Northeast Outdoor Newsletter: January 2023

I guess I don’t have a lot to say right now. The only thoughts coming into my head at the moment are memories of the exact opposite scenario I found myself in 2015. This is the coldest winter I can remember experiencing as an adult. I was a junior in college at UVM at the time, and perhaps why I remember it so well is because I had to walk to class from my apartment near downtown Burlington uphill to campus daily. It began in December of 2014 and carried into January of the new year. For three weeks in the waning days of ‘14, the temperature did not get above zero degrees Fahrenheit, with the wind blowing in your face no matter which direction you were walking. Finals week at the conclusion of the semester ended around December 18th or so, and just a few days later we were ice fishing Keeler Bay in South Hero, Vermont, on 22 inches of ice. I tell you what, that day on the ice made an impact on me, where I learned the value of a power auger and a shanty. Pushing a hand-cranking auger through nearly two feet of ice upwards of 40 times is sheer insanity. I don’t care how good your physique is.

2023 begins as a polar opposite (but not polar like the north pole unfortunately) to that season all those years ago. I have never witnessed the start of an ice fishing season quite like this one. In all of Vermont right now there may be five or six ponds that are safe to fish as of January 7th. There are many places I enjoy fishing early in the year but overlook as we move into February that don’t have a shred of ice right now. It’s depressing. Makes me wonder if some of my favorite spots will freeze at all this winter.

With that being said, I have been out twice so far this season, once just before the New Year, and again the day after New Years Day. Both trips were productive. Our first time out netted us a mixed bag of small northern pike, yellow perch and sunfish. The most recent adventure produced 10 walleye with several more being lost at the hole. As I am writing this, both ponds have become unfishable.

That’s really all I got. There’s no snow which makes rabbit hunting nearly impossible, but it also means the preachy ski folks are down in the dumps too, and that maniacally brings a small amount of joy to my sadistic heart. I have hope. I think the cold weather is still coming sooner or later, and if I’m wrong, I’ll continue to burn gas and drive hours to remote corners of the state to find some hardwater. My next trip is to the northeast kingdom in Vermont to a pond that I’ve never fished before, 0.9 miles from the Canadian border. A five and a half hour round trip all together. Stay tuned.