The state Fish & Wildlife Department on Saturday plans to open Vermont’s frozen lakes and ponds to ice fishing for all.
Anglers without a fishing license will be able to fish at any legal fishing locations on Saturday, and the state plans to host a festival at Silver Lake State Park in Barnard from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event is scheduled to feature information on how to ice fish, provide supplies for new anglers and include a fish fry of fresh catches.
“There is a big hurdle to ice fishing. A lot of people want to participate but don’t know how to get started,” said Corey Hart, the education specialist for the state Fish & Wildlife Department, who runs the event.
This winter’s long stretches of sustained cold have been particularly beneficial to ice formation across the state, according to Matthew Clay, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Burlington office. With long periods of sub-freezing temperatures, ice forms a clear, translucent layer above the lake, which is much safer to fish on than the cloudy and opaque ice that forms in freeze-thaw cycles.
Satellite images of Lake Champlain have depicted a significantly larger area of ice coverage this year, compared with satellite images from late January 2024, Clay said. Similarly, the weather service conducts frequent river ice surveys across the state, which are reporting higher levels of river ice than in 2024.
“This is pretty traditional North Country winter here,” he said, noting that even if this year feels much colder than recent years, January temperatures have only dipped slightly below historic averages.
Even as climate change drives global average temperatures up, it does not mean that winters will necessarily always be warmer, Clay said.
“Climate change means we will be getting more extreme weather patterns, like extreme cold patterns,” he said.
Vermont’s anglers do not appear to be taking the long freeze for granted. “These colder temps are a welcome sight,” Hart said. “We are really fortunate to have this stretch of cold, but it doesn’t stray from the big climate picture.”
Last year, people had fewer opportunities to get on the ice and traveled farther north or to smaller bodies of water to access safe, fishable ice, Hart said. This year there is no such problem.
However, just because there is more and thicker ice than in recent years doesn’t mean safety is any less of a concern. Nearly half of the cold water immersion events in Vermont since 1990 came from ice fishing accidents, according to National Weather Service data. That’s more than accidents from driving, riding or walking on ice combined.
“Be careful. Have a plan. Have a buddy,” Clay said. “Use all the precautions you should since it can be a lot more dangerous than you think.”
While the Barnard festival plans to include safety stations among the day’s events, the department directs anglers going out on their own to online resources on ice fishing safety.
With such good conditions this year, Hart expects good turnout for Saturday’s event, noting that around 500 people have already registered, though people can also do so at the event.
Even if people don’t pick up a rod or an auger this weekend, Hart said he hopes that the event will offer Vermonters a chance to walk on a lake and see the state’s landscape from a different perspective.
“Ice fishing is the highlight of the event, surely, but for a lot of folks, just getting out on the ice is a really big deal,” he said. “The importance of getting out there is a really big part of it.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Cold temperatures persist in Vermont ahead of Free Ice Fishing Day on Saturday.