Vermont offers great ice fishing opportunities. Ver­mont Fish & Wildlife suggests checking ice condi­tions carefully before venturing out. Wear a PFD, bring hand spikes, and carry a cell phone. (Provided) Vermont offers great ice fishing on lakes throughout the state when ice conditions are safe. Vermont Fish and Wildlife recommends at least six inches of solid ice for safe ice fishing.

Vermont’s premier fishing destination, Lake Champlain, offers many ice fishing opportuni­ties. According to F&W, ice anglers can find qual­ity fishing for many species on this 120-mile long lake, including landlocked salmon, lake trout, northern pike, yellow perch, white perch, wall­eye, crappie, and smelt.

“Lake Champlain attracts twice as much fish­ing activity during the winter as during the sum­mer, particularly in the northern third of the lake,” said State Fisheries Biologist Brian Chip­man. “The plentiful yellow perch is the mainstay of the winter fishery, but many ice anglers also find good fishing for other species.”

Traditional northern pike hotspots include Lake Champlain’s Kelley Bay, Missisquoi Bay, Dillenbeck Bay, Carry Bay, Keeler Bay, St. Al­bans Bay, the shallow flats south of the Sandbar Causeway between Milton and South Hero, and the area south of the Champlain Bridge from Ad­Ice to Benson.

Later, as more ice forms, landlocked salmon and smelt can be caught in the Inland Sea north of the Sandbar Causeway. There is no closed sea­son for trout and salmon on Lake Champlain.

If cold weather provides good ice on the deep- water areas of the lake, lake trout will be found off the west shore of Grand Isle and in Outer Mal­lets Bay, Shelburne Bay, Converse Bay, and But­ton Bay south to the Champlain Bridge.

Smelt can be caught in several of these areas, as well as at other sites between Thompson’s Point and Button Bay. While walleyes can show up anywhere in Lake Champlain, the most con­sistent winter action can be found in the south­ern end of the lake off Benson and Orwell, as well as the northern end in Swanton and Alburg.

Yellow perch and other panfish are being caught at sheltered Lake Champlain bays and shallows as well as on some other Vermont wa­ters.

Vermont’s ice fishing season for trout, salmon and bass runs January 21-March 15 on 40 large Vermont lakes. For a list of those lakes, go to page 55 of the 2012 Vermont Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Trapping, available where licenses are sold and at vtfishandwildlife.com. The site also has a list of Vermont-approved bait dealers.