(Spirit Lake)—The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is reminding fishermen of some important deadlines. DNR Conservation Officer Jeff Morrison says one of those actually arrived yesterday (Thurs.). He says that’s when the Walleye season officially closed…(click here for comment.) “So after the 14th you can’t actively fish for walleyes. And any walleye that’s caught incidental to fishing, because it’s obvious while you’re out there fishing perch you might pick up a walleye or two, they have to go immediately back into the water.”
Morrison says another deadline pertains to the removal of ice shacks from lakes…(click here for comment.) “February 20th is the normal deadline to have all ice shacks off the ice that are unattended. And you can use any type of ice shack, whether it be a permanent shack, one that you pull behind your truck, or one of the portables, any time you’re out there as long as you’re in attendance of it. But after the 20th you can’t leave the shack on the ice unattended. So if you’ve got one out there usually they’re permanent shacks that are left out there overnight or unattended. If you’ve got one out there it needs to be off the ice by February 21st and off all state property so you can’t leave them sit at the boat ramps or the shoreline, so it needs to be basically taken home with you or pulled up on the shoreline if you’ve got a neighbor or something that will still let you pull your shack up above the ordinary high water mark, that’s fine, but it has to be on private property.”
Morrison says it would be a good idea for those with ice shacks on the lake to be close attention to the weather forecast as the removal deadline approaches…(click here for comment.) “A lot of times what will end up happening we’ll have a big warm up right before the deadline and then it gets cold again, they get froze down, very difficult to get them off. So if you watch the forecast and if we’ve got something like that coming in right around the 20th you might want to pull them off a little bit earlier.”
And when it comes to ice conditions, Morrison says there are numerous seams and ridges to be on the lookout for. He says the worst ice ridges are in the vicinity of Marble Beach on Big Spirit Lake.
