Calendar
| May 24 | Guest fishing begins (Saturday of Memorial Day weekend) |
| July 3-5 | Ramona is closed for the Kids Fishing Contest |
Headlines
- Fishing season is open, all lakes have been stocked
- There is no change to dues in 2025
Fishing - fishing opened May 10th with beautiful weather. There were many anglers out on the lakes, many of whom reported excellent fishing. We again are stocking fish (12-15" rainbows, >3 lb. trophies, and palominos) from Crystal Springs Trout Farm. These were placed in all the lakes except Shagwa. The ratios stocked are 65% rainbows, 25% trophies, and 10% palominos. We also stocked some more Donaldson trout at Shagwa. As always, we tune the number of fish stocked at the lakes based on overall mortality rates - fish kept, predation, etc. This is why it's so important to help our patrol staff know how many fish you're catching and keeping. We stocked a double load at Letitia and one and half loads at Apache. Similarly, we stocked only a half load at Nokomis as that fishery is reaching its optimum capacity. We post a stocking report in the office window so please check there for the latest stocking information. We expect to stock Browns and Tiger trout when they become available in a couple of months. We continue stocking Nokomis with aggressive trout as a way to manage the perch. It'll take a few years to bring the perch under control, but just like Apache, we know this approach works. You can help us by removing any perch you catch (they do not count towards your possession limit).
Water Status - The spring runoff has been slow to start this year and unfortunately, we remain called out, preventing us from storing much water. Despite the rain/snow the first week of May, we didn't get much local runoff, as the very parched soils absorbed most of it. We're running our Elkhorn exchange water right in order to fill some during peak runoff. This photo shows how much water is running in the North Lone Pine at our headgate as of May 11th. Several "old timers" have said this is the lowest runoff they've seen in decades. We need some early and lengthy monsoon rains!
2024 Fall Projects - our main project this fall was refurbishing the dam at Shagwa. This involved building a clay mix cut-off wall on the down-slope side of the dam. We also moved the outlet to the NE corner. Together these will help reduce seep that naturally occurs through the dam and better direct it downstream. We completed the Bellaire inlet ditch pipeline in cooperation with CPW. 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.
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've purchased a remote controlled "pelicanator" and plan to use it to harrass the pelicans when they arrive after their mating season on the plains. Keep your eye out for it!
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. We can't emphasize enough how keeping boats properly stickered is key to successfully storing your boat at our boating lakes.