Finally, Trout Season Opens

By Gary Moore

We open water trout anglers get real antsy by the end of March, often casting on the lawn and dreaming of opening day.  This year that occurs on Saturday, April 13.  Like so many others I will be plying the waters of local streams hoping to entice a trout to hit.

As I write this mid February, there is no way to know what opening day will bring.  Often the water is high and cold and the fish lethargic.  Fishing slowly and deep often works best.

Small ponds and many lakes are still ice covered but often there is a little open water at inlets and outlets that can produce some action.

While we are out pursuing trout, especially along streams, is a good time to scout for turkeys and to look for antler sheds.

     “I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing.”

                            Izaak Walton

                            1593-1683

Spring Turkey Hunting

Youth and Novice spring turkey hunting weekend is April 27 and 28 this year, and the regular spring turkey season is May 1-31.  Why not help pass on our hunting traditions by introducing a youth or older novice hunter to hunt safely and enjoyably.

Landowner permission is required to hunt on private land during youth and novice turkey hunting weekend.  To participate, a youth must be age 15 or under and must have completed a hunter education course and possess a hunting license, a turkey hunting license and a free youth turkey hunting tag.  Novice hunters have purchased their first hunting license in the past 12 months and are over 16.  

Both youth and novice hunters must be accompanied by an unarmed adult over 18 who holds a valid Vermont hunting license and who must have direct control and supervision over the hunter.

Large turkey flocks can be seen all over the state so I predict we will have a good spring season.

Spring Snow Goose Season

Vermont’s spring snow goose hunt opened March 11 and continues through April 26.

 Since 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has annually issued a “Conservation Order” to allow the reduction of the population of migrating greater and lesser snow geese as well as Ross’ geese.  The numbers of these geese have grown so high that they are destroying habitat for themselves and other species.

 During spring migration, snow geese typically move through the Champlain Valley in late March and early April.  They usually pass through Vermont quickly in route to their spring staging areas along the St. Lawrence River Valley.  They remain there for about a month before moving on to their nesting areas in the Eastern Canadian Arctic.

The breeding population of greater snow geese has grown so large, an estimated one million birds in the Atlantic Flyway, it has resulted in damage to agricultural crops and marsh vegetation in staging and wintering areas from Quebec to North Carolina.  

 The Vermont 2024 Spring Snow Goose Conservation Order will occur statewide.  The daily bag limit is 15 snow geese, and there is no possession limit. 

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