Calendar
| 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 when safe ice permits, see update below |
Headlines
- The ice is still unsafe as of early January, but you can buy passes (by mail) now!
- 2026 dues remain the same as 2025
Ice Fishing status - the winds during the first half of December have opened the ice on both Ramona and Apache, creating an unsafe ice situation. The subsequent warm weather of later December has prevented the lakes from re-freezing. We're keeping ice fishing closed until we get some prolonged cold weather to (re)freeze the lakes. Like last year, we may have a safe ice situation where Apache is OK a couple weeks ahead of Ramona. Please monitor this page for further updates, and adhere to any closure signs posted at the lakes.
Fishing Wrap-up - we had a great finish to our fishing season. For more information about 2025 through August, read this report. In addition to our normal fall stocking, we were able to procure several loads of trophy sized fish and put these in all but Erie (due to concerns about winter water levels), Nokomis (because it's at capacity), and Shagwa (because we're keeping this exclusively a Donaldson Trout lake). This fall's great weather enabled many to enjoy fishing through October.
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.