Walleye Season About To Close On Several Lakes; Deadline To Remove Unoccupied Ice Structures Approaching
Walleye Season About To Close On Several Lakes; Deadline To Remove Unoccupied Ice Structures Approaching
February 11, 2022Steve Schwaller
(Orleans)– A couple of annual reminders from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources is a sign that spring can’t be too far away. Mike Hawkins, a fisheries biologist with the DNR, reminds anglers that Walleye season will be closing next week on Big Spirit Lake, East and West Lakes Okoboji…
“The last day to fish walleyes on those lakes, those three lakes, is February 14th and then the season will close until the walleye opener on May 7th.”
Also coming up soon is a deadline to get ice fishing shelters off the lakes…
“So ice fishing doesn’t have to end. In fact if you’re occupying that ice house you can be out on the ice past this deadline but on February 20th all permanent shacks need to be removed from the ice. They can’t be left unoccupied on the ice like they are right now. So by February 20th those need to be removed unless they’re occupied.”
Hawkins adds it’s a good idea not to wait until the last minute to get those structures moved off…
“Once things start to melt and start to get a little bit soft out there it gets very difficult to get those off and like you said they can get refrozen into the ice and then become really difficult to get off, so. We have the ability to extend the deadline and folks ask us to do that when we have these winter periods and cold periods that are extending through February, but really the extension would only be used if we had a situation where people needed more time to get that ice shack off because conditions were deteriorating.”
Hawkins says in the event a shelter falls through the ice, the owner is responsible for retrieving it.
