One of the most popular ice fishing lakes in the region is Bonaparte Lake, which is northeast of the town of Tonasket. People brave the cold of winter to fish through the ice for a variety of species. The lake has a good population of brook trout, kokanee, rainbow trout, lake trout and tiger trout. It is also one of the lakes that has thick enough ice to support anglers early in the winter. This year, by mid-December there was 18 inches of snow on the lake and five to six inches of ice. When I visited the lake a couple of years ago catching a bunch of small rainbow was easy. There were a couple of other anglers on the lake while was there and they were getting tiger trout that were 15 to 16 inches. Getting tiger trout was no surprise, where they were fishing was. They were drilling their holes in only five or six feet of water. I tried for kokanee by jigging a Kokabow blade with a Swedish Pimple below it without success. The resort has been conducting an ice fishing derby and I will let you know if it’s happening again this year.