Family ice fishing in Muonio: which trip takes your children
Illustration photo: gear pulled across a frozen lake, not in Muonio.
The short answer
With a child of four or five, ask the Muonio resort for its outing, where children ride out in a sledge, or drive to Ylläs for the campfire trip sold for all ages. Avoid the Levi soup trip with anyone under six. If you fish on your own with the children, the fee is never needed for them: the national fishing fee applies only from eighteen, and a single rod on a lake needs none at all.
With children, choose the trip by the youngest one coming. Around Muonio the limits run from all ages to six.
The Muonio outing: from four, in a sledge
The resort’s outing takes children from four, and nobody walks out: a snowmobile pulls the party to the fishing spot in a sledge.1 The heated-tent company states no age, so ask it directly.
The trips 46 minutes away
In Ylläs the campfire trip is sold for all ages,2 and the walk onto Lake Ylläsjärvi takes children from one. The Levi trip with salmon soup in a heated shelter does not take children under six.
Fishing on your own
The fishing fee in this area is due only from the age of eighteen to sixty-nine,3 so children never need it, and a single rod through lake ice needs no fee at any age.4 The river is different; see ice fishing in Muonio. Family trips in Levi are on family ice fishing in Levi.
Tours you can book
Ice fishing on foot on Lake Ylläsjärvi
Run by Northwind Lapland
From €73per person
Length1.5 h
Book now on GetYourGuide(opens in a new tab)Ice fishing by a campfire, reached by a short drive
Run by Lapland Safaris
From €74per person
Length2.5 h
See it on the operator’s site(opens in a new tab)
Questions people ask
Is ice fishing included in the resort's family package?
No. The winter family package lists its guided programme and names three optional extras, a northern lights workshop, a kota dinner and the sauna world, and ice fishing is not among them. A family on that package who wants to fish should ask the resort which weekday its ice-fishing outing runs and whether it can be added.
What should the children wear on the ice?
Guests on a resort package are lent a winter overall, boots with woollen socks, a balaclava and gloves, and asked to bring thermal underwear and a warm middle layer. The Ylläs trips lend a thermal outfit or winter clothing. The heated-tent company rents thermal clothing, but its pages give no children's sizes, so ask before you rely on it for a small child.
How long will a small child have to sit still?
The Muonio resort's outing takes about three hours door to door, and the heated tent three to four. The shortest trip within reach is the walk onto Lake Ylläsjärvi at an hour and a half. For a first try with a young child, the short trip or the tent, where there is a stove to warm up by, are the gentler choices.