Vermont's Free Ice Fishing Festival Garners Excitement on Lake Elmore
- I
- Feb 9
- 6 min read
ELMORE - People gathered on the frozen surface of Lake Elmore on January 31st to participate in Vermont’s annual Free Ice Fishing Day. This event allows anyone in Vermont to fish without a license, with a gathering intended to make the sport more accessible and safe.
“Some friends told me about this ice fishing event for free and you didn't need a license,” said Mac Freeman, first-time ice fisher from California, “and I was like, say less.”
Freeman founded a committee of outdoorsman in his UVM fraternity, and this event sparked discussion between himself and fellow member, Daniel Platteborse, about buying gear for future ice fishing expeditions.
“This is a debut, I guess,” said Freeman in regards to their committee, “and no one showed up. It’s just us today.” Platteborse added, “this is a great time, hopefully we can continue doing it in the future.”
The event is organized by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (VFWD) and ran by an assortment of their staff and volunteers from the UVM Wildlife Society or instructors from the Let’s Go Fishing program. This year, there were a total of 763 attendees.
“The goal of the event is just to get excited,” said Corey Hart, event organizer with VFWD. “Have people come out, spend a little time fishing, and learn a little bit about being out there on the ice.”
Each attendee received a ‘passport’ that received hole punches after attending each educational station. The basics of ice fishing were divided into six, knot tying & bait craft, fish identification & regulation, setting a tip-up, ice safety, hole-drilling, and jigging. To borrow a rod for this event, participants needed to at least attend three stations, but ice safety was described to be the most important.
“You don’t want to assume anything,” said Ali Thomas while standing behind the ice safety table, “people will fall though places they’ve been going for 40 years because they didn’t test it.”
Thomas said VFWD will not know if the ice is safe in a particular lake, suggesting to ask locally.
“The best place to get local tips for a body of water, maybe the best spots to fish, but where to avoid if there are any safety issues, would be a local bait shop,” said Thomas. “They’re gonna know if there are weak spots, inlets, outlets, springs, beaver lodges; anything that could compromise the depth of the ice they will know about and will share.”
Local insight can help with general tips for a water body. But when out on the ice, it is important to continually test the ice with a heavy metal item like a spud bar.
“As for ice depth, not all ice is created equal,” continued Thomas. “So black is the ice that forms when it’s hard and fast. You want at least four inches of black ice that formed really quickly,” to sustain one person’s weight.
If the ice is lighter with a lot of air bubbles, it is best to double the recommended ice-depth.
“One of the first things you’re going to drill is your hole,” Levi Brown while behind the setting a tip-up station. “You’re going to want to see how deep the water is. Most fish are going to be near or towards the bottom of the water.”
A depth finding sounder is a weight Brown used at the end of the line to find the floor of Lake Elmore.
As it struck, “boop, it’s got the bottom,” said Brown. Brown recommended attaching a visual indicator, like a button, to the line so, “I know that I’m at or near the bottom. Or usually two feet off the bottom-ish.”
“When you’re out fishing, there’s sort of two methods,” began Brown.
Brown described active fishing with a rod and a reel, patiently waiting for a bite beneath the ice. Alternatively there is the passive technique of a tip-up, a device that suspends bait below the ice and signals the line is pulled by raising a small flag.
The flag could indicate a bite on the line, but Brown said, “there’s nothing more disappointing in ice fishing than if the wind continues to trip your flags and there’s nothing on your hook.”
To prevent this, Brown stressed considering the winds direction as you set up. The tension on the flag can also make the flag an eye hazard, so wearing eye protection might save your vision.
Tip-ups are useful because, “In Vermont, you can fish with eight lines through the water,” said Brown, which would be difficult to manage, “unless you’re an octopus.”
Equipment can affect performance in cold temperatures.
Leading the knot tying & bait craft station was Shawn Nailor, with expressed differences between nylon and fluorocarbon lines.
“One of the things that you struggle with in really cold weather is the line will stay coiled. It’ll mimic the coils on the rail that it’s on,” said Nailor. “Fluorocarbon seems to do a little better for not coiling, but it’s more expensive.”
With his fluorocarbon line through the ice, Richard Giard, master instructor with Let’s Go Fishing, sat with a sonar device to measure water depth and visualize fish beneath him. Sonar fish finders can be helpful, but are not necessary for the sport. Giard, however, did recommend a shelter.
“A lot of people can’t choose when they’re going to go,” said Giard, “they gotta go on the weekends. If they got a shelter, it doesn’t matter what the weather is. It doesn’t have to have a heater, but it gets you out of the wind.”
Giard’s task was to teach anglers how to use the fishing rod, a technique know as jigging.
“Bring the line down to the bottom, then I’ll pause and allow the fish to come and find your bait,” Giard said. “The fish will pick at it at first and do a downward pull on your jig line.”
While speaking with a father-son duo, Aaron Lee and first grader Fletcher Lee, Fletcher’s favorite learned experience was the tip-ups. It is important for anglers to be within distance to tend their lines, as to not have a fish stuck for an uncomfortable amount of time.
The two had been on the ice for a few hours, with no catches and a lot of play.
“Speaking of nibbles, that was definitely a nibble. Let’s see if our bait’s left,” said Aaron.
He pulled the line up, “Oh! There we go,” Aaron said as he grabbed the fish with his glove, “you can add that to your story.”
After showing the yellow-fin perch to Fletcher, Aaron said, “I think this one is a little too small to keep, but that’s pretty rad,” as he dropped the fish into the hole.
“If you’re practicing catch and release while ice fishing, the best practice is to keep it in the water as much as possible,” said Lee Simard, biologist with VFWD. “If you need to take it out of the water, do it very quickly to get the hook out and put it right back in. Otherwise, the gills and the eyes and things can start to freeze.”
Simard was leading the fish identification & regulation table, gesturing with a frozen perch caught the day before.
“People say that fish taste better when ice fishing, and some of that is peoples’ preference, but there are certainly some species that do,” said Simard. “Rainbow smelt have certain compounds that help them tolerate cold water better, that actually make them taste sweeter.”
Organizers of Vermont’s Free Ice Fishing Day lower the barriers to outdoor recreation by providing instruction, equipment, and direct access to experienced anglers.
Hart invited people to “get out here and you learn a little bit about ice fishing and a Vermont tradition.”
In June, VFWD hosts their only other free fishing day of the year, the Family Fishing Festival, at the Ed Weed Fish Culture Station in Grand Isle, VT. These opportunities are designed to encourage first-time anglers to find that fishing is not just about the catch, but the community and experience that comes with it.
“I think people get intimidated, like you have to know a lot or do a lot in order to be able to start ice fishing or fly fishing,” said Nailor. “And that’s not the case. Just get out there to try the experience and find somebody that’s doing it. Most of the people on the ice are super friendly. Even if you just walk out and see if you can get somebody to talk you through it. Lots of people I know will do it… Come join us.”
Great article and photos! Love how you brought this to life…reading your article was both fun and educational. Glad to know about the bubbles in the ice and be reminded about ice depth. Really cool VT has this day to bring community together and teach a life long skill. Super work Bryce!