Ice fishing in Posio: what it takes to go
Illustration photo: ice fishing from a tent on a frozen lake.
The short answer
Go on your own, or drive an hour for a guide. The fisheries authority's own table puts ice fishing with one rod in the no-charge row for anglers of every age, so nobody in the party has to buy a licence to drop a line through the ice on a Posio lake. What a booking buys instead is the auger, the local knowledge of where the ice is safe and a hut to warm up in, and the nearest of those is a two-hour trip from Kemijärvi at 79 euros a head, about an hour and a half away.
Nobody sells a morning on the ice in Posio. That sounds like a gap, and in most of Lapland it would be one, but ice fishing is the one winter activity in Finland that does not need anybody’s permission.
What the rule says
The fisheries authority sets out which method needs which permit, by age. The row that covers ice fishing, alongside a simple herring rig and a hook and line with one rod, says no charge, and it says it for anglers between 18 and 69 as well as for everyone under 18 and over 70. The fisheries management fee that most visitors have read about is for lures, traps and crayfish, not for a rod through a hole in the ice.1
The exceptions are printed under the table, and they matter: the free right does not cover rapids and currents in waters with migratory fish stocks, areas where fishing is prohibited, or destinations that require a permit of their own. Posio’s lakes are not on that list as far as we could establish, but the list is the thing to check for the particular water you are standing on.
What a guide is actually for
If the licence is free, the thing you are buying when you book is everything else: the auger, the rods, a sled to carry them, somewhere warm to sit, and a guide who knows which bay has a current under it. In Posio you cannot buy that at all; in Kemijärvi you can, at 79 euros a head for two hours, and in Salla at 141 euros a head for three to four hours, where a snowmobile takes you out to a wilderness pond and lunch is cooked over a fire. Kemijärvi is about an hour and a half from Posio by road, and Salla about the same.
Where you would go on your own
Riisitunturi rises above Lake Kitkajärvi, and the park page notes that the views from the fell run out over it.2 That lake, and the smaller waters between the village and the park, are what a local would point you at. Take the safety question seriously: ask in the village before you walk out, follow tracks that are already there, and be most careful at the two ends of the season, when what was true last week is not true today.
The rest of what Posio has, and what the day trips sold under its name really are, is on the Posio destination page. The guided trip nearest to you is described in ice fishing in Kemijärvi.
Questions people ask
Do we need a fishing licence to ice fish in Posio?
Not for one rod. The fisheries authority publishes a table of methods against ages, and the row for a simple herring rig, ice fishing and hook and line fishing with one rod says no charge for anglers aged 18 to 69 and for everyone under 18 or over 70 alike. The footnote to that row is the part to read: it does not apply in rapids and currents of migratory fish waters, in areas where fishing is prohibited, or at destinations that need a permit of their own.
What would a guided trip cost, and where is the nearest one?
The nearest we have priced is a two-hour outing on a lake near Kemijärvi at 79 euros a head, about an hour and a half from Posio by road. Salla sells a longer version at 141 euros a head, three to four hours, where a snowmobile takes you to a wilderness pond and lunch is cooked on the spot; that drive is roughly an hour and a half as well. Both are guided, both include the gear, and both are an outing rather than an afternoon.
Is the ice safe to walk on?
That is the question a guide is worth paying for, and no page can answer it for a particular day. Ice thickness varies between lakes, and it varies on one lake between a sheltered bay and a place where a current runs under it. If you are going alone, ask locally before you walk out, keep to tracks other people have already made, and treat the first and the last weeks of the ice season as the times when the answer changes fastest.