe drains at all the lakes, and doing some access improvements at Erie.

Boat Cleanup - We removed 7 boats from the lakes at the end of this fall's fishing season. Only two 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 at the end of the season.