2024 Fishing Licenses are Available Online | | |
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Fishing Fuels Conservation!
100% of your investment funds fish and fishing
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Latest Updates from the Fisheries Division
To advance the conservation, enhancement, restoration, use, and appreciation of Connecticut’s fish, fisheries and fish habitats.
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The CT Fisheries Division has partnered with FishBrain, the world's largest fishing APP to provide CT's fishing regulations right to your smart device. These regulations are available in the FREE version of the APP. As with any APP if you would like to have access to premium features there is a subscription fee. | |
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2024 Freshwater Fishing Regulations | |
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The 2024 Freshwater Fishing Regulations are now available online. Download your version here in English or Spanish.
There are no regulation changes for freshwater fishing from 2023 to 2024.
However, starting this year the Freshwater and Saltwater Regulations will no longer be combined in one booklet. Marine regulations are set through a process involving many stakeholders and are not usually completed until late February. As many of you are hitting the inland waters well before March, the Fisheries Division has opted to split the two and publish the inland regulations at the start of the calendar year. Hard copies will be distributed to many town clerks and bait and tackle shops early in 2024.
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Ice fishing is a great way to spend quality time outdoors during winter. Fish with CARE offers ice fishing classes and fishing events each winter (fishing trips dependent on safe ice). So let's hope for a cold winter! | |
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Learn to Ice Fish with CARE by attending one of our virtual, ZOOM ice fishing classes.
We cover all the basics of this fun, social wintertime sport, including: safety on the ice, how to dress for the cold, where to go, ice fishing equipment, baits, techniques, tactics, and what fish are most commonly caught through the ice in CT.
January 9, 2024 (Tuesday)
February 13, 2024 (Tuesday)
Sign up HERE. ZOOM classes are 6:30pm-7:30pm.
Then come ice fishing with us at the 18th Annual No Child Left Inside® Winter Festival at Burr Pond State Park, Torrington, where we will provide loaner equipment, bait, and instruction (subject to safe ice conditions). The festival is 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3 with a rain date of February 4. The event is free and no registration is required.
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CARE to Teach Fishing? We do!
We Need You!
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The Fisheries Division – Connecticut Aquatic Resources Education Program (CARE) is seeking volunteers to join our team of certified Fishing Coaches! FISH with CARE program hosts classes and events all over the state where we teach basic fishing skills to adults, families, and youth. FISH with CARE coaches work with Fisheries staff to educate and engage the public in the outdoors through the sport of fishing. If you are interested in sharing your love and knowledge of fishing while creating the next generation of environmental stewards, consider joining our Fishing Coach team! Our next certification training will be offered in spring of 2024, information to get involved can be found HERE!
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Would you like to see your catch highlighted in upcoming issues of CT Fishin' Tips? If so, please email your photo to mike.beauchene@ct.gov | |
If you have classes, events, or meetings you would like us to share as a "Fishing Buddy" please email information to mike.beauchene@ct.gov. | |
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Classes offered through the Northwestern CT Chapter of Trout Unlimited:
Beginner Fly Tying Class: Starts on January 20th, 1pm-3:00pm and ends in April. This will be taught in a heated building owned by Northwestern Connecticut Sportsman's Association, on their property in Colebrook.
Fly Fishing Class: NWCTU has been teaching Fly Fishing for several years. Our course is affordable, requires no special skills, and is held on weekday evenings over the course of six weeks. Classes are held near Peoples State Forest, in Barkhamsted, CT on the Farmington River, where we can show students examples of good and bad fishing conditions.
| Farmington Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited's Annual Angling Gear Tag Sale: Its time to announce the return of our Annual Tag Sale! Come to the Farmington Senior/Community Center on Saturday, January 9. Doors will open at 9am sharp. No early entrants this year! Entrance is a mere $2 for adults with those 16 and under free. There will be vendors galore selling all kinds of fishing and outdoor stuff and at great prices, too. You never know what you really need until you see it! | |
Fishing Challenge - For YOUth | |
The Youth Fishing Passport Fishing Challenge is a year long fishing scavenger hunt. To have your catch count, simply snap a photo of your fish (from our scorecard) and use our online submission form. The top four anglers (who catch the most different types on our list) receive a prize pack full of fishing swag.
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CT's FREE Youth Fishing Passport is your child's ticket to all of the amazing outdoor discoveries fishing has to offer. Fishing involves knowing about habitat, environmental quality, food webs, life history of species, and so much more. You can get a Youth Fishing Passport, for those 15 or younger, using our online licensing system. Register your child as a new user. If you have questions please contact us.
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How to get the Youth Fishing Passport | |
This Month's Mystery Fish | |
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Last month's mystery fish was a Bluntnose Minnow (Pimephales notatus). The bluntnose minnow is widespread in the United States and southern Canada from the Mississippi east to the Appalachians. They occur only in the western side of Connecticut in the Housatonic drainage, where they are uncommon to common in abundance. Their range appears to be expanding.
These minnows seem to prefer small streams with rocky or gravelly bottoms, but can be found almost anywhere, including lakes and ponds. Can be caught with a small-mesh dip net or seine. Easy to keep in home aquariums, but are relatively fragile. The snout shape in bluntnose minnows varies with age and sex.
It is unclear exactly when or how bluntnose minnows arrived in Connecticut. However, they probably moved down from the upper Housatonic drainage in Massachusetts, where they were found as early as 1979, probably the result of angler bait bucket releases.
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How to get your License Online | |
Fishin Tips 2023 and 2024 | |
Información disponible en español
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The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer that is committed to complying with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you are seeking a communication aid or service, have limited proficiency in English, wish to file an ADA or Title VI discrimination complaint, or require some other accommodation, including equipment to facilitate virtual participation, please contact the DEEP Office of Diversity and Equity at 860-418-5910 or by email at deep.accommodations@ct.gov. Any person needing an accommodation for hearing impairment may call the State of Connecticut relay number - 711. In order to facilitate efforts to provide an accommodation, please request all accommodations as soon as possible following notice of any agency hearing, meeting, program or event.
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This program receives Federal financial assistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, sex, or disability.
If you believe that you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility, or if you need more information, please write to:
Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights
U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20240
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