Night fishing

[Switzersland]

is night ice fishing allowed in Colorado state parks, or do you have to get your gear of the ice after sundown??

[_colorado]

Depends.  I haven't been to all of the state parks but you can fish at night at 11 Mile.  Spinney closes every night a half hour after sunset (or something close to that) but you can't ice fish it anyway.  Now that you mention it, I can't think of another state park that I've ice fished besides the Mile.   I'll be interested to see what others say.

[fire-n-ice]

I thought you couldn't fish ice after dark anywhere in colorado. Now i'm curious.

[coboy]

I've ice fished Eleven Mile after dark with no success and I know you can fish it after dark on open water only from the shore after dark. Doesn't make a lot of sense.I used to fish for catfish and
crappies at night at Pueblo Res. The regs. are a bit vague.I would call the DOW for a specific body of water you want to fish to verify if you can or not.

[_colorado]

Let me state up front that I've never caught anything after dark in Colorado (Wisconsin was another story...)

You definitely can fish 11 Mile 24/7 for all four seasons.

http://wildlife.state.co.us/NR/rdonlyres/279EA0CB-C63F-4B49-8150-8B1DD38FB390/0/Ch01.pdf

And from the same document:

101 - SEASON DATES AND HOURS
A. Except as otherwise provided in these regulations, all waters of the state shall be open to fishing using all manners of take day and night, year around.

[Switzersland]

Thanks for the Feedback, Hooah!

[par845]

I'm planning an overnight ice fishing adventure at the Mile this season.  No restrictions at 11 Mile on overnight fishing.  You just can't put up a shelter and abandon it.   If you leave the ice you have to take down your shelter.  We've never over nighted on the ice but we'd like to give it a shot and see if we can land a few Pike.  Won't be doing this until the ice is nice and thick but it might be fun to get a bunch of guys together for an overnight get together.

[_colorado]

I saw a couple of guys coming off the ice before sunup about two years ago.  They night fished for pike off the rock formation directly across from Witchers boat ramp, maybe 1 o'clock-ish as far as position goes.  I've been out by those rocks many times and it's very deep, 20/30+ feet, right near the rocks.  Maybe they set up a little further in the mouth of the cove, at the edge of the dropoff, which would make sense.  Dang 11 Mile at night!  The boys have crept up to my tonsils just thinking about it.  You have to be one seriously hardcore hardwater dude par845!

[iceseaker1]

i ice fished 11 mile about 3 years ago at night it was extremely cold about 15 below but worth it about 9:00 to 11:00 i was using glow sticks under the ice and jigging very slow with salmon eggs off the bottom the depth was 25 feet. i was set up off the walk in campsite to the east of Larry's bait shop. i stayed warm thanks to my heater and then a ripin fire after i decided to get some sleep woke up the next morning and hit it hard before light and did good about 45 min before to about 1 hour after light then dead. so back to the fire i went.

[slimer]

You can drive and even put up a permanent ice shelter on Twin.  Not sure about the timeframe that it can be up though, but I know "permanent" means that you can leave your shelter there for awhile.

[fireaxe]

Its been quite a while ago but some posted that they had left a shack up and came back the next day to find all thier stuff gone, the door was torn off.

[_colorado]

I'm gearing up to give night fishing another shot soon.  I usually don't sleep well before ice fishing anyway - dreaming about the great day ahead - so I may as well get out of bed when I wake up (usually around 2AM) and head out for a couple hours of pre-dawn action.  I'm going over to Sportsmens Warehouse now to buy a big waterproof, floating flashlight, preferably LED, so that I can shine it in the water as an attractant.  We'll see what happens - I'll let you all know.

[_colorado]

Tried a little night fishing this weekend, about an hour before dawn.  Marked two fish, had a nibble.  I suspended a small LED flashlight in a hole and it gave enough light that I could see my jig.  I was in 10 FOW.  The hole with the flashlight filled up with those mini-shrimp type bugs.  Not sure what they are but they came in for the light.

I'm going to keep trying.

[fireaxe]

those were probably scuds, what the antero fish get so big on. After startin to attract those I would fish there quite a while be like ringin a dinner bell.

[_colorado]

Fireaxe,

Naah, they weren't scuds.  They were something tiny, maybe 1 mm long, if that. 

But you bring up a good point: if the light doesn't bring in the fish, maybe it will attract the fish food so that the fish will arrive with first light.

[_colorado]

Fireaxe,

I couldn't sleep alst night so I thought about your scud comment.  Are you saying they might be baby scuds?  If so, I think you may be right.  I never thought much about the life cycle of a scud but those little 1 mm guys may have been a baby scud hatch -

I don't know anything about scud/shrimp life cycle but it seems possible to me - they sure swim like they are of the shrimp family.

Thanks for making me think.