Calendar
| Nov-April | Office is closed, leave a message at 970-881-2175 and we'll return your call within a week |
Headlines
- The ice on Ramona is safe for ice fishing beginning January 17, Apache remains closed
- You can buy ice fishing passes (by mail) now!
- 2026 dues remain the same as 2025
Ice Fishing status - The ice on Ramona finally refroze to a safe amount so that we're opening it to ice fishing on Saturday, January 17. Apache is closed due to unsafe ice (thin and even open water in places). This is the second season in a row where we can initially open only one lake to ice fishing. We'll of course announce when/if Apache is safe for ice fishing. Please monitor this page for further updates, and adhere to any closure signs posted at the lakes.
Ice Fishing - ice fishing is open only when we have safe ice, by which 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 by nearby traffic. See CPW's web page for
further ice fishing safety tips and ice fishing techniques.
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 ran a small head to Hiawatha well into October. While this didn't have a big impact with the lake level, it did help us reduce the usual rate of evaporation. In October we put water in Letitia, Snake and Ramona from Hiawatha in preparation for winter. In spite of the early challenges running water in May, we had a good year managing lake levels. Looking ahead, we'll need some serious winter weather, both snow (to build our snowpack) and ice (to reduce winter evaporation that occurs with open water).
2025 Fall Projects - we cleared trees and shrubs off the Letitia dam and willows off the Hiawatha dam. We cleaned the toe drains below the four dams that have these and cleaned the sediment trap above the Snake ditch. We buttoned up our upper pipeline for winter (cleaning the sediment traps and closing the headgate). We cleaned the diversion structure on the Elkhorn - it's amazing how much ash sediment from the Cameron Peak fire is still coming down the creek.
Boat Cleanup - We removed 7 boats from the lakes at the end of this fall's fishing season. Only two of the boats were 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. We can't emphasize enough how keeping boats properly stickered is key to successfully storing your boat at our boating lakes.