The spike in ice fishing activity at Fish Lake and the Columbia Basin was short-lived. The severely cold weather was followed closely by warm weather and thinned the ice to the point where it just isn’t safe. I am getting reports that the same is true at the lakes that are at lower elevations in Okanogan County. I visited Fish Lake on January 20th, and there was enough safe ice to provide good fishing for over sixty people that I saw there at that time. However, on the following Monday I talked to someone that had actually fallen through the ice on Fish Lake. The ice is shrinking back from the shore and there is slush and water on the surface of most of the lakes now. Both Curlew Lake and Bonaparte Lake in the northern part of the state had very thick layers of ice on them and it would take a lot of warm weather to thin the ice to unsafe conditions, and I will be monitoring these as best I can. There is an ice fishing Derby planned at Bonaparte Lake on Saturday, January 27th. The ice was 12 to 14 inches thick on the 15th of January.