Where's the Ice? Lake Champlain's Warm Winter Hijacks Annual Fishing Events

By Gabriella Marchesani, Science Communications Intern
February 08, 2024

According to the National Weather Service’s data collected from the Burlington Area, 2023 was Vermont’s warmest year on record and we are on track to having our hottest average annual temperature in at least 127 years. Climate change is warming the Northeast rapidly, declining lake ice in Lake Champlain and other inland lakes on which our environment and economy depend.

Warm winter days have persisted through February 2024, rising to the 40s and 50s for several days. In response, the Lake Champlain Pond Hockey Classic on Mallett's Bay was canceled due to poor ice conditions. The previous weekend, the New England Pond Hockey Classic on Lake Winnipesaukee had to be moved to a smaller lake due to poor ice conditions. The Derby Ice Fishing committee also had to cancel the 2024 Islands Ice Fishing Derby stating, “the number one priority is the safety of all anglers, and mother nature is just not cooperating.”

Vermont’s annual ice fishing festival went on, facing warm 33-degree weather on Saturday, January 27. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department changed the original location of the event, Lake Bomoseen in Rutland County, to a smaller lake further up north, Lake Elmore, to ensure the ice would be thick enough. For a January in Vermont, it was strange to have an ice fishing event where people had their jackets unzipped. While the ice was frozen 12 inches deep, melted snow and puddles of ice water formed across the lake.

The festival had a large turnout with around 700 participants of all ages and fishing experience. Participants had the opportunity to learn about ice fishing from a series of stations run by Vermont Fish and Wildlife staff, including information on ice safety, fish identification, fishing techniques, and knot tying. Once folks needed a break from fishing, they could head to the popular hot cocoa and fish fry station to enjoy a warm beverage and fresh fried fish.

The fish species found in Lake Elmore include the yellow perch, northern pike, largemouth and smallmouth bass, bullhead, and panfish. Participants were successful in catching a variety of fish species and sizes. The festival creates a free opportunity for the public to go fishing without having a fishing license. This allowed people to learn about fishing regulations and go ice fishing.

The main struggle people dealt with was standing in melted snow puddles and dealing with their cold wet shoes. One participant wrote to the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife to say, “This was a really fun day, I did not expect to learn as much as I did; I feel totally comfortable going out on the ice and have no doubt that I will be able to fish there; I should have worn water-proof boots.”

Luckily, Lake Elmore was frozen enough for ice fishing, which is not the case for other bodies of water that have historically been frozen this time of year. Due to warmer temperatures, open water fishing season has extended. According to the Lake Champlain Basin Program, Lake Champlain used to freeze over nearly every year in the 1900s, while now it occurs on average once every four years.

Mark Mitchell, a limnologist with Lake Champlain Sea Grant and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, has been collecting information on the spring water quality of lakes larger than 10 acres in size and says, “over those 45 years, we have seen trends of earlier lake ice-out dates across Vermont and New England, which can be a sign of climate change.”

A 2020 Lake Champlain Sea Grant study led by Mark Malchoff associated the alarming absence of ice cover on the main lake with Vermont’s days below freezing period, which has declined by nearly three weeks since 1960. The decreasing amount of ice cover heavily impacts ice fishing, an important part of Vermont’s winter tourism with expenditures averaging $147 million per year (Vermont Climate Assessment, 2021). This includes bait and tackle purchases and food and beverage sales—important economic contributions to small towns along the lakeshore (Malchoff report, unpublished). The survey concluded that climatic factors including declines in ice cover impact anglers’ ice fishing trips and choice of fishing area, predicting changes in tourism destinations.

With global temperatures on the rise, future locations of fishing and pond hockey tournaments may become increasingly uncertain and variable from year to year.

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Gabriella Marchesani is a senior at the University of Vermont studying Environmental Studies. This semester she is working with Lake Champlain Sea Grant to connect current happenings to the ongoing work of Lake Champlain Sea Grant to develop and share science-based knowledge to benefit the environment and economies of the Lake Champlain basin.