By Ekaterina Raikhovski
Editor’s note: This story is via a partnership with Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
Christian Poupart grew up in Contrecoeur, Quebec, a small city where “there’s more people on the ice during the winter than in the village.”
But even people like Poupart, who’s been ice fishing his whole life, can make mistakes. “One day, I decided not to put on my ice cleats, and I slipped and tore my quad, had to get it reattached,” he said, casually recounting an accident the year prior.
Katie Monaceloa, a UVM student, tested the waters at the annual Ice Fishing Festival in Barnard on Jan. 25.
Poupart ran the ice safety station at this year’s Vermont Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Ice Fishing Festival on Silver Lake in Barnard. Officials said the festival welcomed close to 670 attendees and fell on the last Saturday in January — the state’s annual free ice fishing day, which allows anyone, resident or not, to go fishing in Vermont without a license.
The Jan. 25 festival aimed to help people learn the wintertime tradition.
“It can be really hard if you’ve never ice fished to be like, ‘I’m just gonna do it,’ right?” asked Ali Thomas, the department’s outreach director.
“This event is a way to help people with a little bit more background to show them the tools and give them the opportunity to use the tools without having to purchase things and not know what’s going on,” she said.
Department staff were joined by student volunteers from the University of Vermont and members of Let’s Go Fishing, a volunteer network of instructors working with the state who teach youth and adults the basics of fishing.
Volunteers and staff members provided each festival attendee with a “passport” — a green laminated card organizers could hole-punch for each educational station attended. After three hole punches, attendees could borrow a rod to try ice fishing themselves.
Daryll Hooper, a goat dairy farmer from Randolph, and her son Weston Hooper were inspired to come to the festival after hearing about the event on Facebook. While they fish in the summer, Hooper and her son were new to ice fishing and felt intimidated trying it by themselves.
“We don’t have any of the equipment — I just wasn’t familiar,” she said.
Along with getting used to the equipment, beginners face the challenge of ice safety. In 2023, Vermont’s warmest year on record, the Islands Ice Fishing Derby held on Lake Champlain was canceled after three fishermen fell through the ice and died. Last year’s statewide festival moved from Lake Bomoseen in Rutland County to Lake Elmore in Lamoille County due to unsafe conditions. And lakes that freeze well one year are not guaranteed to freeze the same the next year — or even the next month.
“We absolutely have seen some changes in recent years that it’s just a little less reliable in certain areas of the state,” said Thomas, the outreach director. “If you for years and years have always gone to this one area because it locks up, it doesn’t mean it won’t but don’t just assume.”
And if you’re unsure? “Call your local warden,” volunteer Paul Noel of Irasburg said. After making almost a two-hour drive to get to Silver Lake, Noel showed up ready to teach beginners, excited to see those who have never ice-fished before come out and enjoy the sport.
Saturday in Barnard reached a high of 26 degrees Fahrenheit, but underneath five layers of clothes, Noel was unbothered. “There’s no such thing as bad weather,” he said, “only bad clothing.”
