Utah Ice Fishing Rules and Shelter Deadlines
Utah writes its ice rules into the administrative rule itself, which makes them unusually easy to check: a two line default, six lines at four named reservoirs, and a twelve inch hole cap with three named exceptions.
Rule R657-13 contains no shelter provision at all. That is stated here as a fact about the rule that was read, not as a claim that Utah has no shelter rule anywhere.
When a shelter has to be off the ice in Utah
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources publishes this, and the table below shows not only the date but how the date is set, which matters more than it sounds. A date written into a fisheries order or an administrative rule recurs every year until the rule changes. A date the agency publishes each season moves, so last winter’s date is not this winter’s. A rule stated instead of a date has to be worked out every winter, and where that is the case the table says so.
No dated shelter removal deadline was found for Utah on the sources read for this build. That is recorded as not found rather than as no rule: an absent rule and an unreachable rule look identical from here.
Source: Utah Administrative Rule R657-13, taking fish and crayfish, read September 4, 2026, parsed from the raw page for this build.
Is there an ice fishing season in Utah?
Fishing is generally year round. The binding document is Utah Administrative Rule R657-13, which is published as readable text rather than locked in a brochure, and which carries the ice specific rules below.
Source: Utah Administrative Rule R657-13, taking fish and crayfish, read September 4, 2026, parsed from the raw page for this build.
What Utah lets you set, and how wide you may cut
Both of these change at state lines, and both are looser through the ice than in open water in most of the country, which is why carrying a habit across a border is the commonest way an otherwise careful angler ends up in the wrong.
Lines and devices
Two lines as a statewide default, open water and ice alike. Up to six lines through the ice at Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Pelican Lake, Causey Reservoir and Porcupine Reservoir, and when using more than two there the angler’s name must be attached to each line, pole or tip up and the angler may check only their own. An angler must stay within sight of their equipment and no more than 100 feet from it.
Hole size
A hole may not exceed twelve inches across at its widest point, except at Bear Lake and Fish Lake where specific limitations apply and at Flaming Gorge Reservoir where no limitation applies.
Source: Utah Administrative Rule R657-13, taking fish and crayfish, read September 4, 2026, parsed from the raw page for this build.
What a Utah fishing licence costs
A fishing licence is what governs fishing through the ice in every state on this site; almost none of them sell a separate ice licence. A resident 65 or over pays 31 dollars. Short term licences are 19 dollars for a resident three day and 44 for a non-resident three day. Youth aged 12 to 13 pay 5 dollars and 14 to 17 pay 16. A person under 12 may fish without a licence.
Resident
40 dollars annual for an adult 18 to 64
Non-resident
120 dollars annual for an adult 18 or over
Source: Utah Division of Wildlife Resources fees, read September 4, 2026.
Where the rest of the Utah rules live
Every ice fishing page on this site publishes what it read from a source, names the source, and says what it could not reach. It never fills a gap with a plausible number. On this subject the wrong date is not a disappointment, it is a fine, and a research pass on this batch caught search summaries fabricating year by year date tables that did not exist in the underlying agency pages at all.
Where the rest of the Utah rules live
- Any shelter rule. Rule R657-13 was read in full and contains no shelter, shanty or ice house provision. Utah’s marquee ice waters are state parks, whose own rules were not read for this build, so this is not found rather than proven absent.
Each of those is published by the agency, and the link above goes straight to it. A date in the wrong place is how somebody gets fined, so the agency’s own document is the one to act on.
Ice fishing rules in other states
The badge beside each state is a coverage grade for this site rather than a judgement about the state: it says how much of that state’s rule set could be read from a raw agency source.
Upper Midwest
Northern Plains
- North Dakota Deadline and season sourced
- South Dakota Some rules sourced
- Nebraska Some rules sourced
Mountain West
Northeast
- New York Deadline and season sourced
- New Hampshire Deadline and season sourced
- Vermont Deadline and season sourced
- Connecticut Some rules sourced
- Maine Some rules sourced
- Massachusetts Nothing verifiable yet
- Rhode Island Nothing verifiable yet
- Pennsylvania Nothing verifiable yet
Alaska
- Alaska Nothing verifiable yet
This state’s grade: Some rules sourced
Utah ice fishing questions
This page covers the 2026-27 season year with data as of September 4, 2026. Every rule was restated in our own words from Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, with the agency named and its page linked beside the rule; state agency text is not in the public domain and none of it is copied here. Where a date belongs to a season the agency has already published, the season is shown next to the date, and no date is carried forward into a season the agency has not published. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is the final word on the day you go. See also the national ice fishing guide.