Ice Fishing in Vermont

Ice Fishing? Are you crazy? Maybe not! Read all about this age-old winter sport from a Vermonter's point of view. Matthew Dickerson has kindly given us permission to reprint his article. 

If it seems that every other week is the start of some hunting or fishing season, it is. This month it's ice-fishing. For those who have never ice-fished, think of it as a chance to stand (or sit) outside on a block of ice in freezing temperatures, with cold wind howling down your back, and your feet in slush. And every now and then you have to stick your bare hands down into the water through a hole in the ice.

That was my impression of ice-fishing until about six years ago when I had my first opportunity to try it myself. While visiting my parents on a lake in Maine, a neighbor made me an offer I couldn't refuse. On the first of the year (the start of ice-fishing season in Maine) he drilled five holes in the ice sixty feet from the house. Then he gave me a basket with five tip-ups (the basic equipment for most ice-fishing) and a bucket of live shiners for bait, and told me what to do. By lunch-time, I had a nice catch of big fresh trout simmering in my pan. To use a bad metaphor, I was hooked.

It takes very little to get started ice-fishing. No rod or reel is needed. The basic piece of equipment is called a "tip-up". It's just a spool of fishing line that is suspended in the water with a little trip mechanism so that when a fish takes the bait a red flag goes up signaling the fishermen. They can be purchased for a little over $10 each, and one typically fishes with two to ten of them. The simplest ones often work as well as the expensive models, but I would recommend the use of braided line and not monofilament. Not only is it easier to hold when playing a fish, but it doesn't have the same tendency to snarl up in a pile when you are pulling one in. Live bait runs from $3 to $5 a dozen. Other approaches to ice-fishing include jigging and bait fishing with a hand line.

Vermont has several lakes open to ice-fishing. On Champlain, ice-fishing is allowed for several species including trout, salmon, pike, walleyes, and perch. For a moderate fee, you can rent a fishing shanty for the day. You get driven by truck out onto the ice, dropped off at a shack in the middle of a shanty-town, and supplied with all the bait and equipment you need. Though fishing is never guaranteed, in general you can expect to be successful. You may legally keep up to seventy-five yellow perch in a day. A few years ago a man was caught with a huge ice-chest in which he had illegally caught over eighty lake trout. (The daily limit is three). Other local lakes open to ice-fishing beginning the third Saturday in January include Bomoseen, Lake Dunmore, and the Chittenden Reservoir.

As it turned out, my early impression of ice-fishing had been completely accurate. That first day out was icy cold, wet, more than a little uncomfortable, and nothing at all like the angling I was used to. But it was a lot of fun anyway. There is a certain connection in pulling in a big fish by hand without the aid of rod or reel. Over the past five years I've watched ice-fishermen take the largest pickerel and cusk I'd ever seen, and I personally caught through the ice the largest landlocked salmon I'd ever caught. Without question part of the enjoyment of the sport is catching the fish. Part of the attraction of ice-fishing also has to do with fresh trout in the pan in the middle of winter. As for the rest of what makes it enjoyable, like other types of fishing it's just something intangible.

Source: Compass Points, Matthew Dickerson, Addison Independent, January 7, 1999 (reprinted with permission)